Screen scraping is the process where someone uses a piece of software or code to take data from a website. For example, Skyscanner or booking.com usually take price data on flights and accommodation to display them on their websites. However, Australian copyright laws or the website owner’s terms and conditions may forbid you from screen-scraping. This article explains the legal considerations if you want to scrape data from another business’ website in Australia and what precautions you should take.
Am I Breaking Any Laws If I Screen-Scrape?
Copyright Law
Australian copyright law protects any person who produces original work. Typical examples of original work include:
- novels;
- poetry;
- plays;
- paintings;
- portraits; and
- songs.
Documents such as government reports and legal forms can also attract copyright protection. The work does not have to be complex or of good quality. All that is necessary is that you can show that the work is an original piece that you have not copied from another work.
Is Data Considered Original Work?
Data isn’t usually considered to be original work because data is fact-based, such as statistics or numbers. For example, data can be the:
- value of the consumer price index in a particular quarter;
- amount by which house prices in a city rose in a particular month;
- number of students in a class; or
- number of films released in a year.
This data is not original work because it is simply a representation of something real.
When Would Data Be Considered Original Work?
There are some situations when data can be considered original work. However, these scenarios only arise when the data is organised in a certain way and this way of organising data is the result of someone’s originality. Some examples of organised data that copyright protects include:
- accounting forms;
- sequences of numbers or letters for a bingo game;
- a motorcycle parts catalogue; or
- a football-betting coupon.
Therefore, a person who is screen scraping data or information from a website isn’t likely to be breaching copyright because they aren’t taking something that is protected by copyright.
Exemption to Copyright Law
In the unlikely event that your screen-scraping is infringing copyright, you may have to rely on an exception to escape penalties. Australian copyright law has a category of exceptions known as ‘fair dealing’. The four main exceptions include:
- research or study;
- review or critique;
- parody or satire; and
- reporting the news.
However, if you are just screen scraping data for business reasons, you will not be covered by fair dealing.
What Happens if a Website Bans Me From Screen-Scraping?
Even if an instance of screen-scraping is not illegal under Australian copyright law, other business owners who run websites can create contracts that prohibit you from scraping data from their website. These contracts are normally contained in website terms of use. These website terms of use often appear in the form of pop-ups on websites that state ‘by continuing to browse or use the website, you have accepted the website terms of use’.
The terms of use can prohibit scraping, copying, hacking or engaging in any screen scraping of website data from their website. If you proceed with screen scraping, you will be breaching the contract. Therefore, the website owner could pursue you in court for a breach of contract. If the data goes beyond factual information only and can be considered an original work, you may also find that the website owner can sue you for copyright infringement too.
Therefore, you should avoid any screen scraping from websites with such explicit terms of use on screen scraping. If you do engage in screen-scraping, you should ensure you are taking factual information only.
Continue reading this article below the formKey Takeaways
Screen-scraping is legal as long as the information you’re taking from other websites is strictly factual. However, if a website’s terms of use ban you from screen-scraping (even if the data is just facts), you should not go ahead with scraping data as you could be sued for breach of contract. If you have any questions about screen scraping or website terms of use, you can contact LegalVision’s online lawyers at 1300 544 755 or fill out the form on this page.
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