I saw this on my breakfast cereal box (in the US) and looked it up. A company called Navilens made this to help visually impaired people with things like street signs, etc... neat!
EDIT TO ADD: Haha, I forgot I am on lemmy so we're discussing the technology and licensing issues, instead of focusing on how this might improve the lives of visually impaired people.
And this is virtually guaranteed to happen before too long, leaving tons of useless technicolor QR codes as monuments to the endeavor.
It seems to me like they do more than just generate QR codes that download a static document. They've built out software that helps the visually impaired navigate pedestrian and transit infrastructure. The software seems pretty complex, beyond what a city would likely have the expertise or budget to build from scratch on its own.