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 u

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.