Is it legal to provide unofficial API?

4 points by illegally 5y ago ↗ HN

I'm the founder of [redacted], an unofficial TikTok API. It started as a small side project, but now it has been growing quickly and we even have clients from Fortune-500 companies.

The next step is registration as a corporate, fund-raising, hiring, and some other stuff that are necessary for a company to grow.

But I'm not sure if that's legal or what kind of troubles we will have from TikTok.

So far, we have only been contacted by TikTok representatives for a trademark issue, though they were helpful and we fixed the issue quickly.

2 comments

[ 2.2 ms ] story [ 17.4 ms ] thread

hyperpallium2 5y ago ↗

Not legal advice, but the legal issue is if their terms of service allow it; the practical issue is whether they block/rate limit you (they seem fine with it, So Far...); the business issue is whether they like your idea and incorporate it thanks for the free R&D!

There's a general history of peasants working on someone else's platform. The platform tends to expand - url shorteners, some utilities for windows, music programs for apple.

You need some USP that tiktok can't or doesn't want to copy - is that possible?

eesmith 5y ago ↗

With the sort of growth expectations you have, get actual legal advice.

On the overall concept, consider that youtube-dl provides an unofficial (command-line) API to YouTube, and review the legal commentary in support of youtube-dl after its recent takedown at GitHub.

But what's key is not really the legal part (as hyperpallium2 rightly pointed out) the terms of service and the risk of TikTok taking your company's oxygen away.