Hi Thomas,

<snip>
>>In respect of using it in your own app's for your own use I am not sure. I imagine that a Yahoo would buy their real time data and display it on their site in order to get users to view their pages and thereby see their adverts. That is their business model. If someone screen scraps the data then they are bypassing the adverts and therefore losing Yahoo advertising revenue. Clearly in that scenario Yahoo (or whoever) makes no money and one would question why they would allow it?
>
>That would make an argument for banning screen washers as well...
>I think as long as anybody openly "publishes" the data on the net, he may choose any business model he likes, may it be direct pay, access security or subsidy via advertizing. But you cannot force the user's way of consuming the data. Using special encryption / your own accessing software might be a special case, but that is another business case in my view.

I think blocking adverts is one thing while scrapping data off a page for *other* uses is another. Specifically in relation to real time data this data is *not* in the public domain. It is owned either by a Reuters, Bloomberg, Bridge, etc, or by the exchange it comes from.

Yahoo are just a client of one of these suppliers. They pay vendor licence fees for the use of that data under specific terms of use. A third party may not take the data from them in turn and resell it - thats for sure. Thats redistribution which is clearly not allowed and is stated so at the bottom of the pages in question.

Whether you can scrap the screen and put the data into your own app is also questionable. Think about it like this: Yahoo pay for the data which they display on the site so they have *paid* a fee. If someone now takes that data and puts it in their own app whether they charge their client or not is irrelevant becuase they have at worst enhanced their applications marketability. But they have done so wthout incurring any costs to the original owners of the data.


>>I have noticed over the years that real time data vendors and stock exchanges have become more, not less, protective of their data.
>Ummh... couldnt say so for sure. My take is: there is MUCH fluctuation in that area, which leads me to believe that many "business models" might just have died and others are springing up. 20 Years ago most services were VERY expensive. The trend (as I see it) is that more people are getting the data cheaper / for free with some effort. But in this area I wouldn't *argue* <g>.
>
>The time lag, which was another way of getting money (15 minutes old for free, current data for pay) is getting shorter and the data format can be accessed "intelligently" by screen scraping giving you nearly current data - but you will pay every time the publisher changes his layout.

The 15 minute delay and live variations are for consumption by the end-user from the vendor or sub-vendor. The end-user cannot redistribute it.

Perhaps JVP can offer a legal pov.


>Been there, done that (to a paid(!) service - to give automatic warnings via SMS when all they published was HTML - special case, but similar in technique).

Yeah, been there too :) Its a wonderful world.

Have a good one.