Is it legal to Spider extern sites?

[Question]

Hello, i want to know if it legal to spider other (no my own) internet sites?
For example i spider "wrensoft.com" and you don't want it. Can i do it although?


Thanks

[David]

Yes it is legal is all the countries that we know something about.

The only possible issues are,

1) Indexing their site so often that you place so much load on their server that it becomes a denial of service attack.

2) You represent their material as your own. Leading to copyright infringement. But if you are only displaying a few words from their site and linking to their site, then there is no problem.

By the way I am NOT a lawyer and only have a vague idea about the law in a couple of countries. You need to consult your local laws to determine what is legal. Don't listen to me

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David

[Question]

Ok.

1) Indexing their site so often that you place so much load on their server that it becomes a denial of service attack.

What is "so often"? Every day? Every hour? Or every Week?

And what does it mean "a few words"?
Its a big site which is listed on google with 600.000 pages and i want to spide 300-500 pages. What do you think about this?

Thanks

[David]

Load that may be reasonable for one particular web site might be seen as a DoS attack by another.

For example, www.cnn.com can probably handle 1000 page requests per second. But a this would probably bring the web site for your local flower store to its knees.

If you are only running the indexer on a single PC with a normal 512kbit/sec broadband connection it is very unlikely you will annoy anyone. If you have a rack of 10 PCs and a OC-24 connection onto the internet backbone, it would be a different story.

There are no black and white answers.

300 pages is a tiny site. You'll index it in a couple of minutes and they'll probably never know.

You need to look up copyright laws in your own country to determine what fair use is in your country. Even the US copyright office says, "consult an attorney" if you are in doubt. See.
http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html

It also says, "[fair us includes]...a summary of an address or article, with brief quotations...."

Sorry but we don't give legal advice. We aren't lawyers.

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David