[humanrebar]

> I’d also removed the posts that were obviously copyrighted.

I'm not a lawyer, but in American copyright law, anything published is assumed copyrighted by someone, though it may not be clear exactly who.

I'm especially not an international copyright lawyer, so I can't say how typical that is. Point being, you'll get in legal trouble for doing this. You might win a lawsuit if what you are scraping is not copyrightable (raw facts).

Anyway, OP might not be in the US, so maybe all this doesn't apply, but it's generally good manners to ask someone before you copy their work, yes.

[jorams]

Because of the Berne Convention[1], that's how it works in the vast majority of the world.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention

[ClassyJacket]

Same is true in Australia. Copyrights are not registered. You just automatically own the copyright to anything you write unless there's a specific reason not to.

You don't have to go register it, you don't have to put a copyright notice. You own the copyright as soon as you create it.

[mskvsk]

> it's generally good manners to ask someone before you copy their work, yes

This is what I do most of the time, if it's possible, given the environment the service operates in.

I encourage people to learn about it first, and only after that to jump into conclusions.

[brudgers]

Google is in the US. The rest of this post is left as an exercise for the reader.

[staticautomatic]

I believe that in the US you don't have to register the copyright, but if you don't, then you can only recover statutory infringement damages in a lawsuit.