IP and subway maps, and the distribution of Options

[*mipadi*]

I ran across this article on MSNBC, and I think it's interesting because it highlights a number of important issues regarding intellectual property. You can read the article at the link above, but the basic run-down of the situation is this: A guy named William Bright downloaded an online version of the maps of the subway system for San Francisco, New York, and several other cities, then chopped them up into images small enough to be easily read on an iPod (with photo capabitilies, of course). He then packaged them and offered the packages as downloads on his website--for free, of course. He made no money from this venture, aside from some small advertisements on his site which generated about $30 a month in revenue.

The popularity of his site spread, and eventually, 50,000 people had downloaded the NYC maps alone. That's when Bright got a cease and desist letter from the Bay Area Rapid Transit District of San Francisco and New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority, ordering him to stop distributing this content because those two groups had exclusive rights to package and distribute the content. The BART spokesman said the issue was not about money; BART just wanted to make sure that customers always had the most up-to-date maps. The MTA, on the other hand, said Bright could continue to distribute their maps--if the paid a $500 licensing fee.

To me, this whole story is ridiculous. Bright was doing a service for BART and MTA by distributing their maps at no cost to them. The maps are free anyway. It seems to me that these transit authorities should take advantage of the fact that someone else is making their content more useful and distributing it without cost to them. (I can understand BART's claims that they want customers to always have updated maps, but why don't they sign an agreement with Bright allowing him to distribute the content as long as it is always up-to-date, or provide a disclaimer that it is not?)

Generally speaking, this case covers a lot of current intellectual property disputes. If a person can take intellectual property and distribute it efficiently, and absorb all the costs incurred himself, then why does a person not have a right to do that? How do you feel? Should this be legal, or should a copyright holder have strict control over their content, even if they also place their content in the public domain and distribute it for free?