`docs/data-rights/POLICY.md`

40 lines
# HomesOnSpec Data Rights Policy

A builder advertising a home for sale does not license its website for wholesale
copying. Individual facts (address, price, sqft, beds, availability) receive thin
copyright protection (Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Telephone Service Co., 499 U.S.
340 (1991); 17 U.S.C. §§ 101–122), but photographs, renderings, floor-plan drawings,
community maps, written descriptions, videos, and database arrangements can be
protected — and site terms can restrict automated collection.

## Source hierarchy (strongest first)
1. Builder-provided feeds and APIs
2. Direct builder partnerships
3. Affiliate or syndication feeds
4. Permissioned crawling
5. Carefully limited collection of public factual data

## Hard prohibitions
- Never circumvent logins, CAPTCHAs, rate limits, or access controls. A bot challenge
  means STOP and record the source as blocked.
- Never copy builder photos, descriptions, floor-plan drawings, or renderings without
  registry-recorded rights (`SourceRegistry.mediaRights`). Default is `NONE` — facts
  only, link back to the source.
- Never ignore source terms or removal requests.
- Never present stale inventory as verified — freshness states + last-verified
  timestamps are consumer-facing.
- The LLM must never infer missing prices, addresses, availability, or incentives.
  Missing = null, always.

## Registry obligations
Every source records: terms URL, permissions, attribution requirements, collection
method, media rights, rate limits, and health — before any collection runs. Collection
respects robots.txt and uses an honest User-Agent with a contact address. Publishing
stops automatically when a source degrades (health gate in the pipeline).

## Consumer-facing honesty
Verification labels derive from the collection method (ADR-008). Demonstration data is
always labeled DEMONSTRATION and `isDemo: true`, and is never presented as a production
claim. Every listing carries a correction-report control, and correction reports land
in an auditable review queue.