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by josephjrobison 4232 days ago
I'm confused about the legality of scraping. Is it completely open, or are there some restrictions on scraping any site without explicit permission?
2 comments

AFAIK, the main legal issue is a trespass to chattels tort. The data collected is generally uncopyrightable if not reproduced in it's entirety without modifications. The relevant case is Feist v. Rural [0].

IANAL, but I think the best bet for staying technically legal is to use jurisdictional arbitrage and tit-for-tat to liberate the data. If someone scrapes a US server and are in the US and they generate enough load to deprive the owner of use, then they are technically liable for damages under trespass to chattels. If they instead trade scraping labor with people in other jurisdictions, then that other entity would be liable. There might be some other legal defense/attack that might be usable by the entity who has the data being liberated, but I reckon it would be tenuous at best.

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feist_v._Rural

Doubt they would prosecute if they are making more money through the scrapping.
The only thing illegal about it is you're potentially violating local copyrights. Sites generally state their stance on scraping in the terms of use.
IANAL, but I doubt that that is an issue in most jurisdiction. A website does not get to make their own law by simply putting up a note. Neither are the terms of use a binding contract between two parties because the scrapers are not the websites customers, and thus did not sign or agree to anything.

Wikipedia has some insight into the legal issues with web scraping: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_scraping#Legal_issues

At least for me it looks like one are better of adding technical counter measures against scrapers then to try a legal route.