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Why is any other business obligated to help you invest in building your own business? Obviously, Google and others who have innovated in the space can set the

Why is any other business obligated to help you invest in building your own business? Obviously, Google and others who have innovated in the space can set the terms of service as onerous or ambiguous as they want to. You can choose whether or not you want to invest in building something around someone else's products. Don't like the TOS? Develop it yourself or use another product.

habitue 11y ago
The grandparent was saying why Google should be less ambiguous: because more people will build on top of their apis if the legal situation is predictable. The comment was written from the point of view that Google is setting up bad incentives if they want developers to use their apis, not that developers have a moral right to Google being reasonable.
cookiecaper 11y ago
There is a bunch of laws that govern what someone who has innovated, developed, and authored can and can't dictate; they're called "intellectual property laws". Even if they've collected it, Google does not own information about the road system; facts themselves, like "Road A exists at lat X and long Z", cannot be copyrighted. See Feist v. Rural Telephone for more on this. The only reason application of Feist is generally limited in cases of online access is because we have a theory that accessing a publicly available database containing phone numbers is akin to accessing someone else's private property, and therefore they can dictate whatever they want under theories like trespass to chattels, whereas consulting a printed telephone book in your home is decidely not accessing the phone company's property. This is a pernicious, subtle issue now that we're becoming so dependent on online access provided by someone else's servers instead of accessing printed documents that we possess in our homes. Possession is 9/10 of the law, as they say. We need to rethink how "possession" applies to digital resources. Likewise, there are laws around how much access a private property owner must grant to members of the public, especially if that property owner is running a business that is generally accessible to the public. Private property owners are allowed to declare some people trespassers, but each jurisdiction has different laws surrounding what the public can do on private property and when a trespass is allowable. For example, California's state constitution guarantees the right to hold reasonable protests in private shopping centers that are generally accessible to the public, whether the property owner likes it or not. No one is saying there is a requirement for another business "to help invest" in any other; there may be requirements not to interfere with someone else's business by attempting to block what is otherwise public and freely available access to non-copyrightable information. IANAL. Routebuilder is fortunate that OpenStreetMap has collected much of the same data and that they can just code against a different API and continue to operate.
- detaro 11y ago
  by attempting to block what is otherwise public and freely available access to non-copyrightable information. Mapping data is not "non-copyrightable information".
  - cookiecaper 11y ago
    "Mapping data" is too broad of a term, because it probably includes a lot of copyrightable information. However, the factual basics, like GPS coords, are not copyrightable.
    - detaro 11y ago
      An individual data point maybe not, but even something like "there is a road between X1,Y1 and X2,Y2" you can't just extract from Google Maps and put in OSM, at least not multiple times. There are surprisingly few generally usable data sources (some government datasets that have been put under open licenses, Microsofts permits to use Bing's aerial photography as a basis for OSM, ...)
      - cookiecaper 11y ago
        I'm not sure if OSM really needs to be as cautious as they are. I don't see how you could argue that "Main St begins at X1, Y1" and "Main St end at X2,Y2" is a single copyrightable work instead of 2 separate non-copyrightable facts. The sentence or package which contains these two separate data points may be a unique work that qualifies for copyright protection, but the raw data points aren't once you separate them out. Open-source projects have a history of being hyper-sensitive to these concerns so that they never have to waste time with lawyers lobbing IP claims. A certain distribution derived from the sources released by a prominent North American enterprise Linux vendor comes to mind, as does WINE's refusal to accept any code from anyone who has any relationship with or connection to Microsoft whatsoever.
        maxerickson 11y ago
alainv 11y ago
You seem to say those are the only two options. There's clearly a third one: use the API and, if they suddenly enforce the excessively onerous terms, go public in an effort to make them back down from public pressure. This has been shown viable time and again, with App Store rejections and the like. It is obviously high-risk but sometimes worthwhile.
sqeaky 11y ago
> Why is any other business obligated to help you invest in building your own business? They aren't, but most businesses are regulated to prevent them from screwing your business. If were renting a property for my burger stand a fast food giant could not buy the property and evict me without notice. Common carriers from shippers to telecoms are regulated. Banks and lending are regulated too. Many businesses are regulated. Sure it slows things down, but it also creates stability. I do not know what fair API use looks like, but some kind of regulation seems likely. Likely the kind of thing in the article will fall into grey areas.
- blantonl 11y ago
  Sorry, but if we just look at the Google Maps API as an example, it would be a HUGE stretch to consider them a common carrier. The mapping data industry has huge competition right now. We're not even in the same realm of consideration for "regulation" of an API. That is ridiculous. The simple reality is that Google can control in any way shape or form how their API is consumed. Like I said, if you don't like that, don't build your business on the API. You do not have a right to anyone's API, regardless of how important the data is to your pet project or unicorn idea. This same argument comes up when the Twitter API consumers get all up in arms because the business they built solely on top of Twitter's platform is all the sudden deemed irrelevant because of API access changes or terms of service changes. Tough tootles! And guess what, your API scraping twitter feed re-display iOS app is not innovation! I personally think that "free APIs" are great, but if you don't have it in your business plan to share a portion of your revenue with external API data providers when they eventually ask, then you are going to get yourself in the position that the OP did.
  - iofj 11y ago
    > We're not even in the same realm of consideration for "regulation" of an API. That is ridiculous. Why not ? Plenty of financial APIs are regulated (and beyond horrible). The government has decided that anyone with a banking license and a certain amount of money stored at the central bank can use them. And God help you if you try to use the international APIs, they are so incredibly incredibly horrible. Without this plenty of financial services wouldn't exist, no way would smaller banks be able to operate. Despite how badly designed it all is, without a doubt it is a very good thing that these APIs exist and are regulated. Maybe regulation of APIs is exactly what we need. Hell, maybe we can even learn from the mistakes in financial APIs first and then regulate these APIs.

