The definition of "deserve" stops to matter so much when enough people get involved. I'm not saying this particular story has any sort of groundswell of protest behind it, but if it did legal definitions wouldn't matter much at all. An obvious example of something that has a movement behind it is piracy (illegal, but widespread and unstoppable)
What I will say relating to the Netflix story is that they probably shouldn't put themselves in a position where they alienate power users (read: evangelists) of the site. They've had a rough couple of years (content loss, product stumbles). Hunkering down and putting up fences is exactly what old media has tried to do, and it hasn't exactly been going so well for them.
> but if it did legal definitions wouldn't matter much at all.
I was thinking in more of an ethical/common-sense kind of way. If I pay NF $8/month for their streaming services, is it reasonable for me to claim that I deserve a fully-featured and well-documented API, complete with access to my historical data? Legal questions aside, it seems unreasonable from a gut-check point of view to expect the services of all the engineers & tech writers responsible for making that happen (and keeping it updated) in addition to the streaming service.
If my business depended on access to this Netflix data, you can be sure I'd be making calls and in-person visits if possible to try and form some kind of partnership with them. I think it would be reasonable to assume that kind of business model (NF's model WRT data access) is probably unsustainable and I'd have to do something to protect my business.
I'm betting NF is in the process of creating developer accounts. For $xxx, you get an API key that you embed in your apps that turns these features/this access back on. I wonder if pricing is what's keeping dev accounts from showing up yet -- NF seems against utility billing for end users, but they must deal with it all the time on the back end. Hmm. To your point about the power users, some kind of freemium model would work fine for keeping them happy, I'm guessing... once usage is "Real Business" level, make them pay for it, Google Maps-style.
can easily be turned around to say
"it is the customer's data as they are the people who spent the money to produce it."
Legally, sure... all of you guys are spot on. But this article speaks to what people want, not what they legally deserve