> If you make a website using HOPL software, you are not breaking the license of the software if an AI bot scrapes it. The AI bot is in violation of your terms of service.
Assuming a standard website without a signup wall, this seems like a legally dubious assertion to me.
At what point did the AI bot accept those terms and conditions, exactly? As a non-natural person, is it even able to accept?
If you're claiming that the natural person responsible for the bot is responsible, at what point did you notify them about your terms and conditions and give them the opportunity to accept or decline?
Making a second legally dubious assertion does not strengthen the first legally dubious assertion. Courts have tended to find that robots.txt is non-binding (e.g. hiQ Labs v. LinkedIn).
It's a different situation if the website is gated with an explicit T&C acceptance step, of course.
The Wikipedia page for this case mentions only legal means, not technical means and does not mention robots.txt at all. As far as I can tell, robots.txt wasn't really relevant to the ruling in that case.
Yep, absolutely. I hear you. Like everything legal, it seems to be fuzzy and context-dependent.
And that is the point -- the HOPL asserts that you can just put a robots.txt on your website and say that it means bots accepted the terms in that file. In reality, that's a dubious claim.
Assuming a standard website without a signup wall, this seems like a legally dubious assertion to me.
At what point did the AI bot accept those terms and conditions, exactly? As a non-natural person, is it even able to accept?
If you're claiming that the natural person responsible for the bot is responsible, at what point did you notify them about your terms and conditions and give them the opportunity to accept or decline?