Anything but GIF

This web page contains advice about a controversial legal issue. While we do our best to accurately report our perceptions, we can not advise you on your use of GIF files on your own web servers. You may need to contact your lawyer.

HREF Tools Corp. is promoting the use of the PNG file format as a replacement for GIF files, and using JPEG files wherever possible.

Technical Comments

On a technical level, we recommend PNG because it is an open standard that is fully supported by the W3 consortium, and it provides better compression and sharper images. The two drawbacks are (a) no animation and (b) although PNG supports transparency, at least Netscape 4.04 does not render it yet.

Here is a technique to use with a WebHub application to make your web pages sensitive to browser version and use PNG whenever possible.

PNG Support in Delphi

See the PixelGraphicLibrary when you have to do some image processing with Delphi 2 or 3. The PixelGraphicLibrary is shareware (US$ 47). You can download a fully functional trial version from beyersdorf.com. There are more than 50 example projects included. And there is a support mailing list available.

Economic Comments

PNG is FREE (and GIF can be very expensive).

The GIF file format uses a compression algorithm which is patented by Unisys. HREF was faxed a set of license agreements in early March 1998 that quoted $1500 per server per year for free "billboard" style web sites; the same price for Intranet servers, and 1% of revenue for servers that conduct commerce.

HREF's decision

Due to the unclear legal terrain, HREF Tools deleted all GIF files from www.href.com and demos.href.com in March 1998.

Products that have licensed GIF

PaintShopPro includes in its About box: "licensed under United States Patent No. 4,558,302 and foreign counterparts."

Microsoft FrontPage.

About the Unisys Patent

According to Unisys' web site, reading and/or writing of GIF images requires a license to use Unisys patented Lempel Ziv Welch (LZW) data compression and decompression technology, including United States Patent No. 4,558,302, Japanese Patent Numbers 2,123,602 and 2,610,084, and patents in Canada, France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom.

In all cases, a written license agreement or statement signed by an authorized Unisys representative is required from Unisys for all use, sale or distribution of any software (including so-called "freeware") and/or hardware providing LZW conversion capability (for example, downloaded software used for creating/displaying GIF images). In certain cases, no license fees may be required, but this needs to be evidenced by a written agreement or written statement signed by an authorized Unisys representative.

To sign up with Unisys: send E-mail to LZW_INFO@UNISYS.COM, or use a form available on the Contact Page of the Unisys Web Server to request follow-up information.

The rest of this page provides a transcript of a conversation between Martha V. Moore, an employee at HREF Tools, and Nathan Cass, patent attorney at Unisys. It illustrates the lack of clarity on the seemingly simple question of "can we use any static GIF files for free on a commercial web server?"

March 16, 1998: When asked if static .gif files (simply transmitted and displayed, with no conversion involved) were legally usable without a license, Nathan Cass unswayingly hammered on the theme that "an illegally created item is no less illegal by virtue of the fact that YOU were not the one to create it."

I repeatedly asked him if that meant that the files themselves were in fact covered by the patent, rather that just the conversion process, as the contract stated. He repeatedly answered "I did not say that. I said that use of an illegally created image is illegal, no matter how it was obtained. Why is that concept so hard to comprehend?" After multiple examples of why possessing a stolen vehicle was illegal, even if you were not the one who stole it, and downloading an author's works and selling them as your own does not make you the true author, etc. I tried again, explaining that I thoroughly grasped that concept, and was trying to focus on the CONVERSION aspect, not the CREATION aspect: that if the files were, in fact created legally, and obtained legally, would DISPLAYING a STATIC .GIF file be legal, since there was NO CONVERSION involved.

He said that unless you could provide ABSOLUTE PROOF that all images on all of our sites, demos, etc. were created with a valid license intact, then HREF can be sued for "induced infringement" or "contributory infringement". BUT! (interesting point) if we were to license the format, then we could legally display .gif files, no matter how we obtained them.

He further said that the issue of patent protection is the realm of attorneys, and we should consult ours for a legal interpretation of the wording. He also said that if one ends up in a lawsuit--you lose, even if you win, because it requires so much time, energy and financial resources.

Updated June 4, 1998.