[cookiecaper]

We need to open up computer access and intellectual property laws so that the content stream can be combed over by anyone who is interested in doing so, with or without Twitter's permission. Big companies should not have the ability to destroy small businesses just because they changed their mind about something.

[kbenson]

If a small business bases it's business on something produced by another company and does so without a contract, I don't have a lot of sympathy. That's the whole point of contracts. Clearly outlining what each party is responsible for and expects.

If a contract isn't feasible, at least make sure it's in the other side's best interest to keep the situation going. Getting free access when it costs the other side (in managing access, serving requests, handling support, etc, no matter how small) is not something I would feel comfortable basing a business off of.

[cookiecaper]

>Getting free access when it costs the other side (in managing access, serving requests, handling support, etc, no matter how small) is not something I would feel comfortable basing a business off of.

The difference is that the person is not getting anything that's not already offered to the general public. It's unfair to use the court system to enforce a company's exclusionary political decision that "everyone can access our website EXCEPT YOU", at least barring any actual contractual terms (not generic Terms of Use). The change I propose would not force anyone to accommodate a certain API change or provide any special functionality. It would simply prevent non-neutral access rules from being enforced via legal vectors.

Twitter would still be able to charge for access to the APIs they charge for now. They'd simply be unable to use the court system to compel someone to stop accessing the data that they have no copyright interest in and which they serve up to the world for free. I'm not sure if Twitter has tried to do this yet, but it's the normal step companies take once a consumer develops the ability to evade their IP blocks.

To be honest, the law already can be interpreted this way. The problem is that it often isn't. Companies have been able to convince non-technical judges that concepts like trespass to chattels are applicable any time someone is talking to their server. We need language in the law that will clarify the matter to prevent big companies from squashing small innovators that they find inconvenient or threatening instead of leaving it up to judge roulette.

[kbenson]

It's not even about access, it's about existence (at least my point was). If a company decides they just want to stop offering a feed, or change what it does or does not include, a contract protects you for at least some time before they and force that upon you. It's not always about the company wanting more money. Sometimes old products are obsolete, and providing them costs a non-negligible amount in maintenance and support. Contractual obligations can be the difference between turning it off next week or eight months from now when the last contract is up, and that can make all the difference in having enough time to pivot to a new or different data source.

[cookiecaper]

Yeah, I think we're talking past each other a little bit here. It's understood that a company could stop offering some data that a company is dependent on altogether, but I think it's substantially less likely than a company threatening to terminate access to data that already exists (which is what happened here). I also think that if entrepreneurs know that they're free to gather any freely-available information, changes in the commercial offerings or access rules are less threatening.

Of course it's ideal to have a contract with a company that guarantees access to the data stream for a reasonable chunk of time, but the reality is that unless you're already a big shot, platform vendors like Twitter aren't going to give you the time of day for something like that.

If we take away the ability of companies to selectively allow access to data that's available for free to the general public, it gives these guys a fighting chance. The web is a publication platform. It's equally absurd to say "I'm publishing this novel and everyone except kbenson can read it" as it is to say "I'm publishing this data to the general public and everyone except kbenson can access it". You can try to stop someone from accessing your data, but certainly no court is going to consider it reasonable to assist a company in preventing kbenson from reading a widely published manuscript. Data access is substantially the same thing, and should be treated the same way. Keeping non-disruptive entrepreneurs on the same footing as everyone else makes innovation more secure.

[kbenson]

I was responding to "Big companies should not have the ability to destroy small businesses just because they changed their mind about something." as a general statement, since it was phrased in a general way.

> It's understood that a company could stop offering some data that a company is dependent on altogether, but I think it's substantially less likely than a company threatening to terminate access to data that already exists (which is what happened here).

I'm not sure sure. There's regular griping on HN about Google cancelling services, even though they are generally beta services, because people expect them to offered. Some of these people griping are people that built products on Google APIs that were discontinued.

> Of course it's ideal to have a contract with a company that guarantees access to the data stream for a reasonable chunk of time, but the reality is that unless you're already a big shot, platform vendors like Twitter aren't going to give you the time of day for something like that.

A contract? Maybe not. But if they have a clearly defined deprecation policy, that's a start. And if you are paying them, well that's a lot better, since they are incentivized to keep it going because of your (and hopefully others') money.

As for the rest (access to public API), I'm not really interested in arguing it, as we likely agree more than we disagree. :) The only caveat is that direct consumers of the API often don't behave like regular public users, and that may put a strain on the system and degrade performance for everyone, causing real problems and the need to spend real money to fix if you still want to allow unfettered public use.

[cookiecaper]

>The only caveat is that direct consumers of the API often don't behave like regular public users, and that may put a strain on the system and degrade performance for everyone, causing real problems and the need to spend real money to fix if you still want to allow unfettered public use.

I believe that sites can implement technical measures to "enforce" a fairly normal request profile. Third-party consumers will have to comply with that because it will be technically impossible not to do so. Beyond that, there is no need for a legal method to address access. If the data source is concerned about said consumers going through a code path that is more intense on the backend, they will accommodate with a lighter API. :)