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Comment by jfrbfbreudh

13 hours ago

> In cartography, a trap street is a fictitious entry in the form of a misrepresented street on a map, often outside the area the map nominally covers, for the purpose of "trapping" plagiarists of the map who, if caught, would be unable to explain the inclusion of the "trap street" on their map as innocent.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trap_street

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jfrbfbreudh

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nonethewiser  13 hours ago

This is fascinating . I wonder what the mechanism was that punished someone who copied the map. Copyright laws? This appears to be an old strategy so im not sure thats the case.

Other than some sort of social punishment I don’t see the cost for the copier. For the original author there is a cost of making your map less accurate on purpose.

  • timClicks  12 hours ago

    They're used by map makers to prevent other map makers from freeriding on the original work. They're less worried about personal copies and much more interested in deterring commercial reuse.

    • nonethewiser  11 hours ago

      That doesn't answer my questions although I now realize I made a bad assumption. This is a modern technique. I misread the bit about Greece on the wikipedia article and somehow got it in my head that it was more ancient.

      So I think to answer my question more directly, yes, it's just copyright laws.

      My point, before understanding that, was that from the map consumer's perspective it doesnt make a difference. And from the original creator's perspective it has a little accuracy cost. So without an additional mechanism I didn't see the disincentive for copiers. So I wondered if it was some ancient form of copyright law or just strong sense of morals or what.

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