From: "Mark Morgan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > I don't see how programmatically scraping the site into an RSS feed > for personal use could be against any laws. You could just as easily > set up a Windows scheduled task that lauched the site every hour and > read the results yourself. > > The key bit here being 'personal use' and not sharing it with the > world at large. I have some Perl script scapes of public sites into > RSS format, and the results are mine and mine alone. I don't see how > this differs from reading the results by eye every few hours?
When it's not your content then you'd do well to ASK those that own it. While there may or may not be laws concerning it there's certainly a degree of good faith to consider. Someone publishing content may well resent (justified or otherwise) the re-use of their content without their expressed permission. Scraping has, on numerous occasions, caused this sort of trouble. That and scrapers quite often tend to cease operating leaving their users in the lurch. In general if a site doesn't currently have RSS then ASK them for it. Now, more than ever, sites are offering feeds. I can't say that personal scripts that scrape the content are a problem but I wouldn't bother using them. They're often way too brittle to depend upon for reliable syndication of content. One change on the source site and you often have to completely restructure, if not completely rewrite, the scraping routines. This just isn't worth it for most content. Doubly-so if the site, when asked, refuses to make feeds. LOTS of other content exists from suppliers that know how to recognize building audiences. Use them instead. The rise in a competitor's audience often has a way of helping them 'see the light'. In the rare cases where a site claims it "can't" make a feed we often suggest they run their /own/ scraper. As you suggest a cron job can scrape their own site. Then serve up the results as a static RSS file. This can often be used as an interim step. Julian's old Voidstar scraper code is a fine choice for those wanting to scrape themselves. -Bill Kearney Syndic8.com ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Has someone you know been affected by illness or disease? Network for Good is THE place to support health awareness efforts! http://us.click.yahoo.com/Rcy2bD/UOnJAA/cosFAA/IRislB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> If you're getting "too much mail" then send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (this will tell it to stop sending you mail) To change your membership use THIS WEB PAGE: http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/syndic8/join (here you can set your mail to digest, no mail or LEAVE the list) To find more info about Syndicated XML newsfeeds visit http://www.syndic8.com/ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/syndic8/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
