[Foundation-l] Info/Law blog: Using Wikisource as an Alternative Open Access Repository for Legal Scholarship

[Ray Saintonge]

Geoffrey Plourde wrote:
> A bot or bots calling up massive amounts of data at high speed can have a negative effect on a server. While I doubt the bot we use would have the power to take down a Google server, the speed of the requests and the constant number of requests will definitely be noticeable, possibly leading to unpleasant consequences. 
>   
And data accumulation at such a high speed would also be more than could 
be properly handled at the Wikisource end as well.  We regularly get 
whole works from Internet Archive and other sources, without any such 
problems arising.  I would not reasonably expect a greater accumulation 
rate from Google.

Ec

> _____________________________
> From: Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net>
>
>
> Geoffrey Plourde wrote:
>   
>> If a bot has a meaningful effect on server load (i.e. page requests), it falls under the category of malicious software, which is highly illegal.
>>  
>>     
> Malicious software or overloading servers goes well beyond ignoring a 
> ToS.  Why should downloading whole books from Google have any greater 
> effect on server load than downloading a whole book of similar length 
> from Internet Archive?
>
> Ec
>
>
>   
>> ________________________________
>> From: Ray Saintonge 
>>
>>
>> Brian wrote:
>>  
>>     
>>> That is against the law. It violates Google's ToS.
>>>
>>> I'm mostly complaining that Google is being Very Evil. There is nothing we
>>> can do about it except complain to them. Which I don't know how to do - they
>>> apparently believe that the plain text versions of their books are akin to
>>> their intellectual property and are unwilling to give them away.
>>>
>>>  
>>>    
>>>       
>> How is violating Google's ToS against the law?  Sites put all sorts of 
>> meaningless garbage into these documents, and users mostly ignore them.
>>
>> Of course Google's evil; it's about time that people noticed that.  They 
>> use their deep pockets as a way to bully other sites ... with a smile. 
>> Fortunately the U.S. does not have database protection laws like the 
>> E.U.  Ideally, every PD item they host should also be hosted on an 
>> alternative site, but that's a massive undertaking, ... and they know 
>> it.  Nothing requires them to be nice to the competition, such as by 
>> making it easy to copy their material.
>>
>> Ec
>>  
>>     
>
>