Data mining

[Maqi]

Hi! I have a question for you programmers/IT specialists/web lawyers out there.

Are there any tools which allow to access databases like mtgpulse directly? I mean without having to use the interface provided on the website.

If so, is the usage of such tools legal? I'm not sure. On the one hand, all the information I would want is already attainable through the website. But its practically impossible to manually click all the links and c/p the lists.

On the other hand, the means to access these data would be different and it might just be disallowed to use such tools.

If it is not allowed or if there aren't such tools, has anyone experience if mtgpulse will share their raw data? I kind of doubt it but I don't know for sure. I would also pay some money for the data if it comes to that.

[pyyhttu]

I can't seem to find anything from the site dictating who owns the data there. But since the site is collaborative wiki-style site, data should be available for anyone to grab.

If I was the site owner, I would put the data under some permissive Creative Commons license.

You may want to ask ask about the data dump directly from them: http://mtgpulse.com/about

I've contacted the site owners occasionally, and they've been very helpful.