The legal issues of page scraping are hazy at best. For instance, some could argue that Google's Web search provides a "different interface" to websites, but they are threatened with legal action on a regular basis.
You may want to concern yourself more with the *reliability* of page scraping, as the company could at any moment (intentionally or otherwise) modify the pages in a way that breaks your scraping algorithm. You might also want to stay on good terms with the website maintainers, in which case contacting them first and attempting to establish a working relationship would be advisable. > Not sure it would be worth it to them but I could be wrong. Contact them and find out. Quote your revenue estimates and see if they offer you a more suitable pricing model. For many on-line businesses, the true value of the website is its digital content. As soon as you start scraping (stealing) their site data you are endangering a potential business relationship; however big or small it might be to the other party. On Mon, Jan 11, 2010 at 10:30 AM, PeeDee <[email protected]> wrote: > "If your idea is a good one why not contact the site owner and offer > them a share of sales" > > At the moment they are asking Ł27,000 ( $43,598.36 ) per annum for a > snapshot of the data and more ŁŁŁ for monthly updates. For some reason I > was thinking, on the whole, android apps were lucky to make Ł1000+. > > Not sure it would be worth it to them but I could be wrong. > > > Pd. > > > On 11/01/10 08:09, Al Sutton wrote: >> >> Screen scraping without the site owners permission is pretty much >> universally disliked. Whilst you may find you can justify it legally >> by using the app to download and parse the data (as opposed to using a >> server to redistribute the information), you may find that the site >> owner will occasionally tweak the site just to break your parser. >> >> If your idea is a good one why not contact the site owner and offer >> them a share of sales in return for legitimate use of the data. You >> may find they're interested in having an Android app but just don't >> have the resources available to make one available. >> >> Al. >> >> On 11 Jan, 00:14, PeeDee<[email protected]> wrote: >> >>> >>> Could do with opinions on this. I've done quite a bit of research on >>> the legalities to use web site data via a screen scrape. To my mind I >>> can do this as long as I don't sell the information scraped. So, if I >>> was to sell an app that scraped data based on a users request, would >>> this be seen as "normal use". Basically, all I believe I am doing is >>> providing a different interface. Am I right in thinking its the end >>> users responsibility to request formal written permission if they are >>> going to use the information for things other than stated as "Permitted >>> Use"? >>> >>> One copyright statement reads. >>> >>> Permitted Use. Viewers of this Information are granted permission to >>> access this [NAME REMOVED] copyright material and to download the [NAME >>> REMOVED] copyright material onto electronic, magnetic, optical or >>> similar storage media provided that such activities are for private >>> research, study or in-house use only. Any other use of the material >>> requires the formal written permission of [NAME REMOVED]. >>> >>> Anyone else using this type of method in their apps? >>> >>> Would like your opinions :-) >>> > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Android Discuss" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/android-discuss?hl=en. > > > >
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