Harsh or fair: App laws and un-cooperative company owners

So, pretty much, if you have a mobile device made by Apple Inc., you’re going to be using the app store to download and purchase applications. No problem, right? Wrong. Recently, the government has been opening up more and more information to the public sector, so you can know what’s going on more, or where your bus to school or work is. This is great for us, but for company owners, it opens up an issue. Since we’ve been released this data, it’s now available for anyone to use, even though it’s still owned by our regional, provincial and/or federal government. So people can now create little apps through the App Store to make a quick buck. This, again is great for us, but companies in which the app creators are using data from aren’t making money through the data that they’ve released. It’s kind of like illegal free music download sites, where people who release songs and other data don’t get paid for what they “sold” to the user who downloaded the music. App laws say that any person can make an app for the Apple App Store, so they can advertise a business or make some money. Another person cannot remove an app, which means that the company(ies)  have to get the data away, which means closing it up and not revealing it to the public. One scenario is with a guy made an app called “Where’s My Bus?” that showed the bus routes for OCTranspo and when the busses were expected to reach a stop. This made it easier for many commuters, so they could make the bus on time, but for OCTranspo, they weren’t impresed that someone was making money off of them, and not giving any money to them for the data that was always THEIRS in the first place. OCTranspo had to close up the data again so that it wouldn’t happen. It may be hard for us now that we have no idea when the bus will arrive, but oh well, that’s too bad. What is it that’s causing this? Government that’s gone a little too far with revealing data? Us, the public, who just want to not miss the bus to school or work? Maybe even Apple, or un-cooperative companies and their owners? Should app laws be changed? Or should companies strip away their data from other public? You decide. Post your thoughts in our comments section!