Law Professor: Web Scraping Is Ubiquitous but Not Clearly Legal
My Reddit AMA on the Law of Web Scraping
In a Reddit AMA, Internet law expert Eric Goldman explains why the legality of web scraping is a mess. He walks through four steps for trespass to chattels and lists doctrines scrapers must navigate: CFAA, state computer crime laws, copyright, DMCA, and terms of service. His tagline: 'Scraping is ubiquitous but not clearly legal.' He warns that anti-scraping doctrines threaten to turn browsing into a permissioned experience.
Anti-scraping doctrines threaten to convert web browsing into a permissioned experience, where there are checkpoints at every site’s perimeter and permission is needed for access.