3 ms·

"We've tried scraping ourselves in the past (yes, it's perfectly legal)," Is scraping indeed "perfectly legal"?

robryan 17y ago
They are only keeping a small amount of information (name, type of store, location ect) which links back to the original site I'd imagine? In that sense it is legal.
wglb 17y ago
So long as it is presented to your web browser, you can also read it with a spider (wget, etc). However, your question suggests that what you do with the data might fall under some sort of copyright if you are going to republish it. I have a book "Spidering Hacks" that discusses this, but I am unable to locate my copy. One additional point that the book makes is that one should keep in mind is your robot showing up in the logs of places you search. You don't want to overload sites, or get on the wrong section of the site admin's radar.
ntoshev 17y ago
I don't know if it's legal, but if they obey robots.txt the publisher shouldn't complain.
- coderdude 17y ago
  After having many of my blog posts ripped off by spam artists, I'm inclined to feel otherwise. Robots.txt isn't an effective weapon in the "war on copyright infringement."
roc 17y ago
Yes. Facts can't be legally protected. A compilation is protected only as a completed work. You can't, for example, photocopy the yellow pages and resell it. But you could copy each and every phone number from the yellow pages and use those numbers in your competing directory.
- imp 17y ago
  Is that true in all cases? There's dispute about who owns sports statistics because the leagues are trying to claim they have licensing rights to them.
  - coderdude 17y ago
    These would be the same people that claim to have rights over who can let who watch their broadcasts, no? I don't see how anyone can have licensing rights to stats regarding events.
Ardit20 17y ago
"For example, a recipe is a process, and not copyrightable, but the words used to describe it are; see Publications International v Meredith Corp. (1996).[2] Therefore, you can rewrite a recipe in your own words and publish it without infringing copyrights. But if you rewrote every recipe from a particular cookbook, you might still be found to have infringed the author's copyright in the choice of recipes and their "coordination" and "presentation", even if you used different words" So, facts are not copyrighted, but the way facts are presented are copyrighted. I still find it hard to believe that what this person had been doing is legal. What is the difference between the scraping he does and copying the phone directory and selling it on. In fact that is not a fair comparision since the wikepidia article suggests that the fone directory was legaly obliged to list these businesses while an individual or google and yahoo are not legaly obliged to enter every business in their directory. In this regard then the choice of information that these directories have made makes their directories copyrighted perhaps.

They are only keeping a small amount of information (name, type of store, location ect) which links back to the original site I'd imagine? In that sense it is legal.

wglb 17y ago

So long as it is presented to your web browser, you can also read it with a spider (wget, etc). However, your question suggests that what you do with the data might fall under some sort of copyright if you are going to republish it. I have a book "Spidering Hacks" that discusses this, but I am unable to locate my copy. One additional point that the book makes is that one should keep in mind is your robot showing up in the logs of places you search. You don't want to overload sites, or get on the wrong section of the site admin's radar.

ntoshev 17y ago

I don't know if it's legal, but if they obey robots.txt the publisher shouldn't complain.

coderdude 17y ago
After having many of my blog posts ripped off by spam artists, I'm inclined to feel otherwise. Robots.txt isn't an effective weapon in the "war on copyright infringement."

roc 17y ago

Yes. Facts can't be legally protected. A compilation is protected only as a completed work. You can't, for example, photocopy the yellow pages and resell it. But you could copy each and every phone number from the yellow pages and use those numbers in your competing directory.

imp 17y ago
Is that true in all cases? There's dispute about who owns sports statistics because the leagues are trying to claim they have licensing rights to them.
- coderdude 17y ago
  These would be the same people that claim to have rights over who can let who watch their broadcasts, no? I don't see how anyone can have licensing rights to stats regarding events.

Ardit20 17y ago

"For example, a recipe is a process, and not copyrightable, but the words used to describe it are; see Publications International v Meredith Corp. (1996).[2] Therefore, you can rewrite a recipe in your own words and publish it without infringing copyrights. But if you rewrote every recipe from a particular cookbook, you might still be found to have infringed the author's copyright in the choice of recipes and their "coordination" and "presentation", even if you used different words" So, facts are not copyrighted, but the way facts are presented are copyrighted. I still find it hard to believe that what this person had been doing is legal. What is the difference between the scraping he does and copying the phone directory and selling it on. In fact that is not a fair comparision since the wikepidia article suggests that the fone directory was legaly obliged to list these businesses while an individual or google and yahoo are not legaly obliged to enter every business in their directory. In this regard then the choice of information that these directories have made makes their directories copyrighted perhaps.