[thelist] Re: [site rippers? - conclusion]

[nate]

well, it's not downloading anything that's not publically available with a
browser; it just saves the step of downloading it piece by piece.

as far as reusing in portfolios and stuff, all my personal contracts have a
clause that allows good-faith and non-commercial use for this type of thing.
(plus, usually a portfolio is a thumbnail, or otherwise incomplete look at
the site.) unless you're selling their product, or broadcasting their custom
engines or codes, i definitly wouldn't say it's /massive/, if it's improper
at all...

as far as i know, the web is public domain. if their site is on the www,
it's fair game. what's the difference in downloading it, or linking to it?
when you dl it, you're downloading their copyright/footer too, so...?

as for other uses of spiders and rippers: it's nice to see how a client, or
a potential client fits into their landscape. most of the rippers give you a
url list of all the links on the site. with this, you can tell -- at a
glance -- who their affiliates are, who their partners are, who else is in
the space, who's serving their ads. all good, responsible research and biz
dev info.

do i have this all wrong?

best,
nate

-----Original Message-----
From: thelist-admin at lists.evolt.org
[mailto:thelist-admin at lists.evolt.org]On Behalf Of McCreath_David
Sent: Tuesday, April 10, 2001 5:23 PM
To: 'thelist at lists.evolt.org'
Subject: RE: [thelist] Re: [site rippers? - conclusion]


>From: matt newell
>
>one major reason is for archival purposes.
[...]
>another major reason (in my case right now):
>we've ended a relationship with a current client, handed off the proper
>items and generally washed our hands of them.

Erm... Matt, isn't this a massive copyright violation? Does your contract
with these clients allow you to load and run their entire site locally?
Especially now that the contract has ended? As for former employers, I would
think that you'd also want to check your contract for intellectual property
clauses.

>the portion of the site we developed was only a small piece of
>the whole puzzle -- we wanted to show the whole puzzle, but didn't
>have access to their servers to dl a whole copy easily.

Do you have permission to copy the code that other contractors wrote?

>not having access to another companies servers /is/ common, as

So they can protect their intellectual property, right?

>the other major reason i can think of would be general offline
>browsing .. online books/long reports/presentations/etc. make
>for a nice read in the park when you dont have a net connection
>to view them on demand.

That is much more defensible and I think in the spirit of the ripper's
intended use.

I don't have any legal background or anything, I'm just checking.

David

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