(See the second precept here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Precepts)
Morally, I'm not sure.
1. If they allowed all bots but disallowed all non-bots, that would raise questions of what defines a "bot". Couldn't I write a personal bot that fetches the story for me? As a browser addon, even?
2. It's even more complex since allowing bots means they allow tools that provide the information to third parties, as the bots are not intended for private use by the bot maker. So the door is already open.
3. But in practice, it seems they favor certain bots. Is it ok that the WSJ lets Google do things Google's competitors cannot? Try to use the "web link" trick from HN on any other search engine, and it doesn't work in my experience. That seems anti-competitive and discriminatory in favor of the existing dominant entity in this space, Google.
Maybe, but I think its a pretty easy distinction. They aren't even allowing all bots - they're allowing a white list of them. You're not just writing your own bot to get around it, you're pretending to be someone else's bot.
> But in practice, it seems they favor certain bots. Is it ok that the WSJ lets Google do things Google's competitors cannot?
That's the really important question. I personally have no context for answering except to say that I can see both sides argued. If you view their website as a physical store / private establishment, then I assume that they have every right to establish who has access to what and under what conditions.
Of course, that hampers a lot of legitimate use cases along the way.
Not true. There are very specific laws about not being able to discriminate against protected classes of people.
Bars have to serve minorities, bakeries have to cater to same sex marriages, etc.
Where you draw the line of legislated equality within private property rights is pretty intriguing. I have don't have any answers, but lean heavily towards the libertarian bent.
The only loss is the energy/bandwidth/cycles WSJ servers spent answering your request. Which, I believe, has been basis of computer "fraud" cases.
This can't be true. Surely the argument for why, say, a WSJ-paywall-bypassing-tool causes damage (in the legal sense) to WSJ is that it allows people who would otherwise pay for content to get it for free, thus depriving WSJ of income.
Moreover, I don't think prosecutors need to prove that you caused harm in order to charge you with computer fraud, since, for example, CFAA falls under criminal law.
But the sole existence of this trick and the person that would use it is exactly someone who would not pay, therefore your argument does not hold. And stealing it is not, it is more like listening to the outdoor rock concert beside the fence because you don't want to pay, inconvenient- sure, so plenty of people would still pay.
Cloaking is against Googles rules so it is WSJ that's dishonest.
Prosecutors never (want to) just charge one thing. They want a laundry list of dozen or more crimes so they can coerce suspect into pleading guilty. The, "theft of resources" would just add to the pile.
More importantly, is violating "Google's rules" suddenly a violation of law?
IANAL and this is most likely wrong, but kind of plausible to my NAL mind.
If they are advertising incorrectly, they should fix that.
I'm not taking, I am simply absorbing information. That information will still be there when I am done reading it. Have I really stolen, or did I just refuse to give someone money on demand?
What people choose to do with the information is another story...