Re^3: [OT] Ethical and Legal Screen Scraping

[willyyam]

This whole thing is a can of worms and it may not be sorted out clearly and legally for decades, however, copyright (in the US anyway) means the rights to all copies, which includes digital. So if a site's terms of service and copyright notice says you can't save a copy of the site for personal use, then you can't do it legally.

Not really true. Unless you explicitly agree to a TOS or EULA, (thus entering into a contract for the use of the material) a TOS cannot overturn fair use. Single copies made by individuals, for individual use, are well within fair use.

The ruling regarding robots.txt is a bad ruling made by a judge who is trying to make the the best decision for the one instance before the court, not establish good law for all cases.

[Your Mother]

I think you have been misled on the term, though it is a very slippery one that can be interpreted widely. Single copies made by individuals are not fair use. Fair use is brief, in relation to the whole, quotes or excerpts which aren't for direct gain and don't hurt the copyright holder.

Somehow, if it only benefits one person and not a company, stealing has gained an air of common wisdom legality since Napster. If you buy something and make a copy for personal use, that's a different matter, depending on the mood of the court and the medium involved.