Allegedly they where complaining about improper use of their api. Btw did u know that their api is very easy to reverse engineer and they issue a new api key as a cookie every time u visit the consumer website.
Comment on Making ends meat: Australians can save up to $20 a kg [on meat] by changing where they shop
Nath@aussie.zone 7 months agoThat’s interesting, is their issue that you scraped their data? If so, then fair enough - that’s technically their intellectual property.
If you have people going into stores and getting the prices, I don’t believe they’d have a legal leg to stand on.
muntedcrocodile@lemm.ee 7 months ago
Zagorath@aussie.zone 7 months ago
No it’s not. You can’t copyright a fact, only its presentation. There might be some laws that they could legitimately use to stop you doing this, but it wouldn’t be copyright.
Nath@aussie.zone 7 months ago
But, that’s exactly what they’ve got. Presentation of prices. If you take it from their presentation, I can see their issue. If you send people into stores to gather those facts for yourself, they don’t have a legal leg to stand on.
Zagorath@aussie.zone 7 months ago
No, the price is a fact. If the price were included in a paragraph of prose, that prose could be copyrighted. The whole design and layout of their site could maybe be considered creative enough to be copyrighted. But the raw numbers cannot.
Nath@aussie.zone 7 months ago
I’m not at all versed in the legalese, perhaps I’m using the wrong term (IP). We are in agreement that they can’t do anything about your site having their prices listed.
What they probably can do something about is you taking that data from their API or website without authorisation. If it isn’t called Intellectual Property, then let’s call it “Woolies doesn’t like that” law.