Short answer: It’s complicated.
Long answer: Courts are still figuring it out. Some rulings say scraping public data is okay (like the hiQ case), but others (like Craigslist) go nuclear on scrapers.
Tools like BeautifulSoup + Requests are great for small projects, but if you’re scaling up, maybe consult a legal eagle first.
Also, *always* check robots.txt. It’s not legally binding, but ignoring it is just asking for trouble.
Long answer: Courts are still figuring it out. Some rulings say scraping public data is okay (like the hiQ case), but others (like Craigslist) go nuclear on scrapers.
Tools like BeautifulSoup + Requests are great for small projects, but if you’re scaling up, maybe consult a legal eagle first.
Also, *always* check robots.txt. It’s not legally binding, but ignoring it is just asking for trouble.