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Texas Court Blocks Screen-Scraper
An anonymous reader writes "A Texas court has granted American Airlines
an injunction against Farechaser to stop them from using a screen-scraper to copy airfare information from their website in violation of the terms and conditions. In a stunning display of hypocrisy, Farechase.com's own terms and conditions prohibit users from doing to them exactly what they are doing to AA.com. The EFF is involved, but it's unclear whether they're supporting the enforceability of a website's terms and conditions or Farechase's right to violate them."
Such as when I make a book available to the public and someone posts a pdf of it, in entirety? Your statement is so profoundly fallacious that I want to throttle you.
The question is whether this material can be copyrighted in the first place. The Supreme Court has previously stated that unoriginal composition, such as the numbers in a phone book, can not be copyrighted. Similarly, merely copying the information contained on the airline's website should be permissable, so long as they don't copy the site's design or original texts.
It's about time that a case like this goes to SCOTUS, so that there is direct precedence for any future cases. Then again, they may end up screwing everything up by ruling for the airline. Especially if any court positions become filled by Baby Bush's nominations.