Legality - Scraping Script Sold for my site

[ZigE]

I can't give the name of the site, but some dude is selling a script that essentially scrapes data from my site. It's pretty unique data, I'm trying to explore the best option to stop it.

The last thing I want is a bunch of dumb asses scraping my site, stealing my data.

I have a few ideas to **** him up, to stop/halt the script from working 100%.

But I wonder what legal options there are?


Edit: I have his business address etc. He's in the US.

[Blue Cat Buxton]

Is this sript specific to your site then? If it is that targeted I would have thought you have a direct breach of copyright argument.

[ZigE]

Yeah. It's specific for my site. The script isn't classed as such, so if anyone buys it they won't know that it just scrapes + clones my site.

It's the most retarded thing ever.

I've banned his ip range, also, I could potentially start serving nasty fake data to any IP's that a consistently hitting my site, that aren't from google/yahoo/msn ip's.

I just sent an email to tell him to cut it out / legal threat. It probably won't be hard to track him down If I really have too.

[Todd W]

You could just break the pattern he uses...

[Chris]

Part of the DMCA means any tool or device used to facilitate copyright infringement is guilty of copyright infringement. This is what nerds complain about the DMCA for, it limits certain technologies like DVRs or DVD rippers. And makes his script illegal.

So you could probably go after him just like you go after anyone else. Send DMCA notices to his host, and any websites where he advertises it for sale. Be that a forum, Google, whatever.

Meanwhile, get your content officially registered with the copyright office, and yes, break the pattern.

[ZigE]

So, update on this. He's still selling the script, even after an legal warning email exchange. I think about one person has bought it. And their script worked for a whole 5 hours.

I'll look at DMCA/hosts/phone calls/legal if it gets out of hand. But at the moment the demo script for his site is broken, and only one other person that had it has bought it. I'd rather he deal with **** & chargebacks from angry customers.

Also, I converted a whole bunch of the site to the appropriate languages, which I was meaning to do/broke the pattern etc.