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A comment on The MTA is going after an Etsy artist over a New York subway map it didn’t make. Parent comment

Re:The MTA is going after an Etsy artist over a New York sub... by JackFr on Thursday January 09, 2020 @12:39PM (#22003435)
Why shouldn't they? For the sake of argument, assume that their claim is valid (and it's not obvious to me it isn't). Why shouldn't a government agency be a responsible steward of all of its assets including its intellectual property?

I hav a LOT of problems with the MTA, but this isn't one of them.

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Re:The MTA is going after an Etsy artist over a New York sub... by romwell on Thursday January 09, 2020 @02:30PM (#22004633)
>Why shouldn't a government agency be a responsible steward of all of its assets including its intellectual property?

I'll bite. Because it clearly does not benefit the taxpayers that fund the agency.

The taxpayers paid the MTA to make a map. Assume someone creates a derivative work that makes more sense (mind you, this is clearly not what happened -- if it is not obvious to you, you have not really read the article).

There is absolutely no benefit to the taxpayers to have the "derivative" map removed. The availability of the "derivative" map does not affect the availability of the official map, which is given away for free (not for profit).

In other words, if I pay you to develop software, and someone else writes a better manual for it, you'd be an idiot to take that down, and I will not be happy.

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Re:The MTA is going after an Etsy artist over a New York sub... by dvtrn on Thursday January 09, 2020 @12:51PM (#22003553)
I'm not sure I understand your statements, at once you've said it's obvious to you their claim isn't valid but then you say this isn't a problem for you?

Merely looking for clarification, does playing Lawyer's advocate really work if you've already acknowledged the claim has no merit?

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Re:The MTA is going after an Etsy artist over a New York sub... by JackFr on Thursday January 09, 2020 @12:55PM (#22003599)
I said it's NOT obvious that it isn't valid.

I'm saying it's reasonable to argue as if the claim were valid to make my other point, that they should be a responsible steward of their IP.

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Re:The MTA is going after an Etsy artist over a New York sub... by dvtrn on Thursday January 09, 2020 @12:56PM (#22003609)
My apologies, I completely misread the comment in parenthesis and did not realize having done so, but glad I sought out the clarification. Thank you.
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