Ask HN: Releasing code that violates a sites Terms of Service?

I have seen a few times where people have witheld their code out of fear that they are breaking a site's Terms of Service (e.g. [1] [2]). This seems to be mostly in an attempt to prevent site changes that would break their code, but I am more interested in any legal consequences. My first attempts at researching this topic have not really answered my questions. Are there any best practices or precedents w.r.t. releasing TOS breaking code?

[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4906456 [2] http://tinysubversions.com/2012/11/amazon-random-shopper/