Great, finally. Don’t pretend the information is public and then block access to it.
It’s either private and inaccessible, or it’s free for all to use.
9th Circuit holds that scraping a public website does not violate the CFAA [pdf]
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Re: 9th Circuit holds that scraping a public website does not violate the CFAA [pdf]
#112This is actually bad, would not it be better if sites would be allowed to block crawlers? I don't see what is the legal basis for forbidding to ban scrapers. Is there a law that a site must serve pages for anyone?
Because they are exposing their website to the general public. If you don't want the public to have access and be able to scrap it don't make it public facing.
Re: 9th Circuit holds that scraping a public website does not violate the CFAA [pdf]
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
I feel like this is a really common theme I've seen several times. Something like "Music Lyric site X sues Google for embedding their lyrics in the results directly" which is funny because site X got the lyrics by scraping them from other sites. Plus Google only exists from scraping content, but I believe their TOS includes "don't scrape our content". I find it really funny that the scrapers are battling scrapers - l…
Regardless, there is legitimate value in the collection, cleaning, interlinking, and presentation of existing data. How that is interpreted by the law is one thing but merely because the data came from a variety of other public/private sources doesn't mean it derived all of its value externally.
For sure, but they shouldn't be hypocritical about it. If they don't consider themselves content parasites, they shouldn't consider people scraping their site to be content parasites, either. (Some sites really are just parasites, though.)
Re: 9th Circuit holds that scraping a public website does not violate the CFAA [pdf]
#114What if hiQ were to then go and sell the information that's been scraped from public profiles? Would this be considered illegal?
I would assume the data would still be covered by copyright meaning they could use that data and maybe create and sell derivative works, but not just scrape and publish.
Pictures and such are covered by copyright, but mere facts are not (at least in the US): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feist_Publications,_Inc.,_v._R....
Re: 9th Circuit holds that scraping a public website does not violate the CFAA [pdf]
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, setting up so-called Barriers to Entry[0] is econ 101. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barriers_to_entry
Creating barriers to entry is an antisocial tactic that harms consumers and society at large. It is the responsibility of moral consumers to avoid spending their money with companies that use these regressive tactics.
One could argue that it's immoral to respond to a comment about a topic when one hasn't read the link in that comment.
Re: 9th Circuit holds that scraping a public website does not violate the CFAA [pdf]
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, setting up so-called Barriers to Entry[0] is econ 101. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barriers_to_entry
Creating barriers to entry is an antisocial tactic that harms consumers and society at large. It is the responsibility of moral consumers to avoid spending their money with companies that use these regressive tactics.
I think it’s important to distinguish types of barriers to entry. Some are “real” while others are “artificial”. For example, a real barrier to entry would be institutional knowledge about an industry while an artificial one would be an arbitrary TOS clause.
Re: 9th Circuit holds that scraping a public website does not violate the CFAA [pdf]
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
Leaving the injunction in place is insane and a huge oversight. It amounts to making web pages carriers that cannot select who they serve. It should have said only that there is nothing judicially wrong with scraping but also not limited the rights of a service.
It's limited to public pages. They can still discriminate whom they serve, with logins or something, but they can't limit your ability to access their page in a way that you prefer.
Of course they can. The question is whether they can do so legally and, if not, based on what laws.
Re: 9th Circuit holds that scraping a public website does not violate the CFAA [pdf]
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lol really? I'm not "on" your site when I browse there. I asked your server to send me some data and it did so. Its real life equivalent to social engineering. Its so far not illegal for me to ask you things and for you to disclose them to me even if you weren't supposed to. I'm allowed to lie to you even to persuade you to tell me things.
You didn't "ask my server". You used a tool to extract data from my server. It's more akin to you standing just outside my property border and using a fishing pole to pull fish from a pond that is inside my property border. You're still trespassing even if your two feet aren't physically on my land. The common legal argument (see the second link in my above comment) is that accessing a web server actually does consti…
> You didn't "ask my server". You used a tool to extract data from my server.
The tool asked the server. The server replied.
> It's more akin to you standing just outside my property border and using a fishing pole to pull fish
Bullshit. Using HTTP to access public information is akin to standing outside your business and writing down the phone number in the banner. Or even reading the "No trespassing" sign.
As long as you're not violating copyright, NDAs or EULAs (and that's debatable) there should be nothing wrong with reading information that you were authorized to view.
Re: 9th Circuit holds that scraping a public website does not violate the CFAA [pdf]
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's more like a store putting up a no shoes no shirt no service sign and then trying to sue for trespass when a beachgoer comes in to shop anyway. LinkedIn is a business with publicly accessible assets they want to be frequented, but they want to control how you do that. However they are finding the laws regulating the rights people have in respect to frequenting places open to the public apply.
jep. it's more like having a public store and only letting some people into it. like only males, no womans. because they clearly allowed the google bot.
More like only letting humans into it, and only one type of robot, the googlebot. Then this company is ignoring the posted rules and sending armies of robots into the store to photograph every square inch of the business.
Re: 9th Circuit holds that scraping a public website does not violate the CFAA [pdf]
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have a scraper for a site that used to offer an API for their publicly available site but removed the API with no warning. The info is still available to the general public, but only through their website. I created a scraper for the public page, but shortly after they switched to loading some public information through Javascript so my HTML scraper couldn't see it anymore. I ended up having to write an application…
> There is no reason why your page should refuse to load plain text without Javascript enabled. On a technical level sure. SPA's should pre-render data before sending it to the client. The problem is that's a ton of extra work when the client will have to fetch data anyway - so it's difficult to justify the time to management. EDIT: If their page fetches the data with JS you might actually have an easier time figurin…
I once showed someone how to use dev tools to see an API request a web app makes and how to recreate it with your own code. He’s since done all sorts of “life hack” automations. Love teaching people this stuff!