Singapore map copied

It was brought to my attention that malfreemaps had a complete Singapore map just a few days after their website was launched and that the roads and polygons are the same as my map. I only had time to look at their v1.22 on 21 Nov and realised that they had indeed copied from my map as all my "easter eggs" could be found in their map, most were from v3.74 (which was the last version before they split from malsingmaps.com), the rest from v3.61 or earlier.

I had spent the some time looking at both maps to see the extent of their copying and found at least 80% of my work in there, even deliberate routing errors were blindly copied. I pmed antyong about it, which he responded that he would check with dynamix and revert. I gave them one of my easter egg and also shown them examples of how exact their map was to mine as can be seen below. They withdrew their Singapore map in Dec 08 until they finish their "audit", it will be left to been seen if all my easter eggs will still be there when it is released again. They will probably tweak the polylines to try not to make it look similiar, remove offshoot names, etc but there are some easter eggs that they cannot get rid off unless they are very sharp or they totally re-draw the map which I doubt they would.

Residential roads in Serangoon Gardens that were copied from my map:

Serangoon Gardens

my Serangoon Gardens

 

The roads, alleys and HDB POIs that were copied from my map, they just drew in polygons:

Yishun alleys

alleys

 

HDB polygons, POIs and alleys that were copied. The color change cannot disguise the fact that not only are the shape, POIs locations exactly the same. Even error in block names (blocks 115, 116  & 117 should be Jalan Bukit Merah not Kim Tian Road) and the error where the 118a and 118b polygons lies over the alley is exact.

polygons, pois and alleys

 

6 Feb 2009

Someone just informed me that they re-released their Singapore map. I just had a look at their v1.40 and was disappointed to see that they just tweaked the polylines to try to disguise my work as my easter eggs are still there. They removed the roads names of all the offshoot, knowing some my easter eggs are there, but it's difficult to spot and remove the no-so-obvious easter eggs; the non-existent roads/alleys that I have purposely added all over my map. I have also made some roads/alleys are longer than they should be (all these they would definitely noticed if they did track it or drew it themselves). Just check the errors reported in malsingmaps and you will also find the exact error in their map most of the time. It only goes to show that they did not re-draw the map from scratch and are still using my map data. Even the reservoirs and rivers polygons are exactly the same as mine.

 

My "Lornie Vidauct" typo error that is also in their v.140. If only one polylines had that typo error then it could have been a co-incidence but not when the errors are on both Lornie Vidauct polylines. All the other exact errors found in my map and theirs cannot be co-incidences, especially roads that are at the wrong location.

Lornie Viaduct

Lornie Viaduct

There is one glaring easter egg that is proof of their blatant copying, it's a polyline that was incorrectly drawn in v3.74 and was corrected in my subsequent versions but is still in their v.100322 after more than a year.