The Giant Bomb terms and conditions state that user contributions are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Unported (cc-by-nc 3.0) license.
The cc-by-sa license states thatGiant Bomb grants its users the right to reprint, republish or reuse any content you contribute to the site for non-commercial purposes under the Creative Commons' Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Unported License. By posting content to the site you consent to the granting of this license.
So that's great and all, but the API terms and conditions sayYou are free:
- to Share — to copy, distribute and transmit the work
- to Remix — to adapt the work
Under the following conditions:
Attribution — You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).
Noncommercial — You may not use this work for commercial purposes.
The first two points make sense and as far as I can tell are compatible with the terms of the cc-by-nc license. The last three points all seem to contradict the license though. cc-by-nc 3.0 states that people are free "to copy, distribute and transmit the work" and "to adapt the work". Or in legalese:1. CONDITIONS TO USING THE APIS AND THE DATA. You may only use the APIs and the Data under these conditions:
* Non-commercial use only. The APIs and the Data are for your personal, non-commercial use only. If you are running a business (which we define as making revenue, having employees, being incorporated or building a service with any intent to derive revenue directly or indirectly that includes references to our data), you may not access the APIs or use the Data without our express written permission.
* Give credit where credit is due. Whenever you use the Data, include a link to our website with the following attribution: "Data created and powered by Giant Bomb"
* No editing the Data. Neither you or your users may not edit or manipulate the Data.
* Use on the Internet only. You may not distribute the Data through any medium other than the Internet.
* No redistribution. You will not provide the Data to anyone and you will not permit anyone to copy the Data from your website.
So according to cc-by-nc license you can "manipulate the Data", "distribute the Data through another medium", or "provide the Data to anyone" and "permit anyone to copy the Data from your website" for properly attributed noncommercial purposes.3. License Grant. Subject to the terms and conditions of this License, Licensor hereby grants You a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, perpetual (for the duration of the applicable copyright) license to exercise the rights in the Work as stated below:
- to Reproduce the Work, to incorporate the Work into one or more Collections, and to Reproduce the Work as incorporated in the Collections;
- to create and Reproduce Adaptations provided that any such Adaptation, including any translation in any medium, takes reasonable steps to clearly label, demarcate or otherwise identify that changes were made to the original Work. For example, a translation could be marked "The original work was translated from English to Spanish," or a modification could indicate "The original work has been modified.";
- to Distribute and Publicly Perform the Work including as incorporated in Collections; and,
- to Distribute and Publicly Perform Adaptations.
The above rights may be exercised in all media and formats whether now known or hereafter devised. The above rights include the right to make such modifications as are technically necessary to exercise the rights in other media and formats. Subject to Section 8(f), all rights not expressly granted by Licensor are hereby reserved, including but not limited to the rights set forth in Section 4(d).
Those terms and conditions could indeed apply to the use of the API and any non-user contributions (staff reviews, news, etc.), but the user contributions have already been licensed under cc-by-nc. Does this apply to user contributions? Does it apply only to Data retrieved through the API? The terms and conditions are confusing and could discourage potential API users who can't figure out how the Data is actually licensed. Maybe people with a legal background could figure it, but it's really confusing to someone like me.
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