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I find this argument to be a poor fit for the actual situation. The person that owns a coffee shop needs to let people physically enter their coffee shop in ord

I find this argument to be a poor fit for the actual situation. The person that owns a coffee shop needs to let people physically enter their coffee shop in order to purchase coffee, snacks, etc. LinkedIn has no such requirement, they can easily require people establish and log into registered accounts in order to access their data. As you have said, their servers are their property and they have the ability to block access for anyone that they do not wish to serve. This is entirely different. LinkedIn wants to make the data available on the public internet... Except sometimes. They can't figure out a technical solution so they are pushing for a legal solution. If you'd like to try to further your coffee shop argument, this seems more like a coffee shop giving away free coffee with a notice letting customers know that there's a limit of three free coffees per person and then being shocked when some customers take four or five. Or all of them.

deleted 9y ago
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huebnerob 9y ago
1. If a business offers me one product for free and I take two, that's theft, plain and simple. I'm not sure what your analogy was meant to prove but I think it actually makes a stronger case for the counterpoint to your argument. 2. LinkedIn has every right to define what the use policy is for information it makes available publicly through its own product. In this case, the policy was violated, and the violator was notified through appropriate channels that they were in violation. They continued to access LinkedIn and violate the policy, which is illegal. The critical distinction is that what they were doing only became illegal when LinkedIn notified them that they were in violation of the policy, no longer welcome on the site, and they continued to do what they were doing anyway.
- cmiles74 9y ago
  If you leave things out in an open, public space without any access controls, those things are likely to be taken. A note that says "please don't take this" isn't going to change anything and I find it unlikely that you could pursue anyone legally on the grounds of "but I left a note". LinkedIn has every right to define their use policy through technical means. If they want to make it publicly available, then they understand part of that public is their competitors. In my opinion, website operators should not get any legal protections for things they can easily do themselves through readily available technical means. I wholeheartedly disagree that LinkedIn has any right to define the use policy for data it makes publicly available. A wide variety of data is available to the public and you can't simply sue people who use that data in a way that you dislike. If you would like to keep that data private then do so.

deleted 9y ago

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huebnerob 9y ago

1. If a business offers me one product for free and I take two, that's theft, plain and simple. I'm not sure what your analogy was meant to prove but I think it actually makes a stronger case for the counterpoint to your argument. 2. LinkedIn has every right to define what the use policy is for information it makes available publicly through its own product. In this case, the policy was violated, and the violator was notified through appropriate channels that they were in violation. They continued to access LinkedIn and violate the policy, which is illegal. The critical distinction is that what they were doing only became illegal when LinkedIn notified them that they were in violation of the policy, no longer welcome on the site, and they continued to do what they were doing anyway.

cmiles74 9y ago
If you leave things out in an open, public space without any access controls, those things are likely to be taken. A note that says "please don't take this" isn't going to change anything and I find it unlikely that you could pursue anyone legally on the grounds of "but I left a note". LinkedIn has every right to define their use policy through technical means. If they want to make it publicly available, then they understand part of that public is their competitors. In my opinion, website operators should not get any legal protections for things they can easily do themselves through readily available technical means. I wholeheartedly disagree that LinkedIn has any right to define the use policy for data it makes publicly available. A wide variety of data is available to the public and you can't simply sue people who use that data in a way that you dislike. If you would like to keep that data private then do so.