Re forms: I did primarily mean rather simple ones (like say attendance forms), but there's a bigger argument here;
This type of API copyright would post likely not just mean the paper form is under copyright protection, but that the software to OCR scan it and parse it would also likewise be protected - as it is an ordered series of keywords with types, etc. It would then be a license infringement to parse forms without a license.
Independent creation is legal defense, not a cause for dismissal of a suit. You need to prove it - which becomes harder if they can argue you saw their work first and imitated theirs.
There's precedence where people have created their own works from scratch and held to be infringing because they mimicked an existing work too closely (like one case of a photo of a red London bus), and in civil copyright lawsuits the other copyright holder only needs to show its likely, which may reduce to showing you knew their work existed.
This type of API copyright would post likely not just mean the paper form is under copyright protection, but that the software to OCR scan it and parse it would also likewise be protected - as it is an ordered series of keywords with types, etc. It would then be a license infringement to parse forms without a license.
Independent creation is legal defense, not a cause for dismissal of a suit. You need to prove it - which becomes harder if they can argue you saw their work first and imitated theirs.
There's precedence where people have created their own works from scratch and held to be infringing because they mimicked an existing work too closely (like one case of a photo of a red London bus), and in civil copyright lawsuits the other copyright holder only needs to show its likely, which may reduce to showing you knew their work existed.