Absolutely, however at least here in the UK (and I suspect the EU), copying the Pantone colour book would be classed as copying a “database”. Databases are copyrightable, whether you agree with that or not.
My argument is rather than doing something that drags the copyright debate into to situation just make something better and “free as in beer and speech”.
Copying something that is “copyright” to “free it” puts you on the back foot. You will loos the argument eventually.
I agree. Having such an essential collection gated behind a copyright is a net detriment to humanity. Imagine if collection known as a SI system of units was owned by a corporation and you had to pay a license to use it.
Pantone isn't copyrighting the colors, they're copyrighting the collection. It's similar to copyrighting a map: you're not claiming that all representations of this part of the world now belong to you, you're claiming that this representation belongs to you.
It does seem like Adobe could have mapped the colors in existing files to a useful hex code instead of blacking them all out.
The issue is that map from "named colors" to "useful colors" is sufficiently protected that approximations could run afoul of whatever agreement Adobe and Pantone have in place.
Most likely, yes. There's a non-trivial amount of work that goes into ensuring that colors show up correctly in every medium, and Pantone will absolutely want to prevent other people from copying the mappings that they spent time and money developing. As OP said, though, that doesn't make them the bad guys. Adobe is the one who failed to take care of their customers.
I think your comment is outrage caused by a lack of understanding of the product.
They don’t copyright the color. The copyright the product associated with the color.
You can use the same RGB or CMYK colors. You however don’t get the guarantees of what the spectral responses of that color are and you don’t get the guarantees of printers having palettes to match the color.
Absolutely, however at least here in the UK (and I suspect the EU), copying the Pantone colour book would be classed as copying a “database”. Databases are copyrightable, whether you agree with that or not.
My argument is rather than doing something that drags the copyright debate into to situation just make something better and “free as in beer and speech”.
Copying something that is “copyright” to “free it” puts you on the back foot. You will loos the argument eventually.