Just because a law is stupid, or one you disagree with, doesn't make it any less of a law.

People have gone to jail for it. https://www.wired.com/2010/11/wiseguys-plead-guilty/

They were being sentenced to prison but not for scraping, their business were a fraudulent economic activity. They broke the terms of buying those tickets by impersonating legitimate customers. I don't see the connection with scraping.

There were two charges, one specifically CFAA for bypassing the captcha...scraping.

I'd say "buy up all tickets with fake data for scalping" weighted in more than just passive scraping.

Hard to say...they were charged with both wire fraud and "hacking" (CFAA).

The EFF said this, so they seem to agree that it set a bad precedent, even for those just scraping.

"Under the government's theory, anyone who disregards – or doesn't read – the terms of service on any website could face computer crime charges," said EFF civil liberties director Jennifer Granick in a press release at the time. "Price-comparison services, social network aggregators and users who skim a few years off their ages could all be criminals if the government prevails."

> If you have permission to view the page, then you have permission to scrape the page.

This is false. Web pages expect scrapers to respect robots.txt and users to respect the terms and conditions. From what I understand, the CFAA law was not meant for these violations, and the fight is whether or not this law can be used to win the trial. However, other laws can be put into place to address these situations.

If you actually read the article you'll see the courts disagree with you.

I agree that what you say is the only sensible way to look at things.

Being able to do so doesn't make it legal.

If you have permission for one thing it doesn't mean you have permission for something different.