Okay. Thread moderated. Derail again and you get a ban.

Excellent

I want to appreciate everyone for participating on this thread. It has been a wonderful experience.
These things happen, and can happen to anyone, as for me, I have decided to move on with my life.

hey, na wah for this outdated closed minded nigerian companies. No wonder they are going nowhere.
I sometimes wish i read law.
Did you crawl their website and scrape it for data? if not , i dont see how publishing stock information violates any policy.
There's this sms usually sent by a vendor that charges N2.5k/year for individuals or N50k for companies just to let you have access to your stock info. I asked them if they could make the information available as an api to be consumed by developers and got no reply!! Somebody is obviously scared shitless of competition.

I think the alternative, would be to use day old data - data reported in newspapers.
but that would cost a paper a day /~N200. Overtime a trend can be plotted.

I'm not a lawyer but this is my view:

They have no right in this matter because they dont own the data published and how it is used is none of their business.
Can they prove how you got the data?
Or will they issue a disclaimer that stock information is exclusively theirs? And remains theirs once it is published?
Will they create a law dictating how data should be used? i.e once you get your stock information, you can
only consume it personally but not publish it? It easily gets complicated.
If they want to sue you for copy right infringement, the issue arising would be why they have not filled this need in the market place since? In developed countries, they need for realtime stock info has been met by
providers e.g bloomberg, etc. By not having this service in nigeria, our economic development is being stiffled. You came into fill the need, so turn the case on them. They're being monopolistic and closed minded.

But this is naija, bullying and arm twisting is the norm. So called democracy is just a facade. Legal arm wrestling is a sport for the rich and in the end is just for oxygenating their bloated egos!!

^^^their issue is not even how i got the data (no, i did not scrape their website), their issue is that THEIR DATA IS THEIR INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY AND I CANNOT DISPLAY THEIR DATA WITHOUT BEING A REGISTERED VENDOR WITH THEM.

Sorry ooo, I once use this service when working on a personal project.
You if I have something like this, I will host it as a separate service. I guess you learnt a lot from this incident. Why don't you share somethings you learnt while dealing with them.

^^^what more do i want to share? They were making me seem like a gun-toting criminal/villain. Well, God pass them.

dhtml18:
^^^their issue is not even how i got the data (no, i did not scrape their website), their issue is that THEIR DATA IS THEIR INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY AND I CANNOT DISPLAY THEIR DATA WITHOUT BEING A REGISTERED VENDOR WITH THEM.

No this can't be. It's a bluff. They dont generate the data. They only aggregate and report it.
They are using legal bullying to block competition.
They dont own the companies listed on them , the market forces determine the buy/sell price of stocks and not NSE.
This is big bluff that should be contested. SEC and NSE are regulators in the market not owners of the market.
I know a lawsuit will be expensive and time consuming but this is one big bluff.
I thought you scraped data off their site.

if i reported the prices of foodstuff in the market, does that make me the owner of the data?
No. People could by pass my system and still get the information alternatively.

They dont own the data they report. period.

^^^I understand very well, but it is because of the nature of our country, I cannot really fight them and win. I contacted many lawyers on this case, but they all advised me to back down, that it is a no-win scenario.

I understand. Since you've opened their dull eyes,they'll probably, if they're fast on their feet, duplicate your idea and sell subscription to their api. That is if their management is agile enough, else things will just continue as is: No official api, but anyone implementing one gets hounded.

In my own opinion, i wouldnt back down without a fight, if i had the money. Yeah i will lose money, time and most likely the case, but the entire process of bringing awareness to the monopoly and foul play and restriction of access to information
could deal a weakening blow to them- their image, reputation etc- and spur action in the direction of making access to the essential data possible. Publicising the situation through social media can provide a boost too.
Somebody has to stand up first. First thing to b contested would be the notion of who owns data generated by market forces of demand and supply? This is the decisive issue in the case.

In an era, where stock trading decisions are increasingly being made by clever algorithms in developed, countries, we are still combing around for sources or real-time stock data, with no sign of the situation improving. Will they keep bullying people who want to solve this problem forever?
10 yrs from now, will they still send their hounds after the next one who addresses this problem without their consent?

But then i'm probably being idealistic. In nigeria justice isnt blind.

@dhtml18 you can use tech for these guys and they will back down, create another system that is not dependant on naija law and continue from there.

You guys have raised very good points. It is not that I cannot fight, i just don't want to be labelled as a criminal - it is essential that I continue what I am doing in peace.

Maybe the API will be back one day, you just never know.