Monday, March 13, 2006

London Underground object to tube map parodies

Geoff Marshall who holds the world record for visiting all 275 London Underground stations in 18 hours, 35 minutes and 43 seconds, has heard from the tube's lawyers and he's not too happy about it.

"Dear Geoff

This firm acts for Transport for London and Transport Trading Limited who are respectively the owner and licensee of the world-famous bar and circle device (“the Roundel”) and the Tube Map.

I would like to talk to you about your website www.geofftech.co.uk. Unfortunately, I was unable to trace a telephone number for you on the site, hence the email.

Please contact me at your earliest convenience (my direct line details are below).

I look forward to hearing from you.

Kind regards,

[name removed]
Solicitor
Commercial Department"

He phoned them and was told if he didn't take down his page with LU map parodies they would arrange for it to be taken down for him. Geoff says:

"Why me? Why now? Geofftech and the tube has been on the internet for five years now, and I’m not alone in using ‘the roundel’ logo and other such tube graphics. I’ve just done a very simple search this morning, and found 43 other sites within half an hour that have also ’stolen’ the graphic. Are they being contacted as well?"

The answer to that one is yes. London Transport lawyers have been contacting a number of site owners about images like those on Geoff Marshall's site.

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