More Glitches in the ATS Matrix

[ArMaP]

I've taken a bit of a look at the legality of scraping and I'm reading mixed messages on the issue. On one hand, at least by US law and section 230, public comments aren't copy written - that is, if you post it publicly, you have no expectation that it will not be shared with others. On the other hand, there are already lawsuits flying around the scraping of public data for AI. Not sure where this leaves us.

I'm willing to resurrect my search engine for the purposes of scraping the message history for future search. It is unclear if to me if this stands on solid legal ground. I'll do what I can (say, scrape and provide copy of said DB and search function to access it to a site like this) but I don't want to be sued doing it. I think doing this for personal use is likey legal, but not sure sure about republication. Anyone with a law degree care to chime in?

ATS states on the Terms  & Conditions of Use:6) Use Of Content; Copyright. All content created by Users of TAN website are governed by an "Attribution - NonCommercial - NoDerivs 3.0 Unported" Creative Commons Deed (hereinafter "Creative Commons License"). Users can share, distribute, copy, and transmit the work Users find on TAN websites provided Users provide proper attribution that includes the name of the Website User, the name of the Website, and a link to the content thread. These usage rights do not apply to any commercial use of the content found on TAN websites, and such use is strictly prohibited without prior written authorization from TAN. These usage rights also do not apply to derivative works, and such use is strictly prohibited without prior written authorization from TAN. Each post of each thread contains a "copyright" link that clearly specifies the method in which the material may be shared, distributed, modified, or used.
You will not copy, distribute, display, or publicly perform material from the Websites to Post on other websites or quote in offline research in a manner that does not comply with the Creative Commons License that specifies the author's member name as a member of AboveTopSecret.com, includes The Above Network, LLC and the member as owners of the content, provides the title of the thread, and a full URL to the board thread. 


So, to me, it looks like anyone can copy and distribute any thing found on ATS as long as they follow that specific Creative Commons License, including not using it for any commercial purpose.

PS: I'm not a lawyer.

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"Worse" and "Better" are subjective in this context.  I disagree that politics made ATS worse.

I didn't mean to say politics made ATS worse, what I meant was that politics made the "echo chamber" point of view worse.

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I can't speak for ATSs current service plan, but the roughly 160GB proposed on ATS could be a significant data bill for the current owner if not unlimited.

My database, with 25,366,564 posts, is around 113GB

And anyways, the data I personally really want (Fukushima) has been inaccessible for years so far as I know so anything I do would be for the benefit of the community as a whole and not necessarily for myself personally.

It's a real shame the forum isn't capable of showing that thread and its (if I'm not mistaken) 672,665 posts.
That was one of threads that made ATS what it was at the time.