Yeah, that part makes this whole thing smell really fishy. The researcher claims it was done through reverse engineering which would not be a violation of copyright. They'll have to show that someone had the opportunity to see their code and then copied it. Patents would arguably be an easier defense since you only need to show similarity and independence of invention doesn't matter.
As I understand they designed it to give the same words as what3words does for each location. That's what w3w may consider violation of copyright for data by itself.
A patent breach would be creating alternative implementation with a different dictionary or a different mapping
OTOH, the words aren't artistically chosen. They are chosen by a computer for each number. You can think of the words as numbers in another form.
And interfacing with the same system would require the same words.
I understand the argument that a curated list of words is copyrightable, but in this instance I don't think we're just talking about a list of words. We're talking about an algorithm that turns numbers into certain words.
I could see it going either way, but I'd like to think it would fail to be copyrightable in the court.
Well, IDK it's not like there was an open standard for assigning words to locations, and w3w made an implementation for it. Both the mapping and the software for it was created by w3w and are proprietary to them. Interfacing with it would mean copying entire product verbatim, which I don't think is defendable.
There are publicly available location methods like national addressing systems or coordinates, or one can create one's own and make it public. But honestly, while all my sympathies are with open source movement, and I'm generally critical to copyright, I don't understand why everyone seems to think you can treat things other people created as a commodity and require free access to it.
You wouldn't be copying the product, you'd be reimplementing the product.
Could you imagine if someone couldn't create a second kind of typewriter because it used the same letters?
The words in this case are no more unique than letters of the alphabet.
Look at it this way: If I saw one of these 3 word addresses and needed to know where it was, should it be illegal to do the calculations by hand instead of paying this company to translate it for me?
Assuming "no" to the above, should it be illegal to write my own program to save myself the labor? Should it be illegal to use my program for others? Share the program with others?
At what step does it become wrong to convert information from one form to another?
Likewise, if a system required an address in this format, should it be illegal to do the calculation myself, etc etc?
I think none of that should be illegal.
What is illegal and should be illegal is copying their code directly without an agreement/license. Even taking the list of codes and their translations wholesale (copying them from the code or database) is in the grey area for me. But reverse engineering them should not.
