email-gated download

An email-gated download sits between open bulk download and paid licensing: the artifact costs nothing, but a human hand-off stands between you and the bytes. The publisher collects a contact address, often qualifies the requester, and sends a link or attachment - typically PDF or XLSX rather than an API response.

In this catalog the pattern is rare but consequential: only 64 of 1,744 datasets (3.7%) use a request_form access method, against 725 delivered by bulk download and 574 by official API. The named example is SIA Semiconductor Market Data & Factbook - free press releases and the State of the Industry PDF post openly, while the Factbook itself arrives only after an email request, as PDF/XLSX.

Free is not the same as automatable, and email gating is where the two diverge.

• No programmatic path exists. There is no endpoint to call, so refreshes mean re-submitting a form and waiting on a human. Pipelines that assume daily freshness break quietly.
• You enter a sales sequence. Submitting contact details usually starts outreach; budget review cycles accordingly.
• Licensing still applies after the gate. SIA's terms allow internal use and derivative analyses but prohibit external reproduction and redistribution of WSTS data - the gate changes delivery, not rights.
• Across the catalog just 3.7% of datasets sit behind request forms, so treating 'free' as 'fetchable' will be right 96% of the time and silently wrong the rest.

1. Ask what triggers delivery. If the answer is a person sending an attachment, schedule around business days, not cron jobs - the cataloged Factbook record documents delivery_channel 'request_form' precisely because no direct URL exists.
2. Confirm which artifacts are actually gated. On the SIA source, State of the Industry reports and press releases are openly posted while the Factbook requires the form - gate scope varies within a single publisher. 3.

• census-api-key - the opposite pattern: automated access granted instantly once a free credential is registered.
• sia-factbook - the gated publication itself, delivered by email request form as PDF/XLSX alongside openly posted SIA reports.