If I am a researcher, am I allowed to download all the purple air data say for the US on a yearly basis, put that into more easily downloadable file formats and post to google drive to publicly share with other researchers to use instead of the Purple Air data download services which are designed more for individual consumer use?
The intent here would not be to set up a competing data service to what Purple Air offers existing, but to facilitate a gap in the existing Purple Air services for providing larger historical datasets more easily hosted and accessed as static file downloads than overly taxing a perhaps slower dynamic API for an unusually large data request.
However, we see that this has been a popular request and are looking into other ways to go about servicing the data. An idea that has come up is that the customer would fill out a form with the sensor ID from which they want data, a start and end date, and the fields they want. We can then collect this data and send it back to the customer. There would be a cost associated with this.
Thanks Ethan for the info. Does the below app re-using the purple air data violate the terms of service? Does the app use the API to download the data or is it provided to them in a more batch customized way at cost?
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Your question spurred me to read the Terms of Service as mentioned by Staff. I was hoping it would be CC by SA or something similar to wikipedia. It definitely isn’t that, and is far worse:
No Open Source Materials. In creating any Licensee Data Derivatives as allowed per the terms herein, Licensee shall not incorporate, derive from, or otherwise use any Open Source Materials
It then specifically calls out it can’t be used with GPL, MIT, and a variety of other common licenses.
That may conflict with your research, I know it does with mine. I just set my my station today. /me unplugs.
Research and papers are being done with the devices and I would guess these would go without notice legal or otherwise where there aren’t large enough sums of money worth pursuing, but yes, would prefer the data shared openly rather than at the discretion of purple’s business model. Presents a business or government opportunity for sensor data/network alternatives where the collected data and potential analysis or products are freely shareable/reproducible.
