Kent Pierce and his cameraman just left after our interview in my home office. It will appear on the noon news today on WTNH Channel 8….

Meanwhile, here’s the latest between me and MTA:

MTA wants me to sign a licensing contract with them for a data product which involves official MTA scheduling data on a CD-ROM in exchange for a percentage of the royalties for each copy of StationStops for iPhone sold.

I want to sign this contract with them too! The data is awesome, and will make my app better, more complete, more usable than I could ever do using their PDFs as a data reference.

When I received the contract, I sent it back for two small changes.
I never expected them to push back on either issue, I actually felt that they were just oversights in the drafting of the contract.

Issue #1 – MTA is under no obligation to provide me with data updates.

Schedules change. Only MTA knows when. In order to keep my app up to date, I need every schedule change sent to me before its effective date, so my user’s app will be accurate and they don’t miss their train.

Under the contract, MTA will not notify me or automatically send me new data when the schedule changes. I need to somehow psychically predict when this is about to happen, and then send a request for a new CD-ROM – even then, MTA is under no obligation to send me one.

That’s not going to work.

I worked as a Producer and Engineer for many data feeds with third parties, and this is never how it is engineered. First off, all data transfers are done over the internet – the snail-mailed CD-ROM does nothing but introduce lag and labor, I don’t know what its purpose is but frustration.

Here’s how it usually works: The third-party (MTA) sets up an SSH/SFTP server which holds the data files, and assigns me an account and password. I set up a script to check the server every day to check the checksum and/or timestamps of the data files to see which changed. I download the ones that changed.

Simple. Automatic. No envelopes, CD-ROM burning, or any of that nonsense required.

Think of it this way – what if Apple iTunes had to ‘keeps its ears open’ for new albums for every artist in its library, and know to ask in advance to send a special request to their record company for the new CD, then have the CD snail-mailed to them, and then they rip the CD to AAC and file it.

Obviously that’s insane, and no one does it that way.

It’s ‘The MTA Way’!

Oddly, the lawyer at MTA argued vehemently with me about ‘why should we be obliged to send your schedule updates?’ – um, seems pretty logical to me. Yes that conversation was just that bizarre.

Issue #2

MTA wants my licensing fees retroactive from the day my app went on sale (Oct 2008), rather then the date of the launch of my application which uses the licensed data (sometime in the future, hopefully). In addition, they want $5000 up front, non-refundable, in advance of the fees.

MTA was supposed to provide me with data and a license in January 2009.

My rep stopped answering my voicemail and emails earlier this year.

Last month, I did a favor for a different MTA marketing person, and they thanked me and asked if there was anything they could do for me. I told them they could have my contact call me back for once about my licensing agreement – which they did, and I finally got the license.

So, I have been trying to get this data for six months, they’ve been dragging their feet getting it to me, but they still want licensing fees for my app going back through the time they provided me with no data?

No.

I will pay you licensing fees moving forward, period.
MTA has not provided me with data services in the past, they will not get licensing fees for my app in the past.

My prior use of MTA scheduling data from the PDF files falls under fair use, as the data is factual, deliberately made publicly available, consists of lists containing no significant originality, and I am reformatting the data to create a unique product.

MTA sees the license as a ‘license to make apps useful to MTA customers’ I see it as a fee for a convenient data product.

The Bigger Picture:

The bigger picture is – why the hell is MTA licensing this data at all? As the monopoly responsible for the transit system, they are obliged to be constantly developing information products which best serve the needs of their passengers as technology evolves.

It’s 2009. MTA should have a full-blown information application for iPhone that they outsourced and directed themselves, as they (should) be the organization who best understands its customer’s information needs.

It should be complete and contain every map and schedule available on the website, and it should be made available free of charge to all MTA passengers, just like the paper and PDF versions (at one point I offered to do this for marketing, but was denied).

Providing MTA customers with schedule information is not a cash cow for MTA to ‘milk’. Its a responsibility of theirs that they are incompetent in handling. The price pressure on iPhone apps is driving them down to a point where some apps – especially those which do not have a global market, like StationStops – are not making a profit. *I* have yet to make a profit on StationStops, and I have the paperwork to prove it.

Why should MTA be making a profit off of MY work for doing THEIR job for them, when I am not making a profit myself?

In the non-bizarro world, MTA at the very LEAST would be taking part in Mayor Bloomberg’s Big Apps program, which seeks to put all publicly available government data online for FREE for developers to make mobile apps for to add value to the people of NYC. Mayor Bloomberg is taking the maker of the best app to dinner!

Meanwhile, it is not enough that MTA has a monopoly on the transit fares for the entire NYC area – they need to go after individuals who are attempting to add value to their service, and charging them a fee and sending them Cease and Desist notices.

H. Dale Hemmerdinger – I am sending you this challenge right now – drop all MTA claims against StationStops for iPhone and give everyone the data for free, and a year from now, take the developer of the best application to a nice dinner at the Oyster Bar at Grand Central Terminal!