Geoffrey Plourde wrote: > If a bot has a meaningful effect on server load (i.e. page requests), it > falls under the category of malicious software, which is highly illegal. > Malicious software or overloading servers goes well beyond ignoring a ToS. Why should downloading whole books from Google have any greater effect on server load than downloading a whole book of similar length from Internet Archive?
Ec > ________________________________ > From: Ray Saintonge > > > Brian wrote: > >> That is against the law. It violates Google's ToS. >> >> I'm mostly complaining that Google is being Very Evil. There is nothing we >> can do about it except complain to them. Which I don't know how to do - they >> apparently believe that the plain text versions of their books are akin to >> their intellectual property and are unwilling to give them away. >> >> >> > How is violating Google's ToS against the law? Sites put all sorts of > meaningless garbage into these documents, and users mostly ignore them. > > Of course Google's evil; it's about time that people noticed that. They > use their deep pockets as a way to bully other sites ... with a smile. > Fortunately the U.S. does not have database protection laws like the > E.U. Ideally, every PD item they host should also be hosted on an > alternative site, but that's a massive undertaking, ... and they know > it. Nothing requires them to be nice to the competition, such as by > making it easy to copy their material. > > Ec > _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l