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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."
If you are making information available to the public, what right do you have to be angry when someone, *gasp* uses that information?
Fortunately, American isn't basing their case on the idea that their prices are their "intellectual property," but instead are claiming that Farechase was trespassing on their chattel. I wonder if the decision on this could effect cases involving DoS attacks?
There is a fundamental distinction between programmatically scraping someone else's site and posting it as your own and an individual drawing down the website via a browser: fair use.
Provided fair use conditions are posted, I don't see where the scraper has a leg to stand on. If you are a competitor, you have different rules, as your intention and the actions that follow your intentions separate you from a normal consumer. To illustrate, it is fair use for me to go to the library and photocopy an article out of a journal and use it as source material for a paper. It is NOT fair use for me to photocopy the article and put it in my own magazine, publishing it as if it was mine, copyright and all.
That being said, I would be very interested in an informed reply from a lawyer that specializes in these matters.
if it is un-ethical to you, then why does the legality matter?
You could send an anonymous letter to your companies lawyers, boards of directors, and CEO.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
It sounds like you already know everything you need to know. Now you simply need to summon the courage of your beliefs.
You may be fired because of your beliefs. At that point, you just have to decide which is more valuable: your beliefs or your jobs (hint: your beliefs are). On the other hand, your boss may simply be having a weak moment in his own beliefs. You ought to try to talk to him about this, and not in a self-righteous way. Try to make the case that you can't build a successful company or a successful life without character. Your company and your own bank account might prosper in the short run, but eventually the way the universe works catches up to you...even if it's not before you die.
At any rate, it sounds like you've got the right tickets to begin with. Good luck.
If your bitterest enemies are people who hack the heads off civilians, then I would say you're doing something right.
Nope, but that's what I used to believe. The truth is that one's principles require sacrifices sometimes. What you're saying is that there are no beliefs worth sacrifices, vis a vis, wealthy people are not required to make sacrifices for their beliefs. QED.
I think upon consideration you'll discover that's not what you believe either.
If your bitterest enemies are people who hack the heads off civilians, then I would say you're doing something right.
There is a connection between screen scraping and privacy arguments.
Many here are posting "What's wrong with screen scraping? The information is there, I can get it, what's the problem?"
By the same token, many decry things like Amazon.com selling their address just because "they have it".
Information is information. If you have the "right" to scrape whatever you want and distribute it however you want, then companies have the right to distribute your personal information to whomever they want, under whatever circumstances they want.
I prefer to live in the world where control over information on the societal level is still allowed; no concept of privacy can exist without it. Not letting people screen scrape isn't even something I'd consider a "price".
To be a bit more theoretical, there is value in information transfer.
This is a summary of a much longer and more complete argument, but it should get a lot of the point across. I won't be defending this on a point-by-point basis in replies as a result.
it's not "stealing". It wouldn't even be "stealing" if this information was worthy of copyright. HOWEVER, the fact remains that this information is NOT worthy of copright protection.
But, its not just about the information, they are accessing their hardware using their bandwidth ignoring the agreement. Its the same thing spamers do that make everyone here yell. Funny how people can change their opinion when the afected is a for-profit company.
I can open a restaurant and give menus away so my clients can order by phone, but if a fellow comes every day and takes a menu of mine just to copy the precies to his own menu I would never give one to him again, is my damn right after all since are my menus I printed in the paper i bought with the ink i bought, same with bandwidth.
Sigs are for morons... Wait a minute...