A proprietary file format is a file format of a company, organization, or individual that contains data that is ordered and stored according to a particular encoding-scheme, designed by the company or organization to be secret, such that the decoding and interpretation of this stored data is easily accomplished only with particular software or hardware that the company itself has developed. The specification of the data encoding format is not released, or underlies non-disclosure agreements. A proprietary format can also be a file format whose encoding is in fact published, but is restricted through licences such that only the company itself or licensees may use it. In contrast, an open format is a file format that is published and free to be used by everybody.
Proprietary formats are typically controlled by a company or organization for its own benefits, and the restriction of its use by others is ensured through patents or as trade secrets. It is thus intended to give the licence holder exclusive control of the technology to the (current or future) exclusion of others.[1]
Typically such restrictions attempt to prevent reverse engineering, though reverse engineering of file formats for the purposes of interoperability is generally believed to be legal by those who practice it. Legal positions differ according to each country's laws related to, among other things, software patents.
Because control over a format may be exerted in varying ways and in varying degrees, and documentation of a format may deviate in many different ways from the ideal, there is not necessarily a clear black/white distinction between open and proprietary formats. Nor is there any universally recognized "bright line" separating the two. The lists of prominent formats below illustrate this point, distinguishing "open" (i.e. publicly documented) proprietary formats from "closed" (undocumented) proprietary formats and including a number of cases which are classed by some observers as open and by others as proprietary.
A proprietaryfileformat is a fileformat of a company, organization, or individual that contains data that is ordered and stored according to a particular...
fileformat is licensed with an open license.[failed verification][contradictory] For example, an open format can be implemented by both proprietary and...
storage medium. Fileformats may be either proprietary or free. Some fileformats are designed for very particular types of data: PNG files, for example...
A GIS fileformat is a standard for encoding geographical information into a computer file, as a specialized type of fileformat for use in geographic...
list of fileformats used by computers, organized by type. Filename extension is usually noted in parentheses if they differ from the fileformat's name...
Kindle FileFormat is a proprietary e-book fileformat created by Amazon.com that can be downloaded and read on devices like smartphones, tablets, computers...
Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a fileformat developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images...
Systems Format (formerly Advanced Streaming Format, Active Streaming Format) is Microsoft's proprietary digital audio/digital video container format, especially...
The Rich Text Format (often abbreviated RTF) is a proprietary document fileformat with published specification developed by Microsoft Corporation from...
Bink Video is a proprietaryfileformat (extensions .bik and .bk2) for video developed by Epic Games Tools (formerly RAD Game Tools), a part of Epic Games...
An audio fileformat is a fileformat for storing digital audio data on a computer system. The bit layout of the audio data (excluding metadata) is called...
used and implemented by anyone. For example, an open format can be implemented by both proprietary and free and open source software, using the typical...
In computing, a Personal Storage Table (.pst) is an open proprietaryfileformat used to store copies of messages, calendar events, and other items within...
common scanned image fileformat, in place of a multitude of proprietaryformats. In the beginning, TIFF was only a binary image format (only two possible...
Standard Test Data Format (STDF) is a proprietaryfileformat for semiconductor test information originally developed by Teradyne, but it is now a de facto...
FBX (Filmbox) is a proprietaryfileformat (.fbx) developed by Kaydara and owned by Autodesk since 2006. It is used to provide interoperability between...
practice sometimes called crippleware. Proprietary software often[citation needed] stores some of its data in fileformats that are incompatible with other...
ART is a proprietary image fileformat used mostly by the America Online (AOL) service and client software. The ART format (file extension ".art") holds...
A video fileformat is a type of fileformat for storing digital video data on a computer system. Video is almost always stored using lossy compression...
container format (informally, sometimes called a wrapper) or metafile is a fileformat that allows multiple data streams to be embedded into a single file, usually...
TAB format is a geospatial vector data format for geographic information systems software. It is developed and regulated by Precisely as a proprietary format...
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