The one legal case that always comes to mind in terms of data scraping is Craigslist Inc. v. 3Taps Inc. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craigslist_Inc._v._3Taps_Inc.
If the company's data is an aggregate from many different sources and how can the original sources' claim be established?
1. Identifying products that the source company is the sole distribute of
2. Logs that are able to identify the crawler and what it accessed.
Copyright doesn't protect data it protects presentation. On a map the part of the map with the trap street has usually been traced, the presentation is copied. If you use the same map to compile a street listing then you've not copied you've used the information embedded in that presentation.
If I create a webpage with all the event information held on a particular pin-board then that is not copying, if I add a thumbnail or other image of each poster that is normally copying. The information is free (Database Rights like EC Directive 96/9/EC not withstanding).
Plagiarism is not generally illegal except as it imposes on personal contracts/agreements and on other IPR (eg copyright). For example I can recite an out-of-copyright work verbatim -- that is a work in the public domain -- on my website with no attribution (or even a fake one) and there is generally no tort or crime committed regardless of how morally wrong most people would find that.
This is not legal advice.
It also protects collections of information, and its quite possible for repackaging the same collection of information with a different presentation to be found to be a derivative work. ISTR cases related to copyrighted medical code sets and the like where this was the case.
If you do it by copying a creative work.
The collection must be deemed to be a creative work. The information held in a medical code would be unlikely to be merely factual.
WRT USC see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Database_and_Collections_of_Inf... for example.
Full docket: https://www.pacerpro.com/cases/158665
Motion: https://s3.amazonaws.com/pacer-documents/N.D.%20Cal.%2012-cv...
I don't think the target user will care where the data comes from if it saves/makes them money.
I may also be scraping the targeted user or targeted user boss' website. That's part of the conundrum.
trying to relate, but I worked with a transportation brokerage firm. Many fleet 'operators' did retail and wholesale sales (ie to brokers like my co & other fleet operators). It was an interesting dynamic, but most of the sales team was only worried about sales and quality. For the fleet operators, retail clients were more profitable, but wholesale made up the volume.
One issue could be if you are showing a 'price estimate' where they would not like one shown, but ask your sources what their issues would be. Your user base is the asset and your ally, make sure they are comfortable with what they're getting in return.