this post was submitted on 11 Jul 2024
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166
Unofficial Reddit API (github.com)
submitted 4 months ago by AnonCoder1337@discuss.online to c/technology@lemmy.world
109 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

I am making a Unofficial Reddit API, which mimics the official one.

Its early days, but I would like to have a discussion here about it since my post was blocked on reddit(of course).

Let me know what you think of the project, if you have any input, let me know.

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[–] EmilyIsTrans@lemmy.blahaj.zone 9 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (3 children)

Is there a reason you're scraping data rather than attaching a network sniffer/reverse engineering the official apps and documenting the results? Or map the RSS feed to an API? The main thrust behind my comment is that I think scraping is pretty fragile, so I'm interested as to why other options are infeasible.

[–] MHLoppy@fedia.io 13 points 4 months ago

There's currently no implementation (the repos are currently just skeletons), so it could just be a semantics difference right now.

[–] the_post_of_tom_joad@sh.itjust.works 4 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Wouldn't those other options be C&D'd?

*I am a layman

[–] nyan@lemmy.cafe 17 points 4 months ago (1 children)

This is likely to be C&D'd as well if it ever reaches the point where it does anything useful (remember, reddit doesn't need grounds that would hold up in court to send a C&D).

[–] EmilyIsTrans@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

I suspect that any of the methods proposed here would be prone to a C&D, but IMO the safest legally would probably be the RSS method (not a lawyer though). Reddit's RSS feeds are public, documented, and available without the need for private APIs, authentication, or an API key, so I don't see how they could claim that a wrapper is unauthorised/illegal. Documenting their private API however seems like a gray area. Google LLC v. Oracle America, Inc. found that APIs are copyrightable, but this use may constitute fair use.