Quite frequently I come across scanned books that are viewable for free online. For example, the publisher put them there (such as preview chapters), a library (old books from their collection that are in public domain), etc. Since I like hoarding data, and the online viewers that are used to present the book to me might not be very practical, I frequently try to download the books one way or another. This requires toying with the “inspect element” tool and various other methods of getting the images/PDF. Now, all that I access is what is, well, accessible; I don’t hack into the servers or something. But - the stuff is meant to be hidden from the normal user. Does that act of hiding the material, no matter how primitive and easily circumvented, mean that I’m not allowed to access it at all?
I suppose ripping a public domain book is no big deal, but would books under copyright fare differently?
Mainly I’m asking out of curiosity, I don’t expect the police to come visit me for ripping a 16th century dictionary.
Note: I live in EU, but I’d be curious to hear how this is treated elsewhere too.
Edit: I also remembered a funny trick I noticed on one site - it allows viewing PDFs on their website, but not downloading, unless you pay for the PDF. But when you load the page, even without paying, the PDF is already downloaded onto your computer and can be found in the browser cache. Is it legal to simply save the file that is already on your computer?
AFAIK web scraping (the act of grabbing and downloading any data you see available on the internet) isn’t illegal, and I would assume downloading PDFs provided to you online would fall under that. Since it is copyrighted it would probably be illegal to share it, though.
This. In a case around LinkedIn courts ruled that in the US it’s legal to scrape publicly available data. The company doing the scraping was selling that data to corporate customers, but ultimately use might depend on the information you’re accessing and under what permissions. (Not a lawyer)
What if I web scraped something like a pirate site full of all the good media?
If you scraped a pirate site and stored a bunch of links to copyrighted content you’d probably be fine, actually using those links to download or share copyrighted content is what’s illegal. It’d be like buying the stuff to make a bomb or drugs, but then not making any bombs or drugs.
That being said, while not necessarily illegal, I wouldn’t want authorities to find my bomb and drug ingredients, or my scraped piracy links, as I’d probably have some 'splainin to do.
(Not a lawyer)
Why can I scrape the content from one place and not another?
Who said that you can’t scrape content from the other place?
If you scraped a pirate site and stored a bunch of links to copyrighted content you’d probably be fine,
If you’re referring to the last line, I say I wouldn’t want authorities to find it because I don’t want to have to explain it. I’m 99% sure someone would not just store links to a bunch of pirated content for fun, they probably have accessed said pirated content, now you have to explain to the authorities why you have links to pirated content without implicating yourself in copyright infringement.
Like I said, probably fine, I just wouldn’t want the hassle if I somehow got caught.
Why links and not video?
Sorry man, I’m not exactly sure what you’re asking.
If you are able to load the content on your computer without infringing copyright laws, you’re allowed to circumvent whatever the website has in place to store whatever data you would like from whatever website you would like, regardless of the nature of the site, so long as the content is legal (is not CP) and again not being presented in a way that infringes aforementioned copyright laws.
If you’re asking why the copyright laws exist, I can’t really help you with that one.
According to the big tech its ok if you’re training large language model with it.
You’re confusing the law that applies for the ruling class with the one that applies to common people
There’s a law for the ruling class? I always figured they gotta just cut their political buddies in.
If you can see it, you’ve already downloaded it. You’re just chosing to retain it.
As with everything with the law, it depends.
In Australia, distribution is the illegal part, seeding/sharing is where they get you. Not the actual download itself.
It’s usually not a question of legality, but efficiency.
It’s easy and efficient to bust someone for seeding, but busting hundreds for the odd file you can prove they downloaded is expensive and takes forever.
busting hundreds for the odd file you can prove they downloaded is expensive and takes forever.
And might well not be legally possible if all you have is an IP address, because lest we forget:
An IP is not an ID
viewable for free online
If you are viewing it on your computer, you have already downloaded it.
Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.already downloaded onto your computer and can be found in the browser cache
Exactly.
Removed by mod
Nooo never…
You might not.
Ask the AI companies who scraped my sites while the media companies were DCMA-ing everything in sight and working with enforcement paid for with publuc funds to prosecute/persecute the “pirates”.
I’d say if the copyright holder says you’re not allowed to then you’re not. It’s piracy.
People will tell you that you’ve already downloaded the data so saving it is fundamentally, technically no different, but that doesn’t matter to the law, it’s still piracy.
Like yeah, it’s absurd and pointless and anti-consumer and anti-knowledge and unenforceable and unsustainable, but that’s copyright. It’s always been that way.
Copyright destroys culture and piracy is our ethical duty in the face of that. The only reason to care about it is so you don’t get caught.
What about AI? Don’t they basically do exactly this.
Sure, and I’d say that’s piracy too. I wouldn’t mind if it wasn’t also being siloed into private hands to enrich the wealthy and screw the rest of us.
Not an expert, but in the U.S. making a copy of a broadcast for personal use is legal under fair-use. Anything that loads up on your computer screen you can make a copy and save it for personal use. So screen captures are by definition legal.
How exactly you copy the material on your screen gets tricky under the DMCA clusterfuck. Breaking encryption to copy the material is illegal unless there is an valid exception for fair-use. What exactly those valid exceptions are is above my paygrade.
The laws are bullshit and shouldn’t be followed. Information should be free to all
I never said I follow the law, I’m just wondering what the law says ;)
Everything on the Internet can be downloaded, copied etc
You care more than all of the ‘AI’ companies combined
It might be illegal to post it without permission, but you can download it all you damn well please and they can’t stop you. Unless it’s like government top secret something or other. In that case you probably don’t want it anywhere near your computer and should probably tell somebody where you found it.
Warthunder discord server lol
Astonishing listening to the news coverage of that story where the anchors were reading some terminally online nonsense from the teleprompter about Discord “Thug Shakers”
should probably tell somebody where you found it
Somebody, as in your lawyer. Who can then inform the correct authorities, while making sure you don’t become their scapegoat.
Depends on where you are. Usually if it’s a legal source, you can save it. But you’re not supposed to share it unless given permission. If you downloaded it from a source that’s not legal, things might change, depending on the specifics of your law.
If it’s in the public domain, it’s almost certainly legal. I don’t have the general answer to your question.
Really this question shows how outdated copyright law is; in many countries it prohibits “copying”, but in the age of computers nearly all accessing of information involves “copying” it in some way.
