Canada Post, the Crown corporation responsible for carrying the nation’s mail, became the brunt of jokes this week for the copyright
claims it has made--not only on Canada's postal codes, but also the phrases "postal
code" in English and "code postale" in French (Canada’s two official
languages).
In spring 2012,
Canada Post launched a lawsuit against the Internet company Geolytica for
providing a free database of Canadian postal codes on line. Geolytica runs the
geocoding site GeoCoder.ca, which turns street addresses into geographic
co-ordinates so they can be mapped.
Although
postal and zip-code data is available for free to companies in the U.K. and the
U.S.A., Canada Post charges companies
between $5,500 and $50,500 a year for access to its copyrighted postal-code
database. Canada Post’s original
lawsuit against Geolytica is based on the claim that Canada Post loses major
revenue when people distribute its postal-code information for free. Geolytica’s counterclaim is that it
never stole Canada Post's information, but rather since 2004 has been compiling
its own database of postal codes by crowdsourcing the information from on-line
users who provided it voluntarily.
The latest in the
year-old lawsuit is that on March 9 Canada Post filed an updated statement of
claim alleging that Geolytica and other sites owned by Ervin Ruci violate
Canada Post’s trademark on the terms "postal code" and "code
postale."
The Canadian Internet
Policy and Public Interest Clinic is representing Geolytica pro-bono, because for one reason the high cost of
using Canada Post’s data also limits innovation opportunities for developers
who want to incorporate the data into geo-location software products. A court date has not been set yet.
Meanwhile Treasury
Board Secretariat president Tony Clement continues to tout the Canadian federal
government’s “open data initiative,” which aims to make government-controlled
information from hundreds of sources (including safety
recalls, food-inspection reports, business licences, and Statistics Canada
research) accessible to Canadians.
QMI Agency
reports: "’Other than
filling my mailbox with junk mail, misusing the legal system to pursue absurd
claims appears to be the way those overpaid pencil sharpeners see as the way
out of the woods,’" Ruci wrote on his blog, referring to a recent
Conference Board of Canada report predicting Canada Post's annual operating
loss will reach $1 billion by 2020."
The Ottawa Citizen writes: “Ervin Ruci, founder
of Geocoder.ca, said the hassle Canada Post has presented over the collection
and use of postal code data should act as a warning to any business trying to
using government-created data for financial gain. He pointed to several other
businesses, including Canadian Tire and Walmart, that ask for postal code
information in order to present customers with a local store’s sale flyer.”
A Citizen reader comments in a letter to the editor:
“Canada Post has
forgotten that they exist for the benefit of Canadians not for the benefit of
the Canada Post corporation. Their recent desire to keep the words ‘postal
code’ for themselves is ridiculous.
“It is equivalent
to the City of Ottawa saying that street addresses belong to them so that we
would not be able to say ‘24 Sussex Drive’ without permission.
“Instead, we'd
have to say something like ‘the big house on the river where [Canadian Prime
Minister] Stephen Harper lives.’”
http://www.canadaone.com/ezine/briefs.html?StoryID=13Apr24_1
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Canada+Post+claim+ownership+ridiculous/8297590/story.html
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