Comment by turtle4 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by turtle4 | Hacker News Reader

While having access at all is nice, the terms of use are prohibitive and somewhat heavy handed. They basically say you can make something, but can't charge for it in any way, you can't create a mash-up (no augmentation of data) and if it works out, Marvel will probably implement it for themselves anyway. Not really as 'open' as you might hope.

The following default rules apply to all Apps:

Advertising. No advertising or sponsorship of any kind may appear on or be associated with any App (unless included in the Content made available by Marvel).

No Charge. All Apps must be offered free of charge to download or otherwise access and may not contain any in-App purchase features or any other method of monetization, unless approved in writing by Marvel pursuant to a separate written agreement as described below.

...

NO PRESS RELEASES. You may not issue any press release or make any public statement about the Marvel API (and related Content), Tools, the inclusion of any of the foregoing in any Apps (yours or others') or these API Terms of Use without Marvel's prior written approval.

...

Use of our Content. You may not change or edit the Content (e.g., modify, augment).

...

You understand and acknowledge that Marvel may be independently creating applications, content and other products or services that may be similar to or competitive with your App, and nothing in these API Terms of Use will be construed as restricting or preventing Marvel from creating and fully exploiting such applications, content and other products or services now or in the future, without any obligation to you.

When this conversation came up on Reddit a while back, someone made the same point as you, and I replied (more or less) this back then too:

These terms apply to the free usage of their API.

I have no doubt that if you had a good idea that monetized their API data well, and you wanted to do things not allowed by this default license agreement, you could reach out to them and get a different license that allowed you to charge money and/or do more, probably in exchange for a revenue sharing or something.

Since this is a new(ish) service, they are probably not actively promoting a paid option while they hammer out any bugs or issues in v1 (since the SLA for paying customers is likely more involved).

Obviously this is all speculation, but just because this is the license displayed on the site doesn't mean it's the only license they are prepared to offer.

Unless they have a public price, I'd be wary. When you have to ask for cost, it's usually about 5-6 figures for year of access.

Still, it's a start.

The lower end of that is perfectly in line with what you'd be paying other providers for commercial services.

Well, again it probably depends on your idea, and what the potential revenue is.

It's also possible that they have no idea what to charge for their API right now, and they are waiting to see what kinds of offers come in.

That's also smart (or ruthless?) since it allows them to tailor their price to your idea (i.e. maximize their share of the potential revenue).

I hope people figure out cool things to do with this though.

When you upload, submit, store, send or receive content to or through our Services, you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide license to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes we make so that your content works better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content.

That's from Google's TOS [1], which applies to GMail. So Google can, in theory, publicly display your email.

I guess that's my way of saying that I'm much more interested in the fact this API is available for exploration and experimentation and much less interested that it doesn't meet an impossible standard that no one here can actually articulate or provide an example of.

[1]: http://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/terms/

Take into consideration that most APIs don't contain primarily data and information about trademarked characters and copyrighted works. They are going to err on the side of being very cautious when opening up an API full of their popular intellectual property.

This is a very good point. The Marvel universe is a "premium" brand, in it's own way.

I wouldn't be surprised if opening up this API was a non-unanimous decision with lots of internal dissent.

Looking at their docs it seems like it's just IMDB-style metadata for a single publisher.

They never said it was open, so I don't see the problem, unless you readily associate "API" with "open".

I appreciated the PSA.

I would not have anticipated all of those and I appreciated the heads up. If you're offering an API to the public at large like this, yes, I would default towards assuming it was relatively open barring notice to the contrary. When you make it really easy to start sending requests and bury all the terms in conditions in fine print, that's something of an anti-pattern.

Especially when talking about the kind of API most likely to be used by clever teenagers on a fansite.

> or make any public statement about the Marvel API[...]or these API Terms of Use

What, is this an NDA? (If it is, you just broke it. Along with everyone else in this item that says they did something with their API...)

capitalism, get used to it.

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