To the person advising Muse to seek legal action against SOE. I am sure Muse is aware of his legal rights in respect to copy rights on his maps. He has NO legal rights. His maps are a "derived" work, meaning they are based on another existing copy written work (ie Everquest). Therefore if SOE was feeling particularly nasty they could, legally, publish his map and not acknowledge his work at all. This would not be nice but the law is not known for being nice.
That said I agree SOE is being fairly stupid in using the EQ atlas name. I also have no intention of buying their book and (now that I am back playing EQ) am considering getting a premium subscription.
I just wish people would stop telling people to run to lawyers without having some knowledge of the topic.
Don't confuse the new Atlas Book with EQ Atlas
Just copying over what I posted on the update page so you can comment:
Muse sent me this note to post for you: "SOE recently began promoting their new book, the Everquest Atlas, and some of you have expressed to me some confusion regarding this. Despite the similarity between the name of this product and their use of "EQ Atlas" to advertise it on the Everquest Live site, the product is not related in any way to my site, EQ Atlas (www.eqatlas.com). While we both offer maps and descriptions, the specific content is quite different. I hope that this announcement will clear up any confusion."
I'll go a bit further.
/rant on. It seems pretty rotten of them to be using the good will he built up over the past three years to sell their book in a way that would clearly confuse players into thinking Muse is involved with it. Muse is a friend, so I may be prejudiced on this one, and yeah it is Sony's game, but I can easily think of a dozen names they could have picked that would have been just as good and wouldn't have suggested a connection with his site. The only logical conclusion to draw is that they are hoping people will go "Cool. EQ Atlas has a book" and buy it based upon that. Shameful, really. Moreover, having looked at the example pdf file SOE lists and compared it to the information on Muse's site, I'm not sure why anyone would buy that book when EQ Atlas offers far superior maps and information for free, and has been serving the community for years. Yeah they're pretty, but who wants a map without locs and camp information? /rant off.