Law Commons^™

Note: Scraping Photographs, Maggie King

Notre Dame Journal on Emerging Technologies

This note explores whether any existing laws prohibit scraping photographs, as suggested by Facebook and other big tech companies’ recent actions against Clearview. After examining each potential claim, this note argues that no existing law should be construed to hold Clearview liable for scraping photographs, because doing so would create inconsistencies in existing law. But also, the apparent legality of Clearview’s scraping activity presents an argument for a reversal of the recent trend towards laws that, guided by the principle of a free and open internet, favor scraping. Rather, the apparent legality of activity that ultimately enables otherwise unrestrained modern …