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Naive legal question - is this API considered copyright infringement? Could they charge for it? Similarly, are you allowed to create an endpoint for "products

by bthomas 13y ago

Naive legal question - is this API considered copyright infringement? Could they charge for it? Similarly, are you allowed to create an endpoint for "products for sale at Whole Foods" assuming you collect the data legally?

monkeyspaw 13y ago
Facts are not copyrightable. Collections of facts might be. I think collecting products and prices for sale @ WF is allowable, in the same sense that it is OK to distribute baseball box scores. As long as you aren't directly republishing without modification a collection of facts, you aren't violating c.r. You could still be liable, depending whether your efforts create a negative business affect (torturious interference). IANAL.
nwh 13y ago
I don't think it is in Australia at least. Simply collecting such data and making it available isn't illegal; only creative works are under copyright. We've had cases with the phone book being reproduced, and this understanding is apparently correct.
- kybernetikos 13y ago
  These sites go beyond lists of facts though. Pretty sure that the text/flavour will be under copyright. The names might well be too.
Al-Khwarizmi 13y ago
A couple of years ago, I had a student who wanted to do a kind of MtG assistant for his master's thesis. It would have a database with the functionality of each card stored in a symbolic format, and it would use that for applications like giving you advice during play, with the possibility of implementing other applications in the future (once you have the functionality of cards encoded in a format easy to process by machines, you can do many interesting things). I told him that it could be a great project and I would be happy to supervise it, but the first thing he needed to do was to ensure there would be no legal problems. So I told him to write to the WotC legal department. He wrote a nice email saying if it would be OK to do this, taking into account that it was not for profit, he would recognize all copyrights, not use illustrations (just raw data about the cards), etc. They (politely, but clearly) said no.

by bthomas 13y ago

monkeyspaw 13y ago

Facts are not copyrightable. Collections of facts might be. I think collecting products and prices for sale @ WF is allowable, in the same sense that it is OK to distribute baseball box scores. As long as you aren't directly republishing without modification a collection of facts, you aren't violating c.r. You could still be liable, depending whether your efforts create a negative business affect (torturious interference). IANAL.

nwh 13y ago

I don't think it is in Australia at least. Simply collecting such data and making it available isn't illegal; only creative works are under copyright. We've had cases with the phone book being reproduced, and this understanding is apparently correct.

kybernetikos 13y ago
These sites go beyond lists of facts though. Pretty sure that the text/flavour will be under copyright. The names might well be too.

Al-Khwarizmi 13y ago

A couple of years ago, I had a student who wanted to do a kind of MtG assistant for his master's thesis. It would have a database with the functionality of each card stored in a symbolic format, and it would use that for applications like giving you advice during play, with the possibility of implementing other applications in the future (once you have the functionality of cards encoded in a format easy to process by machines, you can do many interesting things). I told him that it could be a great project and I would be happy to supervise it, but the first thing he needed to do was to ensure there would be no legal problems. So I told him to write to the WotC legal department. He wrote a nice email saying if it would be OK to do this, taking into account that it was not for profit, he would recognize all copyrights, not use illustrations (just raw data about the cards), etc. They (politely, but clearly) said no.