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Comment by malwrar | Hacker News Reader

If your business is just that you have a bundle of information and expose it over an open website, I’m not really sure how you’re able to maintain a mentality that you are somehow entitled to ownership of that information. You already put it out there, it’s now public, any illusion to exclusivity is now gone because anyone could come along at any time and make a copy without your knowledge. A moral position on this issue is even more confusing to me. Do you think that you e.g. own the knowledge on which radio frequencies are used where? Do you think you have a moral claim on ownership of (presumably unpaid) user-submitted information? I think the only legitimate moral grievance you have is high traffic volumes from inconsiderate scrapers.

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Do you think you have a moral claim on ownership of (presumably unpaid) user-submitted information?

You damn right I do. I own, develop, and maintain the entire system that enabled the body of works to exist in the first place.

Do you think that you have a claim on ownership of the data because you drove by, saw what you liked, and decided that now you'll just rip the baton out of my hand?

> You damn right I do. I own, develop, and maintain the entire system that enabled the body of works to exist in the first place.

I don’t think that meets the bar. Running a website is absolutely not equivalent to the collective effort people put in to populate that website with the information that actually gives the overall artifact its value. There is a large history of outrage when similar information repository websites with user-generated content violate expectations of openness. Nevermind the fact that the actual information itself isn’t even private or proprietary, just obscure and distributed.

> Do you think that you have a claim on ownership of the data because you drove by, saw what you liked, and decided that now you'll just rip the baton out of my hand?

I wouldn’t claim ownership nor want to, when I scrape stuff I usually just want information in a different format. I’m confused as to how you think you can even “own” data to begin with. Suppose that your users uploaded songs instead of RF info, do you believe you own their music solely because they chose to share it on your site? Do you think your users would believe that?

I’m confused as to how you think you can even “own” data to begin with.

It's actually very simple. If I'm in a position to restrict access to the data, then I own it, unless there is some legal authority that has jurisdiction over me that says I must make it available to the public.

Given that you haven't fixed your problem with scrapers (given the complaints you're making right in this thread.) It's obvious you're not in a position to restrict the data-- otherwise you'd not be complaining about scrapers, and thus you don't own it.

Considering Walgreens is still fighting shoplifters, it’s obvious they’re not in a position to restrict their merchandise. They must not own it.

Well, exactly. blantonl claims that his ownership rights are based on his ability to restrict access to things which is not a mainstream view.

Your example illustrates this nicely. Walgreens owns the goods on their shelves regardless of shoplifters.

I'm glad you agree with my point that Walgreens owns their merchandise not because they stop shoplifters and restrict access, its because they purchased it and have title over it, and since GP has done no such thing they don't actually own it.

Operating a website doesn't automatically put you in that position, as evidenced by the fact that scraping does not require your consent to be possible. Ultimately there's little practical difference between someone's eyes viewing information and a program viewing that same information, a copy has been made in some form. Scraping a new site takes maybe a few hours of python to accomplish, the barrier is low.

I don't think you understand. If I decide as the owner of a site, that I don't want you scraping my business and I block you, then I am in that position. I'm automatically in that position because I can implement the blocks necessary to uphold the the terms of use of my business, or I can just do it for arbitrary reasons. Maybe you are hammering my server. Maybe I'm in a bad mood this morning and don't like that you're using Python.

I can unilaterally decide whether or not you use my business, in any way shape or form, even if I just don't like you, as long as I don't violate any laws (discrimination etc).

I absolutely understand, it's just not hard to make scraper traffic appear as (or be) legitimate browser traffic and/or simply distributed across numerous IPs. Other technical controls all have trivial circumvention methods. There is legal precedent (at least in the US) suggesting that scraping public information may be permissible under law (see HiQ Labs v. LinkedIn). Scrapers only ever need to succeed once.

Under these circumstances, how can a website operator feel any sense of practical control over scrapers?

This is kind of a silly argument. If a physical business trespasses me for shoplifting, I can just put on a disguise and go back and shoplift more. Why do business think they have control over shoplifters?

This is kind of a silly argument, for every item you shoplift: do you ask if you can take it without paying and then get granted permission?

> It's actually very simple. If I'm in a position to restrict access to the data, then I own it, unless there is some legal authority that has jurisdiction over me that says I must make it available to the public.

So, in which jurisdiction are you? Because in US courts have confirmed multiple times that scraping public websites is legal.

https://techcrunch.com/2022/04/18/web-scraping-legal-court/

I think your basic arguments are either:

- scraping is immoral

- we should bake DRM into the internet

There's no technical or legal difference between a scraping or web request, and I can't really believe that you think that non-scraping web requests are immoral, so I think that probably isn't your argument.

Moving onto DRM, I think most people don't want it baked into the internet. I think individual entities can choose to use it if they want--that's basically how you protect against scraping, so I think people irritated by having their content copied and thus devalued (or their ads replaced) should probably just do that.

> Do you think that you have a claim on ownership of the data because you drove by, saw what you liked, and decided that now you'll just rip the baton out of my hand?

Are you just trolling at this point?

_You are handing the baton over_ in an HTTP response. If you don't want to do that, then change the logic of your server.

Good grief man.

Then any store is handing over the baton because you can walk in, take merchandise off the shelf, and walk out.

That's not at all what's happening here. This is me walking in, with a polite and well-formed request, regarding a piece of merchandise: "May I have <item>?"

And the store, clearly and with a signed receipt, saying, "Here is the item you requested. Have a nice day."

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