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It looks more like an ethical argument than a legal one. I don't understand how this data would be protected under US law. Can someone explain if you think othe

It looks more like an ethical argument than a legal one. I don't understand how this data would be protected under US law. Can someone explain if you think otherwise? Is the issue that the data was scraped? Or is the issue Google appropriated the scraped data for use in their search results? From my perspective it just looks like a bad business model: spend a lot of time and effort estimating net worth, and then publish it on the open web. Publicly available data can be freely and legally scraped (and I wouldn't want it any other way): https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/09/victory-ruling-hiq-v-linkedin-protects-scraping-public-data https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/09/victory-ruling-hiq-v-l...

philprx 6y ago
It's the business model of many online blogs and sites, and get payment through ads. Of course it's not a really strong model now that ads revenue are going down. It was a strong one not so long ago. Now it's clearly IPR theft, present it how you like, but theft is theft. Plus it's not really smart from Google given their prior contact and request to this company on APIs and providing it for free. Now the real question: Is Google going to go away with it blaming it on "rogue employee" and continuing on dispensing huge sum of cash and free advisory to gov and internet NGOs in their constant advocacy effort...
- errantmind 6y ago
  >> Now it's clearly IPR theft, present it how you like, but theft is theft. I don't quite see the legal basis for it being theft. Can you explain?
  - philprx 6y ago
    IANAL: 1. Google doesn't show in-line'd data box with Net worth 2. Google asks site (CNW) for access, is denied. 3. Google then shows site's data in data box (with CNW site proof of theft with canary tokens being the fake celebrity's net worth) that are now presented as Google's data (no source or fake source), without license from original site. If that isn't theft of data, what is it? From the PDFs, there is no license for free re-use ;-) While I'm all-in for freedom of information and open source documentation license or open data licenses, I fully understand the need of businesses to protect their intellectual property and rights.
    - teddyh 6y ago
      You keep calling it “theft”. It is obviously not literally theft, since no physical object has been taken. The only thing you could possibly mean is “copyright infringement” (which is commonly called theft in imprecise and inflammatory language), but copyright does not apply to a simple fact like a dollar amount, no matter how much research lies behind it. You might be of the opinion that it should, but that is a different argument, which you did not make.
      - philprx 6y ago
        Ok, sorry sir ;-) Copyright infringement. What's the difference really here? IANAL means this precisely (and on a side note, I'm here for open exchange and debate, not for claiming to be right ;-) Interestingly, depending on jurisdictions, there are places on the globe (EU, FR) where I think the terminology is theft not copyright infringement ("theft of database"), even if it does not apply to this US National dispute. Now let's see how this goes with the US gov.
        thedevilslawyer 6y ago
        There is a significant difference, and an entire activism movement in ensuring this is recognized. Thanks for calling out (and I hope realizing) the difference.
        teddyh 6y ago
        > Copyright infringement. What's the difference really here? Upthread, the user “errantmind” asked you to provide your legal basis for it being “theft”. It’s obviously not legally speaking theft, since no physical object has been taken. But let’s be a bit charitable and assume that you meant “copyright infringement” instead. However, you have not made the case for it being copyright infringement either, since Google’s copying (which you do describe in detail) did not, AFAIK, infringe copyright (at least in the US, which is where the investigation referred to in the document is being held). If you want to argue that what Google did is illegal, then please specify what actual law was broken. On the other hand, if you instead want to argue that what Google did should be illegal, then please, go ahead and present your case, but this was not the original topic.
mike_d 6y ago
This has been settled case law for decades thanks to sports almanacs. Facts (like someones net worth) cannot be copyrighted. However a compilation of facts can be. If CNW had published a book, Google purchased it off of Amazon, and paid an intern to retype it in to fact boxes - that is clear copyright violation. The fact that Google bought the data from a third party data broker who scraped CNW does not absolve them of liability in my mind.
- errantmind 6y ago
  What you are saying about compilations makes sense, but was it a compilation in that sense? My interpretation was it was just a bunch of data spread over public pages on a website. It seems like if that constitutes a compilation, it would expand copyright by a lot
- JimDabell 6y ago
  > Facts (like someones net worth) cannot be copyrighted. However a compilation of facts can be. It’s my understanding that this ceased to be true in the USA in 1991 and that a minimal degree of creativity is required [0]. Other countries have started following suit more recently. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feist_Publications,_Inc.,_v._Rural_Telephone_Service_Co https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feist_Publications,_Inc.,_v._R....
  - arcticfox 6y ago
    IMO there's a huge difference between a list of names and numbers generated by a research team estimating someone's net worth, and a phone book. One is a list of informed estimates, the other is a list of (essentially) facts. Informed guesses are IMO essentially much longer pieces of creative content, just condensed into a number.
- piscisaureus 6y ago
  > Facts (like someones net worth) cannot be copyrighted. However a compilation of facts can be. ... in the US. In the EU and UK there is separate copyright-like legislation that covers this, so-called "database rights". https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Database_right https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Database_right
bachmeier 6y ago
> It looks more like an ethical argument than a legal one. I don't understand how this data would be protected under US law. Can someone explain if you think otherwise? That question kind of misses the point. This was a US House hearing. The right question, in the context of such a hearing, is whether it should be legal. The other thing to keep in mind is that this was the action of a company with considerable market power. There's not much that's off limits in principle once it turns into an antitrust case. Having said that: > it just looks like a bad business model seems about right to me. No other companies had done this, and that might be because of the difficulty of monetizing numbers. Few people are going to pay for the information, but it's ultimately just a number. Consumers are better off the faster they get the number they're looking for.
mthoms 6y ago
The case you referenced says scraping is legal. It does not say re-publishing the scraped data is legal. >I don't understand how this data would be protected under US law. Can someone explain if you think otherwise? For something to be copyright-able it needs to have an element of creativity. That's why you can't copyright facts. Arguably, the net worth estimates require a degree of creativity to come up with. They aren't "facts", they are estimations based on research.
arh68 6y ago
It is not public nor commodity information. > We generated content that could not be found anywhere else on the web and that had never existed previously in response to demand in the marketplace. The information we produce to this day is unique. It is not commodity information like the height of a famous building or the time of day. To call it the open web makes it sound like the wild west, and it's not: are Google SERPs on the open web? Can I copy the search results for 1000 words and paste it on my website? No.

