List members may have seen some postings on GIF files that have been doing
the rounds of the lists: it has been suggested that such files may be
banned from the internet and the WWW. I have not bothered to re-post them,
but the following posting is from someone personally known to me who ought
to know the score.
Geoffrey Chew
Royal Holloway College (University of London)
chew@coco.ihi.ku.dk
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Forwarded message
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Date: Sat, 14 Jan 1995 17:47:11 -0800
From: Thomas J. Mathiesen <MATHIESE@IUBVM.UCS.INDIANA.EDU>
Subject: Response to GIF posting
[A] recent posting [on the American Musicological Society's list] on
copyright issues surrounding the GIF format has perhaps needlessly alarmed
lots of users, and it is unfortunate that so much misinformation on this
matter has been forwarded all over the various mailing lists. Let me
attempt to offer a few sentences of clarification.
An article on the matter in the 13 January issue of the _Chronicle of
Higher Education_ (p. A20) quotes Oliver Picher of Unisys (the company
that owns the patent on the LZW compression scheme used in GIFs) as saying
that the company "has no interest in what computer users are doing with
their GIF software. 'We in no way want to discourage end users from making
use of the advantages offered by GIF.'"
A press release of 6 January 1995 from Unisys, distributed on the
CNI-Copyright list states: "We want to reiterate earlier communications
that the issue of patent licenses is not focused on end users of on-line
networks, including the Internet." Furthermore, "Unisys does not require
licensing, or fees to be paid, for non-commercial, non-profit GIF-based
applications, including those for use on the on-line services."
As for the assumptions about CompuServe's position in the message
forwarded by [the list subscriber], I add the following statement (posted
in the Graphics Support Forum) from Tim Oren, Vice-President of
CompuServe: "CompuServe is committed to keeping the GIF 89A specification
as an open, fully-supported, non-proprietary specification for the entire
online community including the World Wide Web. Whether they choose to
register with CompuServe or not, developers are encouraged to continue use
the GIF specification within their products."
It is quite clear that the issue here is the use of a patented scheme
within pieces of software by developers of software, especially commercial
developers, not by persons who use software, legally acquired, to create
or view GIF images.
Although I am not a lawyer and this posting should not be construed as
legal advice, I do not think that those of us who simply create or view
images in GIF format should be concerned.
Thomas J. Mathiesen
phones: (812) 876-3592 or 855-5471
e-mail: MATHIESE@INDIANA or MATHIESE@UCS.INDIANA.EDU