4 ms·

But now we come full circle: The underlying data: not proprietary (do you really think membership in the DC Bar, of all things, is "proprietary"?). The presen

by frig 18y ago

But now we come full circle: The underlying data: not proprietary (do you really think membership in the DC Bar, of all things, is "proprietary"?). The presentation of said data on the DC Bar website: presentation is proprietary, data is still not. But additionally: DC Bar says "if you get this information via this venue, then you're accepting our terms of use which say you can't use the information obtained via this venue to, eg, compile an AVVO-like site." So on the face of it: only if Avvo is crazy-stupid will Avvo get burned here: the only scenarios in which Avvo gets burned are somewhere between (a) the DC Bar can show suspicious access patterns that either come from Avvo or come at suspicious times vis-a-vis Avvo's updates (b) Avvo doesn't have any internal documentation demonstrating from whence they obtained the information that's ticking off the DC Bar (ie: we paid some dudes to re-type the relevant phonebook sections, or paid some dudes to re-type the printed member's directory, etc.) So the whole thing is pretty silly (at least until more facts emerge). Edit: Because without some mix of (a) and (b), the DC Bar is ultimately going to have to claim something like "there's no possible way they could have gotten that information besides misusing our site", which I doubt would play well.

brandnewlow 18y ago
Whether or not the underlying data is proprietary is a matter for the courts to decide. One side says it is, the other says it's not. As for whether or not that argument would play well, I don't know, I'm not a lawyer. I merely want to point out that the DC bar is trying to make this into a "they're stealing our data" case while the Avvo guys are trying to make this into a "they're just being lame" case.
- frig 18y ago
  I've done some digging, this is actually an interesting case. Here's from a few weeks back: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/feb/17/dc-bar-fights-consumer-web-site/ http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/feb/17/dc-bar-fight... It's worth reading for details. Bystander verdict: - there's almost no conceivable way the data in question is proprietary (beneficiary: avvo) - it's established avvo got their info by scraping the dc bar's website (beneficiary: dc bar) - after seeing that avvo was scraping them, a terms of service got put up prohibiting said scraping, but avvo didn't quit scraping until receiving a cease-and-desist (beneficiary: dc bar) But summary-for-the-lazy is almost unchanged: - underlying data not proprietary (essentially: public records) - avvo obtained public records from a source that didn't want avvo using them the way avvo did (point of fact now) Even the quotes from the DC Bar support this: taking this information without authorization If it was "their" information 'this' would -> 'our' for more impact; prepared quotes tend to be vetted. No predictions how this turns out.
  - brandnewlow 18y ago
    My personal hope is that Avvo loses, not because I think the bar is great, but because I'm sick of seeing startups scrape their way to victory and that seems like their business plan. I'm all for opening up information about lawyers, but I'm not for doing it by stealing data someone else paid to gather.
    - justinweiss 18y ago
      (Full disclosure -- I work at Avvo. Not a lawyer, but I do work with a lot of them.) In this case, it's the other way around -- the DC lawyers must register with (and pay) the bar association in order to be allowed to practice in the district. The registration and disciplinary information is public data, but the bar association is usually the only organization that actually holds the data (since they were the ones who collected it in the first place). So, in many cases, including this one, the only way to get this public information is by going through the bar. We went through something similar about a year ago in New Jersey. The AP article has fallen into the archives, but the Seattle PI wrote a blog post about it: http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/venture/archives/135524.asp http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/venture/archives/135524.a...
      - brandnewlow 18y ago
        Hi there. Welcome to the discussion. Question: Why did Avvo scrape the DC bar's web site after the TOS was changed to prohibit them from doing it?
        justinweiss 18y ago
        I'm the wrong person to ask about it -- I didn't work on either the business or technical side of bar data collection, so I don't know exactly how often or when or how it was done. I do know that if the DC bar provided this public data to people and companies directly, like most of the other other state bars have, this wouldn't be an issue. Unfortunately, the only provider of the data is the bar's own website, so retrieving the data directly from the site is the only real option. Terms of use may or may not change whether that's ok, but we'll have to wait and see what happens.

by frig 18y ago

brandnewlow 18y ago

Whether or not the underlying data is proprietary is a matter for the courts to decide. One side says it is, the other says it's not. As for whether or not that argument would play well, I don't know, I'm not a lawyer. I merely want to point out that the DC bar is trying to make this into a "they're stealing our data" case while the Avvo guys are trying to make this into a "they're just being lame" case.

frig 18y ago
I've done some digging, this is actually an interesting case. Here's from a few weeks back: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/feb/17/dc-bar-fights-consumer-web-site/ http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/feb/17/dc-bar-fight... It's worth reading for details. Bystander verdict: - there's almost no conceivable way the data in question is proprietary (beneficiary: avvo) - it's established avvo got their info by scraping the dc bar's website (beneficiary: dc bar) - after seeing that avvo was scraping them, a terms of service got put up prohibiting said scraping, but avvo didn't quit scraping until receiving a cease-and-desist (beneficiary: dc bar) But summary-for-the-lazy is almost unchanged: - underlying data not proprietary (essentially: public records) - avvo obtained public records from a source that didn't want avvo using them the way avvo did (point of fact now) Even the quotes from the DC Bar support this: taking this information without authorization If it was "their" information 'this' would -> 'our' for more impact; prepared quotes tend to be vetted. No predictions how this turns out.
- brandnewlow 18y ago
  My personal hope is that Avvo loses, not because I think the bar is great, but because I'm sick of seeing startups scrape their way to victory and that seems like their business plan. I'm all for opening up information about lawyers, but I'm not for doing it by stealing data someone else paid to gather.
  - justinweiss 18y ago
    (Full disclosure -- I work at Avvo. Not a lawyer, but I do work with a lot of them.) In this case, it's the other way around -- the DC lawyers must register with (and pay) the bar association in order to be allowed to practice in the district. The registration and disciplinary information is public data, but the bar association is usually the only organization that actually holds the data (since they were the ones who collected it in the first place). So, in many cases, including this one, the only way to get this public information is by going through the bar. We went through something similar about a year ago in New Jersey. The AP article has fallen into the archives, but the Seattle PI wrote a blog post about it: http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/venture/archives/135524.asp http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/venture/archives/135524.a...
    - brandnewlow 18y ago
      Hi there. Welcome to the discussion. Question: Why did Avvo scrape the DC bar's web site after the TOS was changed to prohibit them from doing it?
      - justinweiss 18y ago
        I'm the wrong person to ask about it -- I didn't work on either the business or technical side of bar data collection, so I don't know exactly how often or when or how it was done. I do know that if the DC bar provided this public data to people and companies directly, like most of the other other state bars have, this wouldn't be an issue. Unfortunately, the only provider of the data is the bar's own website, so retrieving the data directly from the site is the only real option. Terms of use may or may not change whether that's ok, but we'll have to wait and see what happens.