Screen Scraping Rules?
jacquesm: It depends. If it is for research purposes then I'd think you're just another bot, so that's fine (up to you to make sure you don't get kicked off so be nice about how heavily you load up someone elses server, and keep in mind that you're possibly not the only bot active on a site).If it is to repackage content then I think that's (a) not nice and (b) breach of copyright.Unless, of course the original data is in the public domain or effectively in the public domain. Keep in mind that simply placing content on the web is not the same as placing it in the public domain.Some data simply can not be copyrighted, for instance names of people or places, but a collection of such data can be copyrighted.If you aggregate in order to do some intricate datamining which results in a product that has no direct link to the original you have created a derivative work, and possibly even an original work, depending on how strong/tenuous the link is (you might be able to claim copyright on the aggregate).For more information see your friendly local copyright lawyer, they're expensive as hell though.