Scraping, Blocking, Suing and Enjoining

Denise has the story on the recent American Airlines v. Fairchase litigation wherein AA was granted an injunction prohibiting FairChase from accessing, using or scraping information from AA's web site for any commercial purpose.

Of course, it also depends on the facts of your case. Florida U.S. District Court Judge Steven D. Merryday has ruled that YachtBroker.com's use of a software program to harvest yacht listings, photos and product descriptions from Boats.com represented lawful use of facts that weren't protected by copyright law. As a result, Boats.com will be changing the terms of use for its site to make sure it has "the correct protections" for its content. A key point, noted by Judge Merryday, was the fact that the rights to the photos and descriptions listed on Boats.com's were held by individual yacht brokers and not the site itself. See also: Public Allegation of Copyright Infringement Leads to $300K Defamation Verdict

Other Cases: In eBay v. Bidder's Edge (N.D.Cal), the court "issued a preliminary injunction, enjoining Bidder's Edge from using a software robot or other automated query program to access without permission eBay's computer systems for the purpose of obtaining information concerning ongoing auctions at eBay, on the grounds that such activity is likely to constitute a prohibited trespass to chattels."

Reuters: A suit filed by The Sports Network accuses ESPN/Sports Ticker of illegally obtaining Minor League Baseball data. The complaint alleges ESPN got into The Sports Network's password-protected server, where it "scraped" information. It also claims ESPN employees masqueraded as The Sports Network staff as part of their effort to snag updates, box scores and stats. The plaintiff says ESPN is in violation of the Federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and other federal laws, a charge the sports giant says is "without merit"