One of the most dangerous things you can do is rely on non-lawyers for legal advice. Ask an attorney.
Meh, if everyone listened to their lawyer we wouldn't have YouTube or BitTorrent :)
insert JP Morgan quote
Ask HN: Legality of Web Scraping User-Submitted Content?
31–40 of 48 posts
Re: Ask HN: Legality of Web Scraping User-Submitted Content?
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
They are not 'open in the public domain' nor can they be treated as 'public property'. Somebody wrote those menus from scratch and as such they own the copyright. If you wanted to take an excerpt from the menu and comment on it, then that is fair use. When reproducing it in full, they technically can request you remove it, or any of the other avenues for restitution copyright law affords. Most won't because it benefi…
I actually think it may be more of a gray area than you think, read the description of Public domain here: http://www.publicdomainsherpa.com/ - then think about how restaurants use their content when distributing to-go menus, advertising, etc, etc. So, I called my friend who does have a menu service. His lawyer told him that case law may support the content of menus being public domain, but NOT the trademarks (like l…
Where are you getting your information from? Since when do you have to prove damages to uphold copyright law? Have you been paying any attention at all to the RIAA?
Public domain is what it sounds like. Things in the public domain are available for use by anyone for any (legal) purpose. Only once copyright expires (or voluntarily relinquished) does a work enter the public domain. Menus are copyrightable, and automatically granted copyright. Regardless of the "business use", the business owns them and their use.
Who are these lawyers and why are they making such a hash of copyright law? Why are you guys trusting them?
Re: Ask HN: Legality of Web Scraping User-Submitted Content?
#33Re: Ask HN: Legality of Web Scraping User-Submitted Content?
#34Google does it, as do vertical search companies like Indeed and SimplyHired, so it's certainly legal under some conditions. Taking only a snippet and linking back to the source is generally okay (as the original publisher benefits from traffic and SEO juice).
I assume you're talking about Google re-serving cached content. I think Google's defense boils down to "Any site without a properly configured robots.txt file implicitly grants permission to be spidered, cached, and linked to.":
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answe...
I don't know if this "opt-out" strategy has been tested in court, but I wouldn't assume that wholesale copying of user content is analogous to Google's situation unless the users have some similarly accepted way of opting out of the copying.
Re: Ask HN: Legality of Web Scraping User-Submitted Content?
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
I actually think it may be more of a gray area than you think, read the description of Public domain here: http://www.publicdomainsherpa.com/ - then think about how restaurants use their content when distributing to-go menus, advertising, etc, etc. So, I called my friend who does have a menu service. His lawyer told him that case law may support the content of menus being public domain, but NOT the trademarks (like l…
Where are you getting your information from? Since when do you have to prove damages to uphold copyright law? Have you been paying any attention at all to the RIAA? Public domain is what it sounds like. Things in the public domain are available for use by anyone for any (legal) purpose. Only once copyright expires (or voluntarily relinquished) does a work enter the public domain. Menus are copyrightable, and automati…
The RIAA is claiming harm for uncompensated use and distribution of a content they sell.. its completely different.
Did you read the definition of public domain on the link I just sent you? Apparently not. Here you go:
* their copyrights have expired; or * the copyright owner didn’t follow certain required formalities (so they didn’t get a valid copyright); or * the works weren’t eligible for copyright in the first place; or * their creators dedicated them to the public domain.
You still think that the content of restaurant menus is copyrighted without question? Go down the street and let me know where I can find the formal copyright for 'Ben's Kabob's' - or whatever local diner is in your neighborhood. Even something like Chili's could be argued to be public domain because of the way they are already allowing use of their content for marketing purposes.
Who are these lawyers? And, who are the lawyers for the dozens of menus guides I can find on google? Why do all these entrepreneurs 'believe' them that it is a safe venture endeavor? Well, it seems like they are telling a consistent story, there have been zero problems after several years, and overall, its just a question of risk like any other decision you make in your business. Its not a perfect world, and sometimes you just have to take the advice of the best domain experts you can find and move forward to focus on building a profitable enterprise.
Re: Ask HN: Legality of Web Scraping User-Submitted Content?
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
Where are you getting your information from? Since when do you have to prove damages to uphold copyright law? Have you been paying any attention at all to the RIAA? Public domain is what it sounds like. Things in the public domain are available for use by anyone for any (legal) purpose. Only once copyright expires (or voluntarily relinquished) does a work enter the public domain. Menus are copyrightable, and automati…
The RIAA is claiming harm for uncompensated use and distribution of a content they sell.. its completely different. Did you read the definition of public domain on the link I just sent you? Apparently not. Here you go: * their copyrights have expired; or * the copyright owner didn’t follow certain required formalities (so they didn’t get a valid copyright); or * the works weren’t eligible for copyright in the first p…
I did go to the website you linked, and it agreed with everything I'd posted so far.
RIAA does not have proof of loss of damages in a lot of cases. Neither does MPAA. http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/06/mpaa-says-no-pr.htm....
Besides that is irrelevant. What you meant was you need proof if you are suing for damages. You don't need proof of damages if you want someone to stop using your property.
Yes, restaurant menus are still copyrighted without question. Arguing with you about this is getting very tiresome, I suggest you go read the Wikipedia article on copyright as a starting point, or the other article I posted. Trust me, try reproducing the entire Chili's menu and see what happens. It'll be an interested experiment. Their menu is not in the public domain.
I very much doubt most entrepreneurs believe that it is a safe venture. Most people won't fight you on reproducing things if it benefits them, which is why people do it. But in reality the copyright owners are perfectly within their rights to demand a licensing fee or the removal of the property.
Re: Ask HN: Legality of Web Scraping User-Submitted Content?
#37One of the most dangerous things you can do is rely on non-lawyers for legal advice. Ask an attorney.
This should seriously be in the FAQ somewhere - We've seen a lot of it lately, and it's kind of surprising the ideas that some otherwise very bright people have when it comes to the law.
Re: Ask HN: Legality of Web Scraping User-Submitted Content?
#38News is one case, but how about the millions ratings & reviews floating out there on the web? What about this site? http://www.boorah.com/restaurants/CA/palo-alto/the-counter/A...
They scrape, re-present abstracts from and supposedly do calculations based on of the entirety of user-submitted data collected by a number of sites.
Does that violate fair use in anyone's opinion?
Re: Ask HN: Legality of Web Scraping User-Submitted Content?
#39One of the most dangerous things you can do is rely on non-lawyers for legal advice. Ask an attorney.
Attorneys are expensive, Hacker News is free.
Attorneys know what they're talking about where law is concerned, hackers don't but often don't realize that. Asking a hacker for legal advice is just as bad as asking a lawyer for programming advice. Actually it's probably worse, since nobody ever ended up in jail for a coding error.
Re: Ask HN: Legality of Web Scraping User-Submitted Content?
#40One of the most dangerous things you can do is rely on non-lawyers for legal advice. Ask an attorney.
This should seriously be in the FAQ somewhere - We've seen a lot of it lately, and it's kind of surprising the ideas that some otherwise very bright people have when it comes to the law.
Absolutely, it's ridiculous to pose legal questions here. If I were running the place I'd probably remove them. It's actually dangerous to both the poster (whose business could be ruined by misinformation) and those who respond.