HN Explorer

Ask HN: How legal is this?

5 points by lost_aether ↗ HN
I'm developing a web site and mobile app for road travelling and I wanted to include service areas, which, not being the focus of my project, represent very useful auxiliar information.

It just so happens that I found a website that has these service areas and then has free-to-download files for tomtom and garmin. These files don't contain all the info the website does though. So, I took these files and I wrote a crawler that goes to the website and gets the rest of the information for each entry. So now I have all this information to include in my product.

Now, I've noticed that despite the website being free, they do have a paid mobile app with this data. So... I'm not sure they will be very happy that I include it somewhere else, but is it actually illegal? The files are free to download and the website free to access (without any need for registering).

I haven't made my mind on whether or not my project is going to be just for me or if I will have greater ambitions for it, but I'd like to be prepared just in case.

4 comments

[ 46.4 ms ] story [ 754 ms ] thread
jaachan
First, for legal advise, always consult a lawyer. Even if there's a lawyer responding, they're not your lawyer.

Second, check if the site has a EULA or so. If crawling is against the EULA, you might be guilty under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (penalties for this can be pretty severe).

Third, data itself is not copyright-able, so in theory it could all work out.

IANAL, this is not legal advise.

lost_aether
Thanks, that was what I thought "data itself is not copyright-able".

And yes, if I move forward, I understand I will need real legal advice.

tptacek
I don't know how legal it will turn out to be, but it sure is stupid, because they can almost certainly sue you and you're not established enough to defend yourself.