Friday, May 24, 2013

API Usage Guidelines

7digital monitors all API requests and we reserve the right to revoke your API key without notice if you do not follow the guidelines outlined below. Full Terms and Conditions for use of the Public API are available on this site.

Our Commercial API is subject to different Terms and Conditions. Please contact our Sales Team for details.
  1. Usage limits. Our Public API is limited to a rate of 4000 requests per day
  2. Commercial Use. Our Public API is free for non-commercial users. If you would like to use the API in a commercial application, or if you're unsure whether you qualify as a non-commercial user, please contact us.
  3. Use cache. If your website or application needs to access the same data repeatedly, please cache the 7digital API responses either directly in your code or by setting up a cached proxy to the API.
  4. Do not scrape the API.  Our API is designed for real-time use by humans. Please don't attempt to scrape the content in an automated way using scripts (e.g. getting release details for release IDs 1, 2, 3, 4, etc.) as this will negatively affect the performance for other users, and you will be subsequently banned. If you need to process the catalogue data offline, please contact us and we can provide you with FTP access to an XML dump of the whole 7digital catalogue (as part of our Premium service).
  5. Don't break the law.  Using our API in connection with any illegal services is strictly prohibited.
  6. Link to 7digital. Please let your users know that the data is being provided by 7digital. For versions of our logo and guidelines for its use, please download our press kit.
  7. Let us know about your application. We love to see what people can do with our API, and your work gives us valuable feedback that influences how we shape our API in the future, and allows us to showcase your app to our users and clients. By giving us a chance to review your integration, we can also provide you with feedback, should we see any technical or legal issues. Let everyone know what you’re working on by posting a URL to http://groups.google.com/group/7digital-api or contacting us directly.
  8. It's nice to share! If you've implemented a 7digital API wrapper in your favourite language, or have other pieces of code that you think others might find useful, we’d be grateful if you could share it with everyone. You can post your achievements to our Google group or simply let us know directly and we’ll publish it on the 7digital Developers site.
  9. Take a look at our Best Practices Guide. You’ll find pointers on how to build applications with the API and how information on how to cater for any future changes.