Bug#420686: It's not obvious esniper is legal (violation of eBay ToS)
severity 420686 normal
thanks
On Tue, 24 Apr 2007, Sami Liedes wrote:
> 2.2.3 says "Packages must be placed in _non-free_ if they are not
> compliant with the DFSG or are encumbered by patents or other legal
> issues that make their distribution problematic." (I expected to find
> something saying something about software that cannot be distributed
> at all, but apparently it's not there, and all the language in other
> sections seems very copyright and patent centric.)
>
> eBay TOS (or "User Agreement" in eBay terms) says[1]:
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> "_Access and Interference_
>
> The Sites contains robot exclusion headers. Much of the information on
> the Sites is updated on a real-time basis and is proprietary or is
> licensed to eBay by our users or third parties. You agree that you
> will not use any robot, spider, scraper or other automated means to
> access the Sites for any purpose without our express written
> permission.
>
> Additionally, you agree that you will not:
>
> [...]
>
> - bypass our robot exclusion headers or other measures we may use to
> prevent or restrict access to the Sites."
This is a case of whether or not it is legal to (or strictly speaking,
a violation of an agreement to which the user may be a party when
using) a piece of software in a particular fashion, not whether it is
legal to distribute it.
In general, we deal with cases of the letter on -legal (and in general
in the archive) rather than the former.
I've not closed the bug report myself, but I have made the severity
non-RC. Dima: that's your call; you can wait for more -legal
contributors to weigh in, or you can close the report.
Don Armstrong
--
One day I put instant coffee in my microwave oven and almost went back
in time.
-- Steven Wright
http://www.donarmstrong.com http://rzlab.ucr.edu
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