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In the US, there is no copyright protection for "facts" on their own. However, a compilation/database of facts can have copyright protections based on a 3 part test[0]. 1. the collection and assembly of pre-existing material, facts, or data;
2. the selection, coordination, or arrangement of those materials; and
3. the creation, by virtue of the particular selection, coordination, or arrangement of an original work of authorship.
But specifically there is no protection for the underlying facts themselves, and there is no "sweat of the brow" doctrine. So scraping the data, and rearranging the underlying facts into your own arrangement/organization is almost always not copyright infringement. However, if that data is categorized in some non-trivial way, and you keep that organization, then that is likely to be copyright infringement.However, if what you're scraping are not "facts", but some creative works, such as blog posts, product descriptions, etc, then it is likely to be copyright infringement. Then on top of that, even if there is copyright infringement, other defenses such as a license to use the data, or fair use may apply. [0] - http://www.pddoc.com/copyright/compilation.htm |
I'm not so sure. It would definitely be illegal in the US for me to cherry pick data out of Google Maps and add it to OpenStreetMap (and OSM has policies addressing exactly this).