Due to ongoing automated traffic to the Openverse API, which impacts the stability of wordpress.org/openverse and other integrations, Openverse developers have implemented a maximum page depth of 20 to all Openverse API searches.
The described behavior violates multiple clauses in the Openverse Terms of Service:
- You must not scrape the content in the Openverse Catalog;
- You must not use multiple machines to circumvent rate limits or otherwise take measures to bypass our technical or security measures;
- You must not operate in a way that negatively affects other users of the API or impedes the WordPress Foundation’s ability to provide its services;
https://wordpress.github.io/openverse-api/terms_of_service.html#licensed-uses-and-restrictions
As always, we will post any future changes to the API here for transparency.