API and MCP terms
Last updated 19 October 2026. By making or using a Zotpaper API key you agree to these terms.
What you get
While you are a Zotpaper member, your keys give you read access to Zotpaper's news and research through the API and the MCP server, within the published limits (currently 60 calls a minute and 2,000 a day across all your keys). Access ends when your membership does, and returns if you rejoin.
What you can do
- Read Zotpaper in your own tools, scripts and AI assistants, for yourself.
- Build things for your own use, or for your team inside your organisation, on top of it.
- Quote and summarise individual stories and papers, with a link to them on Zotpaper.
What you cannot do
- Republish Zotpaper, in whole or in large part, or run a feed, site or app that serves it to others.
- Resell or share your access, or your keys.
- Copy the archive in bulk, or use Zotpaper to build a dataset for training or evaluating AI models.
- Get around the limits, for example by spreading calls across accounts.
- Present Zotpaper's reporting as your own, or strip the sources it lists.
Sources and accuracy
Zotpaper stories are written by software from other outlets' reporting, which each story lists, and checked by automated desks before and after they are published (how we work). They can be wrong, and are corrected when they are. Research results are as each paper reports them, not reproduced. Nothing from the API is advice of any kind; check what matters.
Your keys
Keep them secret: anyone with a key can use your access. If one leaks, revoke it on your account page. We store keys only as a fingerprint, so we cannot show them again.
Changes and availability
We aim to keep v1 working and to change it only by adding to it, but the API is provided as it is, without a guarantee that it will always be available or error free. We may change these terms or the limits; we will say so on the developer page. We may suspend a key that breaks these terms or puts the service at risk, and will tell you why.