1038
Aaron Swartz was prosecuted for scraping, while Meta does it without consequence
(blog.curiousquail.com)
this post was submitted on 20 Aug 2026
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But he did have access via university. Besides, my understanding is he was scraping research journals, many of which would not have been possible without grants from tax dollars. Meaning the mere fact that the research is publicly funded means the journals should also be public.But they didn't even prove he distributed them. For all we know, he was planning to have an AI use them for training and apparently that isn't a problem.
You do realize as well that almost every site you visit makes API requests. And you can then use the same API to request other data directly. And the difference between "public" and unauthorized access often comes down to whether you used the same API that your browser would call, but instead decided to make other calls to it directly.
Like with command line tools? But that'd be hacking! Egads!
Is it a B&E if the door is wide open...or would that just be an 'E'?
If you let your neighbor walk in to your house as he pleases....can you get mad at him if he walks in like Cosmo Kramer while you're shagging your wife? Assuming you're not into that, of course.
What if he had noble intents...like he heard the moans and thought you were at work and he was about to break up an affair or stop a rape or have some leftovers?
No, a much better comparison is that his backyard is already wide open. Whenever you go there he takes you all around his backyard. There are no signs saying you shouldn't go to certain parts or fences stopping you. You go there to look at other parts and he still takes you there. Then one day he gets mad and says he himself took you to a part of his backyard that he didn't want to, and rather than put up a better fence, he's going to have you arrested for trespassing with multiple felonies... no warning, straight to prison!