philprx 6y ago

It's the business model of many online blogs and sites, and get payment through ads. Of course it's not a really strong model now that ads revenue are going down. It was a strong one not so long ago. Now it's clearly IPR theft, present it how you like, but theft is theft. Plus it's not really smart from Google given their prior contact and request to this company on APIs and providing it for free. Now the real question: Is Google going to go away with it blaming it on "rogue employee" and continuing on dispensing huge sum of cash and free advisory to gov and internet NGOs in their constant advocacy effort...

errantmind 6y ago
>> Now it's clearly IPR theft, present it how you like, but theft is theft. I don't quite see the legal basis for it being theft. Can you explain?
- philprx 6y ago
  IANAL: 1. Google doesn't show in-line'd data box with Net worth 2. Google asks site (CNW) for access, is denied. 3. Google then shows site's data in data box (with CNW site proof of theft with canary tokens being the fake celebrity's net worth) that are now presented as Google's data (no source or fake source), without license from original site. If that isn't theft of data, what is it? From the PDFs, there is no license for free re-use ;-) While I'm all-in for freedom of information and open source documentation license or open data licenses, I fully understand the need of businesses to protect their intellectual property and rights.
  - teddyh 6y ago
    You keep calling it “theft”. It is obviously not literally theft, since no physical object has been taken. The only thing you could possibly mean is “copyright infringement” (which is commonly called theft in imprecise and inflammatory language), but copyright does not apply to a simple fact like a dollar amount, no matter how much research lies behind it. You might be of the opinion that it should, but that is a different argument, which you did not make.
    - philprx 6y ago
      Ok, sorry sir ;-) Copyright infringement. What's the difference really here? IANAL means this precisely (and on a side note, I'm here for open exchange and debate, not for claiming to be right ;-) Interestingly, depending on jurisdictions, there are places on the globe (EU, FR) where I think the terminology is theft not copyright infringement ("theft of database"), even if it does not apply to this US National dispute. Now let's see how this goes with the US gov.
      - thedevilslawyer 6y ago
        There is a significant difference, and an entire activism movement in ensuring this is recognized. Thanks for calling out (and I hope realizing) the difference.
      - teddyh 6y ago
        > Copyright infringement. What's the difference really here? Upthread, the user “errantmind” asked you to provide your legal basis for it being “theft”. It’s obviously not legally speaking theft, since no physical object has been taken. But let’s be a bit charitable and assume that you meant “copyright infringement” instead. However, you have not made the case for it being copyright infringement either, since Google’s copying (which you do describe in detail) did not, AFAIK, infringe copyright (at least in the US, which is where the investigation referred to in the document is being held). If you want to argue that what Google did is illegal, then please specify what actual law was broken. On the other hand, if you instead want to argue that what Google did should be illegal, then please, go ahead and present your case, but this was not the original topic.

