Individuals are free, in their research, to access sources of information that are available to all other market participants, even if that information is usual

Individuals are free, in their research, to access sources of information that are available to all other market participants, even if that information is usually out of reach for most people. The canonical example is using satellite photos of parking lots to predict earnings calls, i.e. https://newsroom.haas.berkeley.edu/magazine/summer-2019/stock-trading-from-space/ https://newsroom.haas.berkeley.edu/magazine/summer-2019/stoc... . It's still legal because hypothetically anybody could do it. What's not legal is "doing research" by talking to insiders to get information that is not public.