There's been a lot of discussion about something called "the Data" recently. Seems like there's a few additional things worth considering about this disassociated idea. Although the coordinate data and descriptions for a large number of the original geocaches which went into the Groundspeak database were posted publicly and without any intention of them being reserved to one site or business, the majority of the information in that database now is NOT of that sort. It lies somewhere on the spectrum between publicly posted and "member's only", with the majority of it being info that was clearly submitted to Geocaching.com by members who agreed to their terms of service. Jeremy has revised those terms of service over time, and people have been submitting information to his site with some very different expectations of use and availability. For every person that wants freely accessible and transportable data, there is a person who appreciates or expects that their cache information be shepherded by Groundspeak. Some people don't want their data exported. Part of the rub here seems to be this vagary of intentions and expectations. There isn't a clear dividing line between the two. Jeremy's given arguments about why he thinks it is necessary to restrict copies and access to "the Data" which do hold water (e.g. keeps cache info modification within easy reach of the person who hid the cache, allows caches hidden in illegal locations to be more easily deleted, keeps the cache data 'fresh' for people searching for it.) But these apply only to the ones people submitted with these expectations or under Groundspeak's terms. There are still those which were NOT submitted with that in mind or which were submitted before that approach was clearly spelled out, or the very very few which were completely public and were imported into the database in the very beginning. The moral grounds for the objection that these not be included is still valid but becomes of more and more marginal importance as these caches disappear and as the total number of caches in the database makes them insignificant. There are also great arguments about why, given a clean slate, an open data base would be useful for many people. There are definitely rabidly politicized voices on both sides of the fence. Perhaps Jeremy should have been more straightforward about his intentions, sympathetic to the valid concerns, and clear about the distinctions in the beginning, but giving birth is never a clean process so maybe we can cut him a little slack on this account even if there are some reservations about possible disingenuousness on his part. In addition, geocaching.com "data" contains considerably more than just a set of coordinates. With the added functionality of the site, each cache has a large amount of associated data - logs, pictures, maps, clues, ROT13 encoded spoilers, etc. Most of this stuff was clearly submitted to geocaching alone and none of us has any claim at all on this data.
About "Geocaching" as a service or trade mark: I would encourage everyone to put any bullying aside (actual and perceived) and use the term as freely as they wish, particularly those with competing or complimentary cache submission or mapping sites. I don't think Groundspeak has any more right to threaten people for using the term than backpacking.com does to threaten any other backpacking site. The only way they have an actual case to expropriate the term is if everyone allows it to happen. Keep "geocaching" no matter where you get your data.