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Congrats! Web scraping is legal! (US precedent)

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Re: Congrats! Web scraping is legal! (US precedent)

#21

Post by amelius »

JaceLightning wrote: post #10
amelius wrote: post #7

> Now many site owners are trying to put technical obstacles to competitors who completely copy their information that is not protected by copyright. For example, ticket prices, product lots, open user profiles, and so on. Some sites consider this information “their own”, and consider web scraping as “theft”. Legally, this is not the case, which is now officially enshrined in the US. Does this mean we can now scrape…

Probably not. Facts aren't copyrightable but creative works are. So prices on Amazon.com are facts. User reviews are creative so probably copyrighted. Similarly the videos on YouTube are copyrighted. However the number of views and the number of likes are probably scrapable.

Why would a review be a copyrightable creative work, while a LinkedIn resume wouldn't be?

Re: Congrats! Web scraping is legal! (US precedent)

#22

Post by kabacha »

JaceLightning wrote: post #10
amelius wrote: post #7

> Now many site owners are trying to put technical obstacles to competitors who completely copy their information that is not protected by copyright. For example, ticket prices, product lots, open user profiles, and so on. Some sites consider this information “their own”, and consider web scraping as “theft”. Legally, this is not the case, which is now officially enshrined in the US. Does this mean we can now scrape…

Probably not. Facts aren't copyrightable but creative works are. So prices on Amazon.com are facts. User reviews are creative so probably copyrighted. Similarly the videos on YouTube are copyrighted. However the number of views and the number of likes are probably scrapable.

See that's where I have problem with this. Isn't data just _data_?

Lets draw some pararells to real life. If I go to public space like town square - can't I take pictures, notes and records then go home and draw my analytics from it? What if I read something in a book I bought, can't I quote it?

Same thing should be with web resources even if they are creative - as long as I don't publish them I should be able to scrape whatever public resources I want and use them in my analytics, machine learning or whatever.

Re: Congrats! Web scraping is legal! (US precedent)

#24

Post by bhousel »

Pigo wrote: post #16

I always thought scraping was a fun idea, I just couldn't find the right use-case for it. I'm not a sports guy, and the big sites have pretty extensive API's. Something music related would be of interest to me, but I can already get updates on events like concerts (since the monopolies make a fortune selling tickets). I'm not sure what could be useful.

We can use your help mapping all the businesses of the world!

https://www.alltheplaces.xyz/

Re: Congrats! Web scraping is legal! (US precedent)

#25

Post by fludlight »

This only affects the ninth circuit—which includes the tech hubs San Francisco, Seattle, LA, and Portland. It would only apply to the rest of the country if the Supreme Court affirmed it. Even then, a well-funded company or zealous prosecutor could say that it doesn’t apply in your case because of some technicality. In that case you would need hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars and a few years to litigate the issue with no guarantee of the outcome.

Re: Congrats! Web scraping is legal! (US precedent)

#26

Post by yodon »

kabacha wrote: post #11

The toxicity towards web-scraping is really what makes me lose hope in the current web. People want their data to be public and all of the benefits that comes with public data but then they want to chose who gets to see it - it's a complete and utter paradox. This precedent doesn't really mean much but is definitely step in the right direction.

> People want their data to be public

People don't want their data to be public. People want other people's data to be public. One's own data everyone thinks should be private and tightly controlled. This applies to people and businesses equally.

Re: Congrats! Web scraping is legal! (US precedent)

#27

Post by ramblerman »

brink wrote: post #19
kabacha wrote: post #11

The toxicity towards web-scraping is really what makes me lose hope in the current web. People want their data to be public and all of the benefits that comes with public data but then they want to chose who gets to see it - it's a complete and utter paradox. This precedent doesn't really mean much but is definitely step in the right direction.

I think you mean contradiction, not paradox.

Not really. Both are correct, and paradox fits better in OPs context,

paradox: a statement or proposition that seems self-contradictory or absurd but in reality expresses a possible truth.

Re: Congrats! Web scraping is legal! (US precedent)

#29

Post by Wowfunhappy »

kabacha wrote: post #11

The toxicity towards web-scraping is really what makes me lose hope in the current web. People want their data to be public and all of the benefits that comes with public data but then they want to chose who gets to see it - it's a complete and utter paradox. This precedent doesn't really mean much but is definitely step in the right direction.

I want web scraping to be legal—but, is it really contradictory to say "I want this data to be accessible to real humans only"?

Any person can post on Hacker News. However, if someone made a bot to post to Hacker News, I think most of us would be pretty upset.

Re: Congrats! Web scraping is legal! (US precedent)

#30

Post by foxx-boxx »

brink wrote: post #19
kabacha wrote: post #11

The toxicity towards web-scraping is really what makes me lose hope in the current web. People want their data to be public and all of the benefits that comes with public data but then they want to chose who gets to see it - it's a complete and utter paradox. This precedent doesn't really mean much but is definitely step in the right direction.

I think you mean contradiction, not paradox.

Probably he or she was black listed on Facebook
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