selling custom maps of marathon course

[rockharrier]

What is the name of your state?What is the name of your state? Utah

I am a professional cartographer and an avid runner, and am wanting to start a side business selling custom-made marathon course maps on Ebay. The maps are 100% my own creation, which I assemble using computer software I've purchased along with freely available cartographic data and my own mapping skills.

My question is if there's any chance I could get in trouble for selling unofficial custom maps of established race courses, for example, the Chicago Marathon or the Boston Marathon? In other words, can a race course (essentially a marked route along a road) be intellectual property, copyrighted, "owned", etc.?

Thanks in advance for any feedback!

--Paul

 

[divgradcurl]

What is the name of your state?What is the name of your state? Utah

I am a professional cartographer and an avid runner, and am wanting to start a side business selling custom-made marathon course maps on Ebay. The maps are 100% my own creation, which I assemble using computer software I've purchased along with freely available cartographic data and my own mapping skills.

My question is if there's any chance I could get in trouble for selling unofficial custom maps of established race courses, for example, the Chicago Marathon or the Boston Marathon? In other words, can a race course (essentially a marked route along a road) be intellectual property, copyrighted, "owned", etc.?

Thanks in advance for any feedback!

--Paul

Interesting question. I'm not aware of any cases that have discussed anything like this -- doesn't mean there aren't any, but I've never heard of one. However, that said, I would find it highly unlikely that anyone could claim intellectual property rights to a course (or set of directions), especially on a public street -- this seems analagous to a recipe, or how-to guide. A map, which just shows a route to get around an area or whatever, would seem to be closely related to a recipe, which just shows you how to put together ingredients to come up with a particular result. Since recipes are not copyrightable, I would guess that by extension, it would be unlikely that a race course on public streets would be copyrightable.

However, that doesn't mean you can sell maps of the Boston Marathon -- just because the route itself may be something you can freely copy, it is almost certain that the organizers or sponsors of the marathon claim some trademark rights to the name "Boston Marathon."

You could probably sell maps of "marathon courses in Boston" or "marathon courses in Chicago," but you would probably be asking for trouble if you sold a "map of the route of the Boston Marathon."

As always, before getting to deep into this or spending a lot of money, it might be worthwhile to discuss your plans with a local attorney, preferably one with some experience in intellectual property, who can review all of the facts of your situation and advise you accordingly.

 

[rockharrier]

Thanks for the reply. I was pretty sure that using the actual name of the race would be problematic, especially since most marathons have sponsors in their names (i.e. The LaSalle Bank Chicago Marathon, The Nordic Track Top of Utah Marathon, etc.). But at least I have hope that selling unofficial "generic" marathon route maps may be feasible. I shall look into that avenue more.

--Paul