AOL Not Happy With Startup Which Downloaded Entire ‘CrunchBase’ Data

An app for smartphones and Google glass known as “People+,” is an startup by Pro Populi. This app is made after downloading all the database of CrunchBase on which AOL lawyers sent a cease-and-desist letter to Pro Populi.

According to the company, it’s like a dictionary of people and companies in the tech and startup scenes and what CrunchBase is all about on the web, not on the mobile apps.

“The dispute centers on whether People+ has the right to use the entire CrunchBase dataset to build a new product directly competitive with CrunchBase,” CrunchBase president Matt Kaufman says in a blog statement.

The watchdog for Internet freedom, EEF made their argument and said Creative Commons license gives Pro Populi the right to download all the database and use it in their own way. On return, AOL is not making allegations directly but arguing that the startup broke the rules in how it downloaded the database. It used software from CrunchBase called an application programming interface, or (API). Further AOL suggested that API can’t be used as to create a direct competitor.

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