Canada Post Files Copyright Lawsuit Over Crowd-sourced Postal Code Database

An anonymous reader writes "Canada Post has filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Geolytica, which operates GeoCoder.ca, a website that provides several geocoding services including free access to a crowd-sourced, compiled database of Canadian postal codes. Canada Post argues that it is the exclusive copyright holder of all Canadian postal codes and claims that GeoCoder appropriated the database and made unauthorized reproductions. GeoCoder compiled the postal code database by using crowdsourcing techniques, without any reliance on Canada Post's database, and argues that there can be no copyright on postal codes and thus no infringement (PDF)."

Re:Right Idea, Wrong Argument

[king neckbeard]

Copyright provides for independent authorship, so if the database was truly compiled independently, it wouldn't be copyright infringement, even if Canada idiotically allows postcode databases to be copyrighted.

If I were a lawyer in the U.S...

[American Patent Guy]

I'd say that postal codes aren't "works of authorship" entitled to copyright protection. It looks like the canadian lawyer is making a similar argument from paragraph 23 on.

Oh, wait ... I am a lawyer ...

postal codes should be public domain

[morethanapapercert]

Postal codes were created by Canada Post for its own convenience in sorting and delivering mail. On that level, the data belongs to Canada Post and only they can change it. However; Canada Post is a crown corporation, all the data it generates is done using a mixture of public funds and postage revenues. Just as with scientific research results, I argue that the use of public funds mandates that the resulting data be freely accessible to anyone. Canada Post can not stop anyone from publishing this data, even for profit. I note that in my province, and presumably all the others, there are phone books other than the one published by Bell. These local phone directories include postal codes as part of the address listings as a vale-add to differentiate themselves from the more well known Bell phone directories.

Canada Post hasn't sought to stop these directories from including the postal codes, so I don't believe it should seek to stop an online publication either.

In other respects, Canada Post has shown itself to be a fairly forward thinker for a government operation. To me, the fact that Geolytica has created their website is proof that there is a market opportunity there that Canada Post has overlooked. Canada Post could; and I dare say should, simply out compete Geolytica by creating a more comprehensive and easier to use web page of its own. Canada Post might not be able to compete with the US listings Geolytica also has, but I think there is much room for improvement on the look and feel of the web page itself. (How many run of the mill users even know the difference between HTML, XML and JSON let alone *care*? geocoder.ca uses google maps, but it doesn't look as if they took any design ideas from Google)

Re:Right Idea, Wrong Argument

[digitig]

No.. much more like someone taking the first picture of a building and then claiming all other pictures of the building violate some copyright of the first picture taker.

You mean like this [amateurpho...pher.co.uk]?