Snaphax - creative freedom or unlawful code?

Yesterday, on HackerNews, Thomas Lackner asked the question if he should remove the library he created to consume the Snapchat ‘API,’ upon request from Snapchat themselves. From Snapchat:

Hi Thomas, I'm writing to ask that you remove Snaphax from github and no longer publish or distribute it. Snapchat does not permit third party software to access our API and we consider Snaphax to be an unlawful circumvention device under 17 U.S.C. § 1201(a)(1).

This sparked a lot of debate and coverage. It brings up a good question, and one we would love to discuss on twitter: Is this an ethical use of a publicly available service or not?

You can see the snaphax code on GitHub, read the article on venturebeat and checkout the thread on HackerNews to get the backstory.

Let us know what you think!