StationStops, one of the very, very few Metro-North related blogs that are updated with any sort of regularity, is butting heads big-time with the MTA over some copyright issues.
Far as I can tell, an MTA lawyer contacted StationStops, whose primary revenue source is a $5.99 iPhone app with Metro-North timetables, and said StationStops, run by Chris Schoenfeld, was guilty of copyright infringement. According to SS, the MTA subsequently asked Apple to remove Schoenfeld’s Metro-North app from its iTunes store.
Schoenfeld’s case was on the news a few days ago, as WTNH in New Haven sent a reporter to talk with him. According to the report, Metro-North issued a cease and desist letter to StationStops after Schoenfeld refused to share his app profits with the railroad. The MTA says schedules are its own intellectual property; Schoenfeld says it’s public information.
Readers of StationStops know that Schoenfeld sometimes takes issue with authority, such as the time(s) an MTA staffer has told him not to shoot photos inside Grand Central.
So it’s not a huge surprise that he would run afoul with an authority that actually has Authority in its name.
He writes:
I should not be calling intellectual property lawyers about what is MTA intellectual property and what is not – MTA should observing the corporate responsibility of knowing exactly what their intellectual property consists of and what it does not, and not have its lawyers misrepresenting what it does and does not own in order to dispose of small business.
Hot stuff in the small world of Metro-North blogging, folks.
Today MBTA become the 3rd largest US transit authority to release the same data for free to developers.
http://tinyurl.com/ooxvrp
As a result, Boston passengers are about to be inundated instantly with cool apps, some for free, while we developers in NYC wrestle with MTA.
Its so very very frustrating.
And for the record, I don’t have a problem with authority which is respectful of law – my beef is with MTA when they ‘make up their own’.
We had the same issue recently with an Iphone App called Routsey in San Francisco. Apple disabled it until recently.
The story was Slashdotted today… you can’t buy that kind of traffic!
I’ve got the over/under of the /. effect (a pseudo DDoS effect caused by the massive traffic generated by stories linked on Slashdot) being 6:30PM eastern.
Gotta find a way to get a Trainjotting story on /.