23 Feb
Scraping a site is ethical?
At =-” href=”http://alex.halavais.net/news/archives/000798.html”>Rolan the Datapimp, Alex asks himself if collecting orkut.com data automatically with a script is legal or ethical.
Actually I scraped Epinions.com site for data and I don’t care too much about this nonsense copyright mess.
I really don’t understand these strange licences (or ToS, Term of Service). Could I say that this site can be accessed only on thursday if the humidity is above 3 something? That the email I send you can be read only with a certain program and only between 3pm and 4pm?
I totally agree with Alex when he says
… I could pay a few students minimum wage to record this data manually. Would that be acceptable? What if I had them sit in a lab and hit each page, saving a local copy? This would appear exactly the same as a scraper to Orkut, and would yield exactly the same results, but would presumably be acceptable.
Basically, I think noone can tell me how I can experience some digital content. I agree with World of Ends
You are never going to prevent us from copying the bits we want.
Reminder for myself: I need to open a webpage with “impossible-to-accomplish licences and ToS”.
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Posted by Cubanite on 23.02.04 at 10:36 pm
Scusa Paolo, Cesca si č trasferita e sono io distratto che mi son perso il link o č solo in pausa?
Posted by paolo on 23.02.04 at 10:36 pm
Credo che sia solo in pausa. Le ho consigliato di non scrivere nulla finche’ le cose non sembrano funzionare ma credo anche che non abbia tempo/voglia ora.
Posted by jonk on 23.02.04 at 10:36 pm
check out http://www.illegal-art.org/ - the ToS should pop-up immediately, if not click on about the exhibit