Is Web Scraping is legal

[Thrill]

For future reference: If it doesn't really sound legal, chances are it isn't legal.

[Sp32]

It depends on what the original content owner allows, if the website is all free open source/free license then it would be allowed but if it doesn't say anything then it would be very risky.

[HostStage]

The scraping process is fully legal, or at least it is difficult to spot it. The legitimacy comes in the how you are going to use the datas you have pulled off.

[Mr Happy]

Copyright on the net is very complicated.

It depends on a number of factors.

First and most important is location. Different countries have different laws for "fair use" and what you can copy. Some countries don't have any laws while others have strict rules and then others like smaller countries in Europe may use European law which supercedes their own local outdated law.

The Second most import point is how you use it. For example a lot of countries have a higher limit on what you can copy for educational purposes. For example students can copy and draw on government land registry maps which are available online for educational purposes in most countries but you can't go near them for commercial purposes unless you have a licence which can be incredibly expensive.

Next and third point is the amount of the content copied. Take Google or any other search engine for example. They scrape, copy and analysis a webpage but show only a few lines of text of a website on their search results. It's only a fraction of the page. It's not enough to be considered copyright. Similarly the way you can get a preview of a song on iTunes or a Trailer to a movie on youtube or a tumbnail of a copyrighted picture on a Google image search.

The fourth point is the nature of the content being copied. If it's open source material like code on github, public photos, research material your generally fine but if it's private photos on a Facebook page or stock photo website, copyrighted articles on a website like the Wall Street Journal etc then you can't copy it.

Nobody can say here you can or can't copy something on the net without knowing exactly what it is you want to copy and the purpose you want it for but the two example you enquired about...no you can't copy them and use them for your own personal gain which is what your probably thinking.