mike_d 6y ago

This has been settled case law for decades thanks to sports almanacs. Facts (like someones net worth) cannot be copyrighted. However a compilation of facts can be. If CNW had published a book, Google purchased it off of Amazon, and paid an intern to retype it in to fact boxes - that is clear copyright violation. The fact that Google bought the data from a third party data broker who scraped CNW does not absolve them of liability in my mind.

errantmind 6y ago
What you are saying about compilations makes sense, but was it a compilation in that sense? My interpretation was it was just a bunch of data spread over public pages on a website. It seems like if that constitutes a compilation, it would expand copyright by a lot
JimDabell 6y ago
> Facts (like someones net worth) cannot be copyrighted. However a compilation of facts can be. It’s my understanding that this ceased to be true in the USA in 1991 and that a minimal degree of creativity is required [0]. Other countries have started following suit more recently. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feist_Publications,_Inc.,_v._Rural_Telephone_Service_Co https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feist_Publications,_Inc.,_v._R....
- arcticfox 6y ago
  IMO there's a huge difference between a list of names and numbers generated by a research team estimating someone's net worth, and a phone book. One is a list of informed estimates, the other is a list of (essentially) facts. Informed guesses are IMO essentially much longer pieces of creative content, just condensed into a number.
piscisaureus 6y ago
> Facts (like someones net worth) cannot be copyrighted. However a compilation of facts can be. ... in the US. In the EU and UK there is separate copyright-like legislation that covers this, so-called "database rights". https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Database_right https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Database_right

bachmeier 6y ago

> It looks more like an ethical argument than a legal one. I don't understand how this data would be protected under US law. Can someone explain if you think otherwise? That question kind of misses the point. This was a US House hearing. The right question, in the context of such a hearing, is whether it should be legal. The other thing to keep in mind is that this was the action of a company with considerable market power. There's not much that's off limits in principle once it turns into an antitrust case. Having said that: > it just looks like a bad business model seems about right to me. No other companies had done this, and that might be because of the difficulty of monetizing numbers. Few people are going to pay for the information, but it's ultimately just a number. Consumers are better off the faster they get the number they're looking for.

mthoms 6y ago

The case you referenced says scraping is legal. It does not say re-publishing the scraped data is legal. >I don't understand how this data would be protected under US law. Can someone explain if you think otherwise? For something to be copyright-able it needs to have an element of creativity. That's why you can't copyright facts. Arguably, the net worth estimates require a degree of creativity to come up with. They aren't "facts", they are estimations based on research.

arh68 6y ago

It is not public nor commodity information. > We generated content that could not be found anywhere else on the web and that had never existed previously in response to demand in the marketplace. The information we produce to this day is unique. It is not commodity information like the height of a famous building or the time of day. To call it the open web makes it sound like the wild west, and it's not: are Google SERPs on the open web? Can I copy the search results for 1000 words and paste it on my website? No.