Websites scraping other websites

7 replies
I am a bit confused on this. I have heard its illegal to take ads and profiles from other websites. Just recently i have heard how oodle is known from scraping all of craigslists ads and its gone so far where craigslist has even hand written a letter to ask oodle to stop. Scraping ads and profiles can really put you ahead of the curve by having content. Should we do it? What if i don't do it then someone does it to me? I basically wasted that initial time getting fresh content for it to get scraped anyway?
Im not sure on any of this so im asking what the correct legal things are to do, im assuming nothing can be enforced considered a big company is publicly doing it to craigslist.
#scraping #websites
  • Profile picture of the author Josh MacDonald
    People do stuff like this all the time. Any YouTube video with over 10,000 views is usually copied onto other tube website with same title, description and tags. The other day, I found someone copied my Yahoo Answers Question to a forum thread, and it was a VERY popular forum that registered and posted Yahoo Answers in threads. My nickname on Yahoo is now registered on this random forum. It says I have like 50 posts on this forum. That is probably every single question I asked on Yahoo Answers on that account.

    Cool eh?
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  • Profile picture of the author warriorr101
    Now are you registered as a member? did they get your email address or just made a phony account. I feel this must be illegal to pretend that you are a member yet you have no notices from this website?
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  • Profile picture of the author tpw
    The Internet is the wild, wild west.

    A lot of this stuff is illegal, and the vast majority of webmasters honor one's intellectual rights. But there are always the exceptions.

    It is like gun control. You can outlaw guns and the law-abiding citizens will get rid of their guns. And the criminals will not care about the law and they will keep their guns, because you know why? They are criminals, and they make their living breaking the rules.

    Whether illegal or immoral, it is tough to prosecute intellectual theft. They have civil courts for that. And while a company can get a judgment, they cannot always get the judgment paid.
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    • Profile picture of the author theemperor
      There is even a site that copies all the new posts from Warrior Forum - but I won't mention their name they don't need any more publicity than they have already.
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  • Profile picture of the author warriorr101
    im confused if they do not get your email you cant actually be a member, so if they say we have 100 registered users after 100 scraped ads that is a lie, correct? Are they doing this?
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    • Profile picture of the author CliveG
      Originally Posted by warriorr101 View Post

      ... that is a lie, correct? ...
      If you have anything to do with the internet you have to put up with lies and more lies.
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      • Profile picture of the author radhika
        If scaping the content is illegal, then what about automatic blogging software, data retreiving software etc on the internet. They just pull the content without web site owner permission.

        People have two thoughts about it: It is illegal to pull content from other site OR as long as we provide backlink to original author or site, it will be ok.

        So take your pick!

        .
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