5 ms·

Web scraping isn't a crime - the simple act of downloading the data should not be a problem here. (The reuse of the data might be, depending, but we don't have

Web scraping isn't a crime - the simple act of downloading the data should not be a problem here. (The reuse of the data might be, depending, but we don't have that information right now.) This doesn't even rise to the level of what Weev did.

Afforess 12y ago
Scraping isn't a crime, but by the same token, neither is rate limiting and banning ips.
codezero 12y ago
It can be a crime if it is a violation of the site's terms of service and the requests violate the host's robots.txt. I'm not sure whether there is a legal precedent though, in some cases you could call it a denial of service if the requests are not rate limited, and in other cases it might be considered an inappropriate access (see Weev, though he eventually won appeal).
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
  - acrefoot 12y ago
    Actually, Terms of Service violations fall under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, since ToS agreements can lay out under which circumstances that authorization for access to computer systems is given. That sort of obscene generality is the reason for proposals such as Aaron's Law, but to my knowledge there are no such protections today.
    - quesera 12y ago
      Totally correct. Parent comment deleted for lack of usefulness. Thank you for the correction.
    - aidenn0 12y ago
      While what you have stated is certainly the position held by the US AG, I don't believe it's been tested in court yet.
stronglikedan 12y ago
He's just making the point that it's unethical, which it is. Even if it boils down to simple bandwidth theft.
- __david__ 12y ago
  I feel the opposite. I don't think it's unethical, even if it might be illegal. Even calling this "bandwidth theft" is quite the hyperbole—if the server can't handle the bandwidth, then rate limit the requests. I think if you're serving out pages to the public, you don't really get to tell me what kind of browser I'm allowed to download it with. As long as I'm speaking HTTP, it seems fair. Sadly, that law has been slowly creeping against this mentality... Lately I feel like I'm some old internet hippy with these views. On a site called "Hacker News", no less.
  - ibmthrowaway218 12y ago
    > Sadly, that law has been slowly creeping against this mentality... Lately I feel like I'm some old internet hippy with these views. On a site called "Hacker News", no less. I guess it's because everyday more and more people on here are finding themselves on the other side of the fence, i.e. finding that some of their users are ripping off their content/site.
    - ForHackernews 12y ago
      Maybe people need to come up with a better business model for websites than "Put up some 'content' and sell ads next to it." Sell a product or service.
- thaumasiotes 12y ago
  In agreement with my sibling comment: if I ask you politely for some bandwidth, and you give it to me, it's hard to describe that as "bandwidth theft".

Afforess 12y ago

Scraping isn't a crime, but by the same token, neither is rate limiting and banning ips.

codezero 12y ago

It can be a crime if it is a violation of the site's terms of service and the requests violate the host's robots.txt. I'm not sure whether there is a legal precedent though, in some cases you could call it a denial of service if the requests are not rate limited, and in other cases it might be considered an inappropriate access (see Weev, though he eventually won appeal).

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
- acrefoot 12y ago
  Actually, Terms of Service violations fall under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, since ToS agreements can lay out under which circumstances that authorization for access to computer systems is given. That sort of obscene generality is the reason for proposals such as Aaron's Law, but to my knowledge there are no such protections today.
  - quesera 12y ago
    Totally correct. Parent comment deleted for lack of usefulness. Thank you for the correction.
  - aidenn0 12y ago
    While what you have stated is certainly the position held by the US AG, I don't believe it's been tested in court yet.

stronglikedan 12y ago

He's just making the point that it's unethical, which it is. Even if it boils down to simple bandwidth theft.

__david__ 12y ago
I feel the opposite. I don't think it's unethical, even if it might be illegal. Even calling this "bandwidth theft" is quite the hyperbole—if the server can't handle the bandwidth, then rate limit the requests. I think if you're serving out pages to the public, you don't really get to tell me what kind of browser I'm allowed to download it with. As long as I'm speaking HTTP, it seems fair. Sadly, that law has been slowly creeping against this mentality... Lately I feel like I'm some old internet hippy with these views. On a site called "Hacker News", no less.
- ibmthrowaway218 12y ago
  > Sadly, that law has been slowly creeping against this mentality... Lately I feel like I'm some old internet hippy with these views. On a site called "Hacker News", no less. I guess it's because everyday more and more people on here are finding themselves on the other side of the fence, i.e. finding that some of their users are ripping off their content/site.
  - ForHackernews 12y ago
    Maybe people need to come up with a better business model for websites than "Put up some 'content' and sell ads next to it." Sell a product or service.
thaumasiotes 12y ago
In agreement with my sibling comment: if I ask you politely for some bandwidth, and you give it to me, it's hard to describe that as "bandwidth theft".