Flickr API keys for direct competitors

A few days ago TechCrunch wrote about Kristopher Tate, the founder of photo sharing site Zooomr, being denied access to the Flickr Commercial API. His intent was to use the Flickr API to create an easy way for users to export and move their images from Flickr to Zooomr.

Flickr denied his request, saying “we choose not to support use of the API for sites that are a straight alternative to Flickr.” Stewart Butterfield, founder of Flickr said “why should we burn bandwidth and CPU cycles sending stuff directly to their servers?”.

It seems that Today, Stewart Butterfield, had a change of heart on the API issue, and posted the following message on the Flickr discussion forums.

Re API keys for direct competitors: this is something that we’ve never had any set policy on and this thread has sparked a lot of internal debate on the team: some people felt that it was unreasonable, some people felt like it didn’t matter since Flickr should win on the basis of being the best thing out there.

I actually had a change of heart and was convinced by Eric’s position that we definitely should approve requests from direct competitors as long as they do the same. That means (a) that they need to have a full and complete API and (b) be willing to give us access.

The reasoning here is partly just that “fair’s fair’ and more subtly, like a GPL license, it enforces user freedom down the chain. I think we’ll take this approach (still discussing it internally).

It great to see that Flickr is reconsidering the previous decision.