title: How can I do LZW decoding in Java?
body: <p>I have a database which contains picture data stored as a binary blob. The documentation says the data is encoded using LZW. I thought that I could decode it using the Zip or GZip input streams found in the Java library, but it didn't work - I got an exception that said the format of the data is not correct.</p>
  
  <p>From what I've read, the library uses DEFLATE, which is not LZW. Also, I've read about some licensing problems for using the LZW algorithm.</p>
  
  <p>What can I use to decode the data? Is there a library? Do I have to implement it myself? What about the licensing problems?</p>