StupidScript - 11:22 pm on Mar 29, 2005 (gmt 0)

Thank you, Mr. Mungus!

Our basis for this view is not, as some have urged, that there is a "presumption" of open access to Internet information.

As I urged in my initial comment ... about 40 pages ago.

The CFAA, after all, is primarily a statute imposing limits on access and enhancing control by information providers.

I.e. Who has the control? It's supposed to be the "information providers," not the "information scrapers."

we think that the public website provider can easily spell out explicitly what is forbidden

and corrollarily:

If EF wants to ban scrapers, let it say so on the webpage or a link clearly marked as containing restrictions.

Especially sweet. Okay, all you scrapers ... all we ask is that you honor our robots.txt files and other similarly explicit access conditions, and use user-agents that we can recognize and control, like legitimate bots do.

I say it now for the world to read: NO SCRAPERS ALLOWED ON MY SITE ... ALL SITES ... FOREVER.

That ought to do it! ;)

That points back to my comment about how any search engine's snippets CAN devalue the content from which they are extracted

"Devalue" means to diminish the perceived worth. If a visitor arrives at a website directly or via a "trustworthy" source, the perception of the worth of the copyrighted original content is DIFFERENT than the perception of the worth of that content when coming from a scraper site.

Are you saying this just is not true? That the behavior of people who come from a scraper site is exactly the same as from a Google or an Overture or an ESpotting? That there is no discernable distinction between their reactions to the junk they find after click on an algorithm result and landing on a scraper site and the original content they find on a "real" site? Are you honestly arguing that there is NO difference?

(just as they have ignored caching)

ibid. That's a specious argument. Do scrapers cache?