I can understand people thinking this might be a bad idea for them and I agree that it's possibly a PR mistake. But there is a difference between complaining about access and demanding access to a company's data.
What you've watched & thought of it is, of course, your data.
However, Netflix is in no way obligated to act as your memory in when & whatever manner you demand.
Similiarly Netflix's APIs add value for customers, and apps and outboard memory are/have been a big part of Netflix for me. Will loosing that make me leave? I don't know - but clearly this is a major downgrade in their service.
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* It looks like they pretty much are obligated by law - thanks benatkin.
I get an email each month, that I don't think I can opt out of, that says "New (name of bank) eStatements Available" and links me to the bank's website, where I can view and download it.
You're probably right that they aren't legally obligated to provide transaction data in a machine-readable format.
What I eat, my shoe size, where I've been, the drugs I take, where I work, my mortgage and tax payments, the movies I like.
Netflix should pay me for the honor of storing, mining, analysing, and reselling any and all information about me.
Ditto every one else peddling my data. Exploiting me (and you) for profit.
I want my cut.
And you have always been free to write that down in your own notes, if you wish, however you wish. Some folks actually keep their own simple written text notes on what movies they've seen and want to see. same with books, albums, etc. It's free, fast and simple, and nobody has or probably can take that ability away from you.
When you build your house on someone else's foundation, your house is at the mercy of the foundation's owner's plans.
Publically available APIs are great, but at times I am troubled by how many people develop entire products and applications around other's data, and then scream bloody murder when their business model goes up in smoke because the parent decided to evolve and innovate their own business.
I think it's perfectly reasonable to be unhappy about a reduction in value to me, the end consumer. Do I understand it? Perhaps – I still view it as a poor sort of competitive behavior because it's built around increasing information asymmetry and reducing consumers' ability to compare offerings – rather than making their own offerings stronger.
That sounds about right to me. I'm sure Netflix expects the net effect of this change to be beneficial to the company, and they may be right, but they are going to loose the benefits of the ecosystem that exists today. I certainly don't see any whining, complaining or demanding. It's more of a heads up to everyone involved in the Netflix ecosystem that this is an important change with significant consequences.
AFAICT, goodfil.ms is informing and preparing it's community for changes they're going to have to make. Surely you don't expect them to protect Netflix from the negative PR that this move will generate?
can easily be turned around to say
"it is the customer's data as they are the people who spent the money to produce it."
Legally, sure... all of you guys are spot on. But this article speaks to what people want, not what they legally deserve
What I will say relating to the Netflix story is that they probably shouldn't put themselves in a position where they alienate power users (read: evangelists) of the site. They've had a rough couple of years (content loss, product stumbles). Hunkering down and putting up fences is exactly what old media has tried to do, and it hasn't exactly been going so well for them.
( via http://gigaom.com/video/netflix-42-billion-api-requests/)
Perhaps there is a startup opportunity for an API driven unbranded movie streaming service where the product is the viewing API/data rather than the streaming.
Maybe that's exactly what Netflix intends to offer -- a separate product that's just API/data. Developer account?
One thing I like about instantwatcher is that title do expire from netflix, and instantwatcher will sort by expiration date: http://instantwatcher.com/titles/expiring
http://feedflix.wordpress.com/2012/05/15/expiring-dates-for-...
totally lack of understanding of system. dumb choices all around. the most limiting search ever conceived by mankind. absolutely no way to see related content from one movie like you can even on the official netflix site.
For anyone that wants to read it: http://developer.netflix.com/blog/read/Upcoming_Changes_to_t...
"charge, directly or indirectly, any fee (including any unique, specific, or premium charges) for access to the Content or your integration of the APIs in your Application,"
It seems pretty clear to me that this point says that you can't add additional fees to include the Netflix API data in your app, or charge an additional fee to enable such a feature. Nowhere does it say that you can't charge for an app that includes the API.
However, that no enterprise-app statement is quite odd. I wonder what the specific driver was for that addition? There was likely some straw that broke the camel's back there, and it would be entertaining at the least (IMO) to learn what it was.
