

A Sochi Olympics API - pranade
http://www.kimonolabs.com/sochi/explorer

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blackdogie
Using their Olympics logo is one quick way for you to get a cease and desist
letter.
[http://registration.olympic.org/en/faq/detail/id/25](http://registration.olympic.org/en/faq/detail/id/25)
IANAL

Interesting data though !

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frandroid
Or the words "The Olympics", "The Games", or even digesting their data
(whether they're on string legal footing or not...) Good luck. :)

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mmastrac
The Olympic trademarks live at a meta-IP level [1], with trademarks enforced
by specific laws rather than standard trademark. Legal corruption at its
finest.

[1]
[http://www.inta.org/TrademarkBasics/FactSheets/Pages/Protect...](http://www.inta.org/TrademarkBasics/FactSheets/Pages/ProtectionofOlympicTrademarks.aspx)

~~~
pranade
fair enough. we removed the rings to improve the chances of keeping the data
live

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untog
_Despite the expense and interest, there is no API_

There is most definitely is. It's just not free.

~~~
pranade
Yes, you're right. We think it's important that this data is openly available

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mbesto
Serious question - have you look very deep into the legality of what you're
doing? I have no doubt in the world there is huge value in your service but
generally speaking your website violates the most basic terms of use of pretty
much any site that exists. That being said - you (and pretty much every other
web scraper in the world) enters into this grey area of "binding contract" in
the terms of use. Personally I'd be very scared about your service being able
to scale for two fundamental reasons (1) the more attention you attract as you
scale, the more legislation will be targeted at you and (2) people who want to
protect their data will create services to block your efforts.

note - IANAL and I say this not to scare you, but hopefully to help.

~~~
meritt
There are numerous web-scraping tools out there, many are easy enough to use
for non-programmers (Connotate and Mozenda for instance) so, while you have a
point, precedent shows that web scraping is prominent and not going away
anytime soon. I applaud innovation in this area.

Your #2 is simply not plausible unless Kimono carefully follows robots.txt and
consistent user-agent, which is rarely the case for a competent web-scraping
platform.

Legality is also a strong word. Web scraping is rarely illegal in the sense
that you're committing a crime. A company could definitely issue a C&D and
potentially go after you in a civil lawsuit but it's very infrequent (sadly
not so much anymore with all the bullshit CFAA suits against "hackers" lately)
that a government entity would pursue someone for scraping data.

The general consensus is if the information is available to end users with a
regular web browser, no logins or agreement checkboxes, then it's fair game
for web scraping.

~~~
mbesto
Precedent is also a strong word. There are numerous people on the road who go
over the speed limit. It's prominent and not going away anytime soon. This is
not a cause for precedence.

Precedence implies that a legal case take place in order to dictate the law.
AFAIK, between your unsubstantiated comment and my general knowledge of this
area, the reason no one has provided a scraper service at scale isn't because
the technology or execution wasn't right, but rather that it's simply illegal
to do so.

> _The general consensus is if the information is available to end users with
> a regular web browser, no logins or agreement checkboxes, then it 's fair
> game for web scraping._

That's simply not true. Here's an example:

[http://www.yelp.com/static?country_=US&p=tos](http://www.yelp.com/static?country_=US&p=tos)

 _" By accessing or using the Site, you are agreeing to these Terms and
concluding a legally binding contract with Yelp Inc., a Delaware corporation
headquartered in San Francisco, California ("Yelp"). Do not access or use the
Site if you are unwilling or unable to be bound by the Terms."_

 _" Use any robot, spider, site search/retrieval application, or other
automated device, process or means to access, retrieve, scrape, or index any
portion of the Site or any Site Content;"_

My overall point? Kimonolabs is slowly painting a target on their back and
it's only a matter of time before they'll have to "lawyer up".

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bbx
I wanted to build a simple calendar for the London 2012 Olympics (and actually
built another one for the Sochi Olympics). Both times I ended up using a JSON
file found on NBC's website.

Like the linked article suggests, it would be nice to have access to an
official (and even simple) API, to dig up some interesting statistics or just
have some fun playing with the data.

~~~
pranade
Totally agree... we thought the same thing, which is why we built this :)

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bdc
I love the way this API is presented on the page. It's awesome. It exposes
itself in such an obvious way that it leaves no question about its
capabilities and usage. Makes me want to jump right in.

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kingkool68
I built a scraper to organize athlete profile data
[https://github.com/kingkool68/Scraping-Sochi-2014-Athlete-
Pr...](https://github.com/kingkool68/Scraping-Sochi-2014-Athlete-Profiles)

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johns
Where is the data sourced from? Having had to secure rights to Olympic data at
a past company, it's a minefield of legal and usage restrictions.

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tonystark
Sochi-mash anyone?

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injekt
[http://www.stats.com/olympics_2014data.asp](http://www.stats.com/olympics_2014data.asp)

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thezach
take it down dude... the IOC is not a group you want to get into an IP battle
with. RIAA is like a little kid compared to them.

