Legal issues with APIs and their use
These days there is a lot of rumors going on regarding Craigslist and how they seem to be tightening the grip on other services that appear to be using their listing database.
APIs are relatively new to the mass and therefore there aren't many regulations.
However, you should know that in June it was declared that "software APIs aren't covered by copyright law". This was a big step which inevitably open the doors to more issues.
According to the ruling, "so long as the specific code used to implement a method is different, anyone is free under the Copyright Act to write his or her own code to carry out exactly the same function or specification of any methods used in the Java API".
Nonetheless, we also have to keep into account the terms of use of every single company. Craigslist, for example, explicitly forbids any use of their data. This obviously create a lot of confusion.
If you wish to know more, continue reading here.
APIs are relatively new to the mass and therefore there aren't many regulations.
However, you should know that in June it was declared that "software APIs aren't covered by copyright law". This was a big step which inevitably open the doors to more issues.
According to the ruling, "so long as the specific code used to implement a method is different, anyone is free under the Copyright Act to write his or her own code to carry out exactly the same function or specification of any methods used in the Java API".
Nonetheless, we also have to keep into account the terms of use of every single company. Craigslist, for example, explicitly forbids any use of their data. This obviously create a lot of confusion.
If you wish to know more, continue reading here.
Published: Sun, Oct 7 2012 @ 18:50:27
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