Several San Francisco (CA) blogs are covering a fascinating story about the use of San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency‘s real-time data. At issue is a debate between the developer of Routesy, an iPhone application that lets users access Muni arrival times, and a company called NextBus Information Systems, which claims ownership of the arrival-prediction data and got Apple to shut down the application. From SFAppeal:
In other words: this company says that the NextBus predictions generated by Muni — a public agency, owned by San Franciscans — don’t belong to San Franciscans. Want to use it? Sure, that’s fine — they’re happy to rent it back to you for thousands of dollars a month. And the worst part is: even though their ownership claim is probably bogus, nobody’s ready to fight it in court.
An important note — According to the multiple Bay Area blogs looking into the complex relationships among the parties in this story, NextBus Information Systems is not the same company as NextBus, Inc., which provides arrival information for numerous transit systems, including Muni.
Link to full post in SFAppeal.
Link to full post in SF Weekly.
Link to full post in Streetsblog San Francisco.
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