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)."

Comments

Right Idea, Wrong Argument

[Anonymous Coward]

As much as I think the idea of copyrighting post codes is stupid, surely the source of the data doesn't matter. That is like taking a picture, looking at each pixel, manually selecting a similar color pixel and creating a new image, then claiming that you own copyright on this new image. Postcodes should be as uncopyrightable as information about the boundary between counties.

Some conflicts with this story

[dmomo]

My first reaction was: It's a Dangerous path, once "facts" can become copyrighted. Then I (gasp) RTFA.

There are two claims made by the article:

1) Canada Post argues that it is the exclusive copyright holder of all Canadian postal codes
If the issue is #1, then this is truly asinine, in my opinion. I am no scholar of copyright law, especially how it is applied in Canada. This claim may or may not be true. However, I could find no evidence the the Canada Post made such a claim. I may not have searched through the links provided with enough thoroughness. But, could it be that the author of the article either assumed it, or simply made it up? Does anyone have support for this claim, which to me seems absurd?

2) Canada Post says GeoCoder appropriated the database and made unauthorized reproductions.
If the issue is #2 They claim that there were "unauthorized reproductions" of their database made. This could be a legitimate copyright infringement. Again. I see no evidence that Canada Post makes this claim either.

In fact, I see no mention of "copyright" other than in the article. There is just this post:
http://geocoder.ca/?sued=1 ... which states that Canada Post is suing for lost revenue.

Now, these claims may in fact be true, and I don't necessarily doubt them. I would however like to see solid links to sources, for instance the text of the lawsuit. It's difficult to figure out what is fact and what is speculation.

Re:2 days later

[Barbara, not Barbie]

If it was only 2 days later, it sure as h*** didn't go via Canada Post.

It's not like anyone uses them all that much any more. The month-long postal strike last summer (and the subsequent month to clear out the backlog) was the final straw for a lot of people.