OT pinching and re-using data of the net

Is it ok to harvest and re-use on the net data found on publicly accessible
websites?

Not on about harvesting email addresses for spamming or anything like that. I
want to put up a directory of businesses for a town and there is loads of
data available on other sites which I could web-whack.

Can I be sued for doing it?

 

In uk.rec.motorcycles, tallbloke belched forth and ejected the
following:

Don't worry about it.

Most of the people here regurgitate what's been said by others.

 

Don't worry about it.

Most of the people here regurgitate what's been said by others.

--

jeremy
'01 Triumph Sprint ST in green
_______________________________________
jeremy0505 at gmail.com

 

In uk.rec.motorcycles, Jeremy belched forth and ejected the following:

\/

 

'Tracers' we call 'em, and yes, we do it too.

 

(The Older Gentleman) wrote in

So, although a company's name, address and phone number are public domain
info, you can be done for web-whacking someones collation of them?

What law do they sue under though? How can a bunch of names addresses and
phone numbers be "intellectual property" if they are public domain info?

I'm just interested from a public/private property angle. I can buy up to
date data at a price which makes heisting and sorting it harder work than
it's worth anyway.

 

My Dad always told me that Ordnance Survey put features on their maps
which didn't exist for the same purpose. Don't know if it's true.

 

standard cartography practice - I'm sure the OS people do it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trap_street

 

They do indeed. That was the cause of a very expensive lawsuit started
by the OS against the AA.

OS: You've copied our maps.

A: Now, we haven't. We did them ourselves.

OS: Well, that's interesting, because we put a little bend in an
insignificant river where no bend exists, just to see, and it appears
on your maps too.

AA: ****.

Cost £30 million, IIRC.

<Googles>

Ah. £20 million.

Here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,447171,00.html

And this is interesting, too:

http://www.ianbyrne.free-online.co.uk/special/errors.htm

 

I came across a couple of them while looking for back alley shortcuts in
the City. Most disappointing to find they don't exist in reality.

 

If you nick their database, or chunks of it, wholesale, yes.

All the words in the English language are public domain info, but if you
exactly reproduce the way someone else has laid them out, you've
infringed copyright.

I really don't think this is hard to understand.

 

In Belgium there are loads of them on the maps. The problem is, that
they exist in real life too.

It's all to do with the Flemish/French split. Build a road in Flanders
region, you need to build a road in Wallonia.

There are lots of cases of bridges and roads going nowhere.

 

The Older Gentleman wrote

Not necessarily.

I bet that Blur has loads of them stashed away in special deep bombproof
underground bunkers ready for a national emergency or something and how
would we know if he didn't? And I betcha that that piggy eyed scotch
**** who is his democratically elected self nominated replacement has
loads of new unused words ferreted away in some EEC subsidised croft in
the shitland islands. Just waiting he is to whip them out and go "Ahah,
just look you people with public opinions, I have words you never heard
of and I am not afraid to use them to further my own narrow political
aims at your expense." Well have I got news for them because I have
three words all of my own that I haven't told anyone about and I am
going to **** up their plans entirely by not using them, no matter what
the provocation or however much I am offered by the BBC. They are my
words and if keeping them to myself is what it takes to stop the likes
of them taking over the world then that is a sacrifice I am prepared to
make.

 

(The Older Gentleman) wrote in

Big difference between (say) a document fulls of paragraphs of technical
information about borlotti beans and a bunch of names and addresses which
are available at companies house.

I really don't think this is hard to understand either.

 

Some of them just don't go anywhere. They're dead-ends without being
dead-ends IYSWIM. You just *know* that there was supposed to be
something on the other side (mostly the fact that the tarmac abruptly
stops, gives it away). The roads leading to the dead-ends tend not to
be too long though, IIRC.

I remember seeing a bridge in some town (can't remember the name) at
the end of a housing street. The bridge was a proper bridge with tarmac
and everything, over nothing at all. Nothing underneath, no stream, no
road, nothing. On the other side of the bridge, there were fields.

 

Copyright law says otherwise. Just try copying someone's list and see
what happens.

Here's a clue: don't try arguing on subjects you know nothing about.

 

Do you think that's what happened to all those people using satnav who
ended up going through that ford ?

 

The Older Gentleman wrote:

Suck all the fun out of ukrm why don't you?

 

"Klaatu barada nikto"? Been done.

 

platypus wrote

Bugger.

Ah well, back to me plans for world domination by spring 2005.