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Comment by simon_weber | Hacker News Reader

I see non-sanctioned access like this as a huge boon to both the service and its users: it enables easy marketing, community-supported apps, easy research on what features users want, etc.

I also think the fear of abuse is mostly unwarranted. If somebody wanted to steal your content or abuse your platform, they'd figure out a way to do so -- with or without an unofficial api (especially if all that's needed is http scraping).

(disclaimer: I maintain https://github.com/simon-weber/Unofficial-Google-Music-API)

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OP here. I agree - for me, the only exception is where data is being abused for overtly commercial purposes. This obviously isn't one of those cases, and I'm doubtful as to whether unofficial APIs (i.e. screen scraping) can ever work properly for that kind of scale.

Right, of course.

It can get really hard to tell where the line is, though. For example, multiple for-pay third-party clients for Google Music now exist [0]. Personally, I think this is still a value-add for Google, but I could understand why some would think it's exploitative.

Another thought experiment: say the unofficial use of the platform originally required a fair amount of reverse engineering. Can the person who figured it out be held responsible for other's abusive behavior?

[0] https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/gomusic/id457883228

Very interesting point - I'm not sure how best to judge what is exploitative and what isn't. I guess it becomes exploitative if it serious subverts in some way the business model of the original data/service provider.

But then I'm not sure still...maybe that is okay if consumers massively benefit from the reverse engineering, and thus overall utility is increased...! What do you think?

Yeah, I'm not sure myself.

Generally, though, I think the situation has interesting parallels to piracy. Companies have many options on how to respond to unofficial use:

- cracking down on unofficial users == chasing down pirates

- attempting to control unofficial use (probably at the cost of normal usability) == DRM

- embracing unofficial users == the "piracy as free marketing" view

- viewing unofficial users as a sign of a specific weakness in the product == the "piracy as a service problem" view

I suppose that would make the original reverse engineer similar to someone who cracks a game's DRM?

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