6 ms·

The bike example is a very poor analogy - the data isn't removed from LinkedIn, it's merely copied. It doesn't matter how many times the site is scraped, the da

The bike example is a very poor analogy - the data isn't removed from LinkedIn, it's merely copied. It doesn't matter how many times the site is scraped, the data is unchanged and still available. A better analogy would be me taking a photo of the bike while walking past. It shouldn't matter how many times you tell me to stop, if it's on public property you can't really stop me from taking the photo. If you have an issue with that, you should be moving your bike somewhere people can't take a photo from the public street. Not have someone creatively interpret a law that says where I am is suddenly not public property, because you asked me to stop using my camera.

hashkb 9y ago
What if I paint the bike artfully, put a copyright notice on it, and you sell the photos you took?
- Spivak 9y ago
  Standard IANAL. That would be copyright infringement because photographing a copyrighted work is considered reproducing the work under the law.
wastedhours 9y ago
Ok, if I left the prototype for a new bike on the pavement, and you came along and 3D printed an exact replica. Sure, the original still exists, but you just violated trademark/registered design laws because it was there. It's not the same as a photo because a photo of a bike doesn't give you the same value as the actual bike, whereas scraping the content of a webpage does give you the same value. Perhaps my analogy wasn't great, but the grey area is around going to LinkedIn's server (whether or not this is "public" or their property they allow you access to is another philosophical question, though in the eyes of the law it appears it's the latter), deliberately extracting value from it, and then getting annoyed when you're asked not to. Inherently it seems as though it's the old question of whether a server is public, or private but accessible (like those POPs [0] there was a thread on recently). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privately_owned_public_space https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privately_owned_public_space
- Chris2048 9y ago
  > you just violated trademark/registered design laws If it has those. The data on LI (other people's employment histories) is not its own IP.
type0 9y ago
Not sure why you're being down-voted, the Web were designed to be public. If you want to prevent me from taking pictures of the exterior to your Cafeteria on the public street you'd have to build a wall / put it behind a login. But then don't complain that you are loosing customers because they can't see it or can not find information to your site through search engines.
rootlocus 9y ago
> A better analogy would be me taking a photo of the bike while walking past. Taking a photo of the bike is also a poor analogy. Scrapers don't take one photo, they take photos of all the bikes. And scrapers don't keep the photos for themselves, they sell them for a profit. Also, the original bike isn't parked, it's placed in a gallery (probably with an admission fee? I don't know the business model of linkedin).
- jalfresi 9y ago
  So? How does this impact the bike owner in anyway?
  - rootlocus 9y ago
    The owner makes money from the admission fee clients pay to see the bike. Taking photos and selling albums defeats that purpose.
    - mywittyname 9y ago
      But the owner is offering the images up for free to the public. hiQ is taking those publicly-available photos and annotating them with, "red bike", "pink bike", "broken bike", "professional bike", etc. It's clearly a value-add and not theft.
      - quickben 9y ago
        It depends. You have to keep in mind that an entire generation was brainwashed that personal data isn't that "personal", so Google, FB and the rest can have amazing profits. Most of these discussions are stained by general unawareness of the privacy and copyright law. Ofc because the value of the data supplier (usually a single person, etc) these never reaches the courts, which just reinforces the ongoing misconceptions. If you really want to test this, try copying the content from Google, Facebook hiQ or whoever that's big enough to go after you. But people somehow believe that it's okay for businesses to do what regular persons aren't allowed to.
- 9y ago

hashkb 9y ago

What if I paint the bike artfully, put a copyright notice on it, and you sell the photos you took?

Spivak 9y ago
Standard IANAL. That would be copyright infringement because photographing a copyrighted work is considered reproducing the work under the law.

wastedhours 9y ago

Ok, if I left the prototype for a new bike on the pavement, and you came along and 3D printed an exact replica. Sure, the original still exists, but you just violated trademark/registered design laws because it was there. It's not the same as a photo because a photo of a bike doesn't give you the same value as the actual bike, whereas scraping the content of a webpage does give you the same value. Perhaps my analogy wasn't great, but the grey area is around going to LinkedIn's server (whether or not this is "public" or their property they allow you access to is another philosophical question, though in the eyes of the law it appears it's the latter), deliberately extracting value from it, and then getting annoyed when you're asked not to. Inherently it seems as though it's the old question of whether a server is public, or private but accessible (like those POPs [0] there was a thread on recently). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privately_owned_public_space https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privately_owned_public_space

Chris2048 9y ago
> you just violated trademark/registered design laws If it has those. The data on LI (other people's employment histories) is not its own IP.

type0 9y ago

Not sure why you're being down-voted, the Web were designed to be public. If you want to prevent me from taking pictures of the exterior to your Cafeteria on the public street you'd have to build a wall / put it behind a login. But then don't complain that you are loosing customers because they can't see it or can not find information to your site through search engines.

rootlocus 9y ago

> A better analogy would be me taking a photo of the bike while walking past. Taking a photo of the bike is also a poor analogy. Scrapers don't take one photo, they take photos of all the bikes. And scrapers don't keep the photos for themselves, they sell them for a profit. Also, the original bike isn't parked, it's placed in a gallery (probably with an admission fee? I don't know the business model of linkedin).

jalfresi 9y ago
So? How does this impact the bike owner in anyway?
- rootlocus 9y ago
  The owner makes money from the admission fee clients pay to see the bike. Taking photos and selling albums defeats that purpose.
  - mywittyname 9y ago
    But the owner is offering the images up for free to the public. hiQ is taking those publicly-available photos and annotating them with, "red bike", "pink bike", "broken bike", "professional bike", etc. It's clearly a value-add and not theft.
    - quickben 9y ago
      It depends. You have to keep in mind that an entire generation was brainwashed that personal data isn't that "personal", so Google, FB and the rest can have amazing profits. Most of these discussions are stained by general unawareness of the privacy and copyright law. Ofc because the value of the data supplier (usually a single person, etc) these never reaches the courts, which just reinforces the ongoing misconceptions. If you really want to test this, try copying the content from Google, Facebook hiQ or whoever that's big enough to go after you. But people somehow believe that it's okay for businesses to do what regular persons aren't allowed to.
9y ago