On Jan 05, Julian Mayer <jul...@corecode.at> wrote: > i've written a desktop movie database app that uses IMDbPY to > fetch movie information (http://www.corecode.at/moviedb/index.html).
Cool - when it's available to download, drop me a note (with a short description and the license) so that I can add it to the list of IMDbPY-based programs. > but now that the project approaches readiness for public consumption > i have some doubts if the "IMDB conditions of use" Recurring question, as you can imagine. :-) Below, _my own_ considerations, but beware that I'm not a lawyer. Pardon the length. > does this mean using IMDbPY with the http access module is illegal? > or can i just ignore the problem since i'm just distributing a > program that allows for doing this and defer the problem to my > users? would requiring the users to accept the "IMDb Copyright > and Conditions of Use" and having a disclaimer be enough? Part of what you say is true - after all you're just distributing a program, and a disclaimer is never a bad idea. [1] We can also talk about the enforceability of that portion of the license of use (especially in Europe) and the meaning of "screen scraping" and "robots": IMDbPY was _never_ intended to be a tool to massively extract information out of the IMDb's web site and it will never be. In fact it allows you (user or program) to access a very limited set of information (a single movie/person/...) at a time. Sure: it will prevent you to see the ads on their site, but this is also true for some browser extensions, filtering proxies and so on. Accessing the IMDb web site, IMDbPY always tries to be as gentle as possible (amongst other considerations, every request - by default - goes through a single user account). > really it seems like using the plain text data files they are > distributing is the only legal way? In my opinion, the real discrimination is amongst the ways you (and your users) will use your program and - even more important - the information fetched from IMDb (whether their come from the web site or from the plain text data files). To explain myself: the important thing is that you (or your users) do not make a profit out of it. I can foresee some problems if you sell your program, and _very serious and well deserved_ problems if you resell the data you gather. Those information are _their_ property, and you must not profit from them. For no reason and in no way. Basically, as long as you (and your users) use it for your own personal and non-commercial reasons, I guess it's fine. This means no reselling (of the data or of a service based on that data) and no republishing under no circumstances [2]. Fetching data for your own good, with no economic return (not even in the form of ads associated to your program or their data, for example) is fine, and there's not much difference if you access it through a browser or another program. > also AFAIK the local access module was removed from IMDbPY and i > have the impression using the SQL module is difficult in my case - > since it is a self contained desktop app. It's not that bad (it's practically identical to accessing the web server), but it's true that you'll force your users to run the imdbpy2sql.py script and download the plain text data files. Not exactly two trivial tasks, for a lot of people. :-) By the way, check if the information you need are accessible also via the 'mobile' data access system: it's faster and requires less bandwidth (but beware that the cast list will be shorter, some information will be missing and it's more prone to break, in case the html of the IMDb site changes). > what is with the programs listed on the IMDbPY Programs site? are > they ignoring the issue? do any of them use the http access module? Most of them use the 'http' access module and a lot of them asked me your same question. :-) Some (but here I'm mostly talking about writers of similar libraries, especially in the past), have even tried to ask permission to write this kind of program. Unfortunately, besides for some very rare exceptions, almost everyone got the wrong (standard) reply from IMDb's sell dept and they were invited to buy a licence (which - if I remember correctly - starts at 50,000 dollars). Again: if you use it for _personal and non-commercial/profit_ usages, you don't need such a licence, but I assume they prefer to stay on the safe side, and that's understandable. :-) To conclude: I've never intended IMDbPY to be a tool to break some copyrighted material and I've always asked IMDbPY users (end users and programmers) to do the same; it's their data with their terms of use and they must be respected. IMDbPY is almost 6 years old, and is by far the most complete and widespread library to access IMDb's data. IMDb is by now well aware of its existence [3], to the extent of a public praise from Col Needham himself, from what I've heard. Anyway if I'm found dead tomorrow, killed by a bunch of ninjas, you know who to blame. ;-) I hope this more or less answers your questions. PS: your application looks very cool, and I loved Flesh+Blood, with my myth Rutger Hauer and a very young Jennifer Jason Leigh [4]! :-) +++ [1] IMDbPY's one: http://imdbpy.sourceforge.net/docs/DISCLAIMER.txt [2] yes, this means that putting an IMDbPY-based getaway on a publicly accessible web site is a VERY BAD idea I strongly advice against: that's redistribution, and _I_ would be very upset if these were my data. [3] and I want to say "Hi!" to the user of the 207.171.180.101 IP who periodically access imdbpy.sf.net (yep, I get notifications of accesses from the IMDb's 207.171.160.0/19 range... ;-) [4] with a nice full frontal (even if on a wide shot), if I remember correctly. :-) -- Davide Alberani <davide.alber...@gmail.com> [GPG KeyID: 0x465BFD47] http://www.mimante.net/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This SF.Net email is sponsored by the Verizon Developer Community Take advantage of Verizon's best-in-class app development support A streamlined, 14 day to market process makes app distribution fast and easy Join now and get one step closer to millions of Verizon customers http://p.sf.net/sfu/verizon-dev2dev _______________________________________________ Imdbpy-help mailing list Imdbpy-help@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/imdbpy-help
