2009/6/19 Francis Irving <[email protected]>: > There are many laws a site can try to stop you doing this using: > > * Copyright > * Database right > * Computer misuse act > * License agreement to use site
Yes, apologies for not saying anything earlier time is a bit short but Francis I is quite right there are all sorts of law that could affect scraping. Some of these laws won't so much control scraping as what you can do with any data that you have scraped. Like a lot of internet law, much of this is a bit uncertain. There's an argument to say that if all you are doing respects well established internet standards then the act of scraping is uncontroversial - after all the website does not have to respond to your requests and in so doing gives you some kind of permission to use the data that you get. But I think that sort of argument only goes so far. Certainly if you know what you are doing breaches the terms and conditions under which the website is made available you may be both criminally and civilly liable. What is more, scraping data will sometimes infringe on a database right (as well as copyrights) even if individual items of data are made available freely. I'm sure everyone on this list has considered scraping one or more database made available like that (companies house, postcode.....). > > If you are worried about this, I would either a) get permission from > the site, or b) make sure they are a public authority and you are > making a generally useful site in the public interest (e.g. as > TheyWorkForYou) > You should certainly not discount the use that you can make of publicity against particularly public bodies. > It all depends on what exactly you're trying to do. Yes, its an "all depends" kind of answer. > > If you are running a business, I would recommend Francis Davey (who > posts sometimes on this list) as a lawyer / computer scientist with > expertise in this area, if you'd like a proper legal opinion about > what you intend to do. <blush> Feel free to drop me a line direct even if you don't want a "proper legal opinion", I'm always happy to talk things through. -- Francis Davey _______________________________________________ Mailing list [email protected] Archive, settings, or unsubscribe: https://secure.mysociety.org/admin/lists/mailman/listinfo/developers-public