habitue 11y ago

The grandparent was saying why Google should be less ambiguous: because more people will build on top of their apis if the legal situation is predictable. The comment was written from the point of view that Google is setting up bad incentives if they want developers to use their apis, not that developers have a moral right to Google being reasonable.

cookiecaper 11y ago

There is a bunch of laws that govern what someone who has innovated, developed, and authored can and can't dictate; they're called "intellectual property laws". Even if they've collected it, Google does not own information about the road system; facts themselves, like "Road A exists at lat X and long Z", cannot be copyrighted. See Feist v. Rural Telephone for more on this. The only reason application of Feist is generally limited in cases of online access is because we have a theory that accessing a publicly available database containing phone numbers is akin to accessing someone else's private property, and therefore they can dictate whatever they want under theories like trespass to chattels, whereas consulting a printed telephone book in your home is decidely not accessing the phone company's property. This is a pernicious, subtle issue now that we're becoming so dependent on online access provided by someone else's servers instead of accessing printed documents that we possess in our homes. Possession is 9/10 of the law, as they say. We need to rethink how "possession" applies to digital resources. Likewise, there are laws around how much access a private property owner must grant to members of the public, especially if that property owner is running a business that is generally accessible to the public. Private property owners are allowed to declare some people trespassers, but each jurisdiction has different laws surrounding what the public can do on private property and when a trespass is allowable. For example, California's state constitution guarantees the right to hold reasonable protests in private shopping centers that are generally accessible to the public, whether the property owner likes it or not. No one is saying there is a requirement for another business "to help invest" in any other; there may be requirements not to interfere with someone else's business by attempting to block what is otherwise public and freely available access to non-copyrightable information. IANAL. Routebuilder is fortunate that OpenStreetMap has collected much of the same data and that they can just code against a different API and continue to operate.

detaro 11y ago
by attempting to block what is otherwise public and freely available access to non-copyrightable information. Mapping data is not "non-copyrightable information".
- cookiecaper 11y ago
  "Mapping data" is too broad of a term, because it probably includes a lot of copyrightable information. However, the factual basics, like GPS coords, are not copyrightable.
  - detaro 11y ago
    An individual data point maybe not, but even something like "there is a road between X1,Y1 and X2,Y2" you can't just extract from Google Maps and put in OSM, at least not multiple times. There are surprisingly few generally usable data sources (some government datasets that have been put under open licenses, Microsofts permits to use Bing's aerial photography as a basis for OSM, ...)
    - cookiecaper 11y ago
      I'm not sure if OSM really needs to be as cautious as they are. I don't see how you could argue that "Main St begins at X1, Y1" and "Main St end at X2,Y2" is a single copyrightable work instead of 2 separate non-copyrightable facts. The sentence or package which contains these two separate data points may be a unique work that qualifies for copyright protection, but the raw data points aren't once you separate them out. Open-source projects have a history of being hyper-sensitive to these concerns so that they never have to waste time with lawyers lobbing IP claims. A certain distribution derived from the sources released by a prominent North American enterprise Linux vendor comes to mind, as does WINE's refusal to accept any code from anyone who has any relationship with or connection to Microsoft whatsoever.
      - maxerickson 11y ago

alainv 11y ago

You seem to say those are the only two options. There's clearly a third one: use the API and, if they suddenly enforce the excessively onerous terms, go public in an effort to make them back down from public pressure. This has been shown viable time and again, with App Store rejections and the like. It is obviously high-risk but sometimes worthwhile.

sqeaky 11y ago

> Why is any other business obligated to help you invest in building your own business? They aren't, but most businesses are regulated to prevent them from screwing your business. If were renting a property for my burger stand a fast food giant could not buy the property and evict me without notice. Common carriers from shippers to telecoms are regulated. Banks and lending are regulated too. Many businesses are regulated. Sure it slows things down, but it also creates stability. I do not know what fair API use looks like, but some kind of regulation seems likely. Likely the kind of thing in the article will fall into grey areas.

blantonl 11y ago
Sorry, but if we just look at the Google Maps API as an example, it would be a HUGE stretch to consider them a common carrier. The mapping data industry has huge competition right now. We're not even in the same realm of consideration for "regulation" of an API. That is ridiculous. The simple reality is that Google can control in any way shape or form how their API is consumed. Like I said, if you don't like that, don't build your business on the API. You do not have a right to anyone's API, regardless of how important the data is to your pet project or unicorn idea. This same argument comes up when the Twitter API consumers get all up in arms because the business they built solely on top of Twitter's platform is all the sudden deemed irrelevant because of API access changes or terms of service changes. Tough tootles! And guess what, your API scraping twitter feed re-display iOS app is not innovation! I personally think that "free APIs" are great, but if you don't have it in your business plan to share a portion of your revenue with external API data providers when they eventually ask, then you are going to get yourself in the position that the OP did.
- iofj 11y ago
  > We're not even in the same realm of consideration for "regulation" of an API. That is ridiculous. Why not ? Plenty of financial APIs are regulated (and beyond horrible). The government has decided that anyone with a banking license and a certain amount of money stored at the central bank can use them. And God help you if you try to use the international APIs, they are so incredibly incredibly horrible. Without this plenty of financial services wouldn't exist, no way would smaller banks be able to operate. Despite how badly designed it all is, without a doubt it is a very good thing that these APIs exist and are regulated. Maybe regulation of APIs is exactly what we need. Hell, maybe we can even learn from the mistakes in financial APIs first and then regulate these APIs.