Is web scraping legal?
Web scraping is in the early Wild West stage, where what is permissible is still being established. If the scraped data is being used for personal use, in practice, there is no problem. However, if the data is going to be republished, then the type of data scraped is important.
Several court cases around the world have helped establish what is permissible when scraping a website. In Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Telephone Service Co., the United States Supreme Court decided that scraping and republishing facts, such as telephone listings, is allowed. Then, a similar case in Australia, Telstra Corporation Limited v. Phone Directories Company Pty Ltd, demonstrated that only data with an identifiable author can be copyrighted. ...
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