[Gdal-dev] MapTech / BSB Legal Issues

[Simon Perkins]

On Wed, 2003-09-10 at 13:04, Frank Warmerdam wrote:
> They seem to be claiming that the BSB file format is copyrighted by them,
> though it wasn't my understanding that a file format could be copyrighted.
> I am not prepared to comply with their request until they can provide some
> sort of supporting information indicating they truely have "ownership" of
> the file format and that it is illegal for applications to support reading
> that file format for the purposes of interoperability.

Good for you! Lawyers are always trying to stretch the scope of laws to
cover things that they were never intended to cover (or things that
weren't even conceived when the laws were written) and it's important to
stand up to them!

I'm not an expert, but my understanding is along the lines you suggest:
a specific program to read a file format can be copyrighted, as can a
document outlining the specification of that format, but the actual
format surely can't be copyrighted.

See, for example this docurment produced by the US copyright office:

http://lcweb.loc.gov/copyright/circs/circ1.html

In the section on "What is Not Protected by Copyright", it says:

"Ideas, procedures, methods, systems, processes, concepts, principles,
discoveries, or devices, as distinguished from a description,
explanation, or illustration."

A format would come under this category I would think.

It might be possible to patent a format and prevent other people using
it, but there's no suggestion that MapTech has done this is there?

Even if they did, I'm not sure they can stop you writing software that
allows a user to read a file that they have obtained legally, no matter
what the DMCA says. There was a recent case (unfortunately I forget the
details) where a US court ruled that it was not illegal to obtain third
party software that allowed people to read proprietary encrypted media
files that they had obtained legally, i.e. if you had obtained the data
legally, you were not obliged to buy a particular manufacturer's
software in order to read it (anyone remember more details?). Of course
it's a big fuzzy area - just ask the deCSS people...

Good luck!

Sy