A possible explanation is the lawyers share the same office as the graphics designers or cartographers (if you can call them that) who make the maps.
I could see (and have seen) some people’s response to identical works, especially one produced by the public that could even be better, as negative. Put simply, they want to maintain control over what they see as “theirs”. This happens internally in companies all the time. I’m sure it was just a matter of this designer CC’ing legal when they came across it. They probably made some bullshit case about maintaining control, liability, prior art, etc.
When I was at LinkedIn, it was common for 3rd party designers to redesign the UI of the site and post on their blog. This made a lot of designers who actually worked there angry. I noticed the better the design, the more upset they got. They largely ignored the ones that weren’t that good. They would push to have legal step in and thankfully we had management who could see reason and reel in cry-baby designers.
Anyway, this may not be what actually happened but I think it’s a high possibility. People are incredibly petty.
I could see (and have seen) some people’s response to identical works, especially one produced by the public that could even be better, as negative. Put simply, they want to maintain control over what they see as “theirs”. This happens internally in companies all the time. I’m sure it was just a matter of this designer CC’ing legal when they came across it. They probably made some bullshit case about maintaining control, liability, prior art, etc.
When I was at LinkedIn, it was common for 3rd party designers to redesign the UI of the site and post on their blog. This made a lot of designers who actually worked there angry. I noticed the better the design, the more upset they got. They largely ignored the ones that weren’t that good. They would push to have legal step in and thankfully we had management who could see reason and reel in cry-baby designers.
Anyway, this may not be what actually happened but I think it’s a high possibility. People are incredibly petty.