alt Hacker News> at scale, to the degree that you're taking down my site
Fair. Scrapers should be polite and do their utmost to consume the smallest possible amount of resources.
> without my consent by masking your user-agent
Your consent is not required. It's my user agent. I set it to whatever I want.
> for the purpose of stealing data I didn't authorize you to have
Data can't be "stolen", only copied.
You set up an HTTP server that literally sends people the data when they request it. Don't do that if you don't want people to have the data. Secrecy is the only possible defense.
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> You set up an HTTP server that literally sends people the data when they request it. Don't do that if you don't want people to have the data.
By the same argument I could say: If I send you an exploit and you execute it, don’t complain that your setup fell for it. Just don’t download and run random data from the internet.
In reality there’s a consent and expectation beyond the pure technicals.
> Data can't be "stolen", only copied
Though, scrapers can certainly steal capacity through conversion for their own use. When they do so, they permanently deprive the site owner and other users the beneficial use of that capacity at that time.
I'm speaking morally, not legally. Though, in the US at least, there are parallels with free newspapers. You're allowed to take one for free. It's not legal to clear the whole rack.