About a week ago Boing Boing posted on a map of the London Underground where the station names were anagramed.

Then came the sad post that Transport for London censored the map, as it breaches copyright. Instead of the original map the page now reads: “Content removed at the request of Healeys Solicitors acting on behalf of Transport for London and Transport Trading Ltd.”

And then came the solidarity movement…

It started with Robot Johnny who produced an inspired version that remixes the Toronto Transit Commission’s subway map with anagrammed station-names”.

Toronto Transitt Anagram map (PDF Version)
Courtsey of RobotJohnny.com

Update: Since then the TTC cencored this map as well…

Then came remixed versions of the Amsterdam Metro and the Metra Map of Chicago.

The other day Boing Boing added a list of maps from around the world that influenced by the original censored version.

Oslo Anagram Map
Courtsey of The Martin

The Precision Blogger decided to make a really unorthodox version of the Subway map of New York, and maps of Atlanta, Boston, and Oslo.
Then came the anagramed U-Bahn of Vienna, the “DC Metro map anagram mix“, Stockholm, Los-Angeles, Berlin, Copenhagen, and Baltimore.

Then the first and the second booms arrived and the remixes of Calgary, Vancouver, Philadelphia, buffalo, Hong Kong, Seattle, Minneapolis and Detroit, together with Miami, Dublin, Ontario, Dallas, Galsgow, Portland, OR, Ottawa amd Houston appeared online.

Sidney Anagram Map
Courtsey of Leslie Nassar

The never ending story also brought the maps of Montreal, Helsinky, Monterrey and San Diego.
Last, but I’m sure that not for long time, joined the NY/NJ Path and Sidney.

Thus the story ends with 2 outlawed anagrams and over 30 different anagram-maps from different cities of the world. I reckon this is a marvellous demonstration of the power of solidarity on the web. I believe the ideals of copyright should change, especially when they concern art. No money making scheme was in any of these maps and the whole concept is made with humour. I think that the executives of TFL should learn something about humour as well as about creativity.

And now, the first manifestation of the change in the minds of executives. This is what Adam Livingstone, a producer of BBC’s Newsnight wrote yesterday:

First though, an apology. File sharing is not theft. It has never been theft. Anyone who says it is theft is wrong and has unthinkingly absorbed too many Recording Industry Association of America press releases. We know that script line was wrong. It was a mistake. We’re very, very sorry.

If copyright infringement was theft then I’d be in jail every time I accidentally used football pix on Newsnight without putting “Pictures from Sky Sport” in the top left corner of the screen. And I’m not. So it isn’t. So you can stop telling us if you like. We hear you.

Please stop with the ‘cease and desist’ orders and accusations of copyright infringement for they will not stop creativity but will harm the corporations more then they think.
Let us do our art in peace.

Update: The final cities have joined the party: Brisbane, Syracuse and Chicago.

Thank you guys for doing this and thank you BoingBoing for the networked platform to tell the world about it.