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> no one has made that argument, so I'm not sure why you feel the need to rebut it. The title is "It’s illegal to scrape our website without permission". So t

> no one has made that argument, so I'm not sure why you feel the need to rebut it. The title is "It’s illegal to scrape our website without permission". So that argument is implied in the headline, at least. As for Orin Kerr, I'm sure he'd agree that there are private parts of the internet (my payment information being an obvious example). Just because something is deployed to the internet doesn't mean it is "published to the world" as he claims.

derefr 9y ago
"Published to the world" is a bit off; I'd compare it more to recording telephone conversations with corporations' public service numbers. They always tell you that you are being recorded (for "training and quality purposes") so they give up their right to not be recorded in turn. If a company paid a million people to call into an information service hotline and each request one fact from it—and then the company recorded and compiled the answers into their own database to start their own information service—is that illegal?
- KekDemaga 9y ago
  >If a company paid a million people to call into an information service hotline and each request one fact from it—and then the company recorded and compiled the answers into their own database to start their own information service—is that illegal? I sure hope not. From there it doesn't seem to far off to claim that "He was really only ever showing up for work to learn some skills and how he's using those skills to run his own business!" sort of lawsuits. If you compile difficult to find but freely available information into a more easy to digest format I see that as virtually always a net positive.
__jal 9y ago
That is not Kerr's argument. A key point (which he has developed to a very detailed degree, as both a law professor and actively defending people, such as Weev) is the access controls in place. He's not just bloviating; before you disagree with him, reviewing his arguments is worthwhile. (I do disagree with him in part, and agree with his reasoning but don't like the outcomes in part, but in any case, he's a pretty accomplished lawyer, and I'm not any kind of lawyer, so there's that.)
lgas 9y ago
I don't see anything that connects the title (written by LinkedIn) to the motivation of the people that are scraping it (not LinkedIn). Everyone that scrapes LinkedIn (or anywhere else) either knows that they are doing it against LinkedIn's wishes or doesn't care.

derefr 9y ago

"Published to the world" is a bit off; I'd compare it more to recording telephone conversations with corporations' public service numbers. They always tell you that you are being recorded (for "training and quality purposes") so they give up their right to not be recorded in turn. If a company paid a million people to call into an information service hotline and each request one fact from it—and then the company recorded and compiled the answers into their own database to start their own information service—is that illegal?

KekDemaga 9y ago
>If a company paid a million people to call into an information service hotline and each request one fact from it—and then the company recorded and compiled the answers into their own database to start their own information service—is that illegal? I sure hope not. From there it doesn't seem to far off to claim that "He was really only ever showing up for work to learn some skills and how he's using those skills to run his own business!" sort of lawsuits. If you compile difficult to find but freely available information into a more easy to digest format I see that as virtually always a net positive.

__jal 9y ago

That is not Kerr's argument. A key point (which he has developed to a very detailed degree, as both a law professor and actively defending people, such as Weev) is the access controls in place. He's not just bloviating; before you disagree with him, reviewing his arguments is worthwhile. (I do disagree with him in part, and agree with his reasoning but don't like the outcomes in part, but in any case, he's a pretty accomplished lawyer, and I'm not any kind of lawyer, so there's that.)

lgas 9y ago

I don't see anything that connects the title (written by LinkedIn) to the motivation of the people that are scraping it (not LinkedIn). Everyone that scrapes LinkedIn (or anywhere else) either knows that they are doing it against LinkedIn's wishes or doesn't care.