AOL Smacks Startup for Using CrunchBase Content It Gave Away

We built People+ with the understanding that CrunchBase was a Creative Commons resource, that the startup community has contributed to for years and believing all the promotion that has been put out encouraging people to develop on the platform.<p>We are pretty shocked when we were told that AOL considered this information their property and that we needed to stop using the data because we were a &quot;competitor&quot;.

I&#x27;ve only had one interaction with Crunchbase CEO Matt Kaufman: he rescinded my friend&#x27;s offer to work at Crunchbase because my friend tried to negotiate the offer. Matt was clear that the attempted negotiation was the reason for the revocation and was quite judgmental about the whole thing.

Seems pretty darn disingenuous on CrunchBase&#x27;s part. Don&#x27;t they tout their &quot;public&quot; nature at every opportunity they can get? Seem the link below [1] for example:<p><pre><code> Data on CrunchBase is public, and members of the venture program are welcome to share their CrunchBase spreadsheets as they see fit. </code></pre> No guys, your data is not public if you pull shenanigans like this.<p>[1] <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/22/crunchbase-venture-program-hits-400-and-launches-tools-to-help-investors-manage-their-public-data/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;techcrunch.com&#x2F;2013&#x2F;10&#x2F;22&#x2F;crunchbase-venture-program-...</a>

Starting early this year, Crunchbase had made a huge push to encourage developers to build application with their data.<p>‘The CB team is going to be regularly featuring guest posts from any developer who has done something smart and useful with the data, provided that: -Your application is publicly accessible -Your application attributes CrunchBase according to the CrunchBase API TOS -Your application directs users to CrunchBase to update missing or out-dated information’<p>People+ complied with all their requirements (especially with the attribution) but it didn&#x27;t help

This makes no sense. If it&#x27;s under a Creative Commons license and they&#x27;ve encouraged people to use it, I don&#x27;t see what the problem is. Much of the data was provided to them for free anyway.

So legally how can @AOL claim that @creativecommons Attribution License [CC-BY] licensed content can&#x27;t be used by @PeoplePlus <a href="http://wrd.cm/HudPS7..." rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;wrd.cm&#x2F;HudPS7...</a>? I&#x27;m confused.<p><a href="https://twitter.com/preillyme/status/397771582367477760" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;preillyme&#x2F;status&#x2F;397771582367477760</a>

I wonder what this means for startups building their product on Crunchbase like Datafox.co, Mattermark and Inkwire.io?<p>Seems analogous in some ways to what Twitter did with its API and data and developer some time ago.

That&#x27;s simply disgusting.