It certainly reads like that to me. (How else are you supposed to use the APIs in your application?)
Is the actual text, the part you added was your interpretation of the meaning - however, there are some indicators (starting with the parenthesized text in the original) which imply you're reading it overly broad.
"For access to the Content" (the Content being the content served by the API), and "or your integration of the APIs".
Nowhere does it say, "You may not charge any fee for any application which accesses these APIs," which if it were the intent of the lawyers to ensure that only "free" applications used the APIs, they would've stated so.
Instead, they talk about fees for accessing the content and fees for integration, which seems to be to be clear that they are indicating that they don't want people selling the content served by the API or charging extra for using the Netflix API.
From http://developer.netflix.com/page/Api_terms_of_use, section 1.9:
1.9 Appropriate Conduct and Usage Restrictions. You are responsible for your own conduct while using the API and for any consequences thereof. You will use the API only for purposes that are legal, proper and in accordance with these Terms and any applicable policies or guidelines provided by Netflix from time to time. In addition to the other restrictions contained in these Terms, you agree that when using the API, you will not do the following, attempt to do the following, or permit your end users or other third parties to do the following:
...charge, directly or indirectly, any fee (including any unique, specific, or premium charges) for access to the Content or your integration of the APIs in your Application, or use the APIs to build an enterprise application (e.g., that you distribute to other companies);
I think the enterprise clause is to prevent companies from selling software to do analytics against the Netflix DB. Netflix wants that pie. The problem is that can become a very gray area.
Netflix, of course, is aware of this and is quietly attempting to procure rights to in-demand programming. This is the motivation behind picking Arrested Development back up. It's a good strategy if they believe they can swing it, but it's very threatening to the media conglomerates (who are already terrified of the internet); certainly a tough act to balance. Netflix is between a rock and a hard place.
Screenshot: http://cl.ly/HTyu
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1. Third parties can't do nefarious things such as share my data with Facebook or tell my insurance company should I have watched some "surviving cancer" documentary in the past. They're enforcing laws which protect the privacy of my viewing history.
2. Someone can't gouge consumers by layering on additional fees to access what you've already paid for. eg: "Want to watch Netflix on your mobile device? That'll be $5/movie, please, and will show up on your next AT&T statement."
3. An application presenting itself as being a Netflix app can't pull the rug out from under you and make it easy to accidentally click on an iTunes version of the movie, get charged $4.99, and the third party gets an affiliate commission.
4. Third parties can no longer in bad faith scrape the Netflix database and use it for non-Netflix purposes. Do they really need to enforce common sense and decency here? There are many other sources for movie data if sites need that info.
Consumers just like nice ways to use the services they're on, developers like nice ways to integrated services into their projects. Companies like revenues from people discovering their service outside of their normal channels. So, without knowing their genuine reasons for changing the API access it seems like Netflix basically have made a really stupid decision.
Not that it matters one bit what I think, and they clearly know that.
I would imagine that the vast majority of Netflix's customers not only do not use this third-party app ecosystem, but that they have no idea it exists.
Update: We’ve received word that the new API Terms of Use aren’t as sinister as on first glance. From VentureBeat:
We are not prohibiting sites from showing competing services, however we do not want anyone to use Netflix content such as titles and descriptions to advertise a competing service.
We’re not prohibiting developers from monetizing their applications by selling them directly to consumers. We will not, however, permit resale of our information in a business-to-business fashion.
All developers should stop integrating netflix in their services and concentrate on the competition. They have nothing to lose as they are not allowed to make money using netflix anyways.
Can anyone see this going any other way? There will be no 3rd party apps supporting Netflix anymore.
They don't mind listing their products alongside other retailers. Otherwise many shopping comparison engines would go bust. They probably allow it, not from the goodness of their hearts, but only because it drives sales seeing that they usually come out on top in price comparisons.
Netflix probably doesn't make much money off people coming to them via comparison apps (because they are already signed up anyway).
Building your entire business on top of one or two powerful companies' data and APIs will always be extremely risky. So, it's best left for hobby apps.
