You can be sued (and lose) for damages incurred by illegal activity whether the aggrieved party sends a notice or not. It's not the plaintiff's job to let you know you're breaking the law, and they're entitled to damages whether you know you're breaking the law or not.
In fact, it's assumed that defendants weren't intentionally breaking the law, which is why when it's clear that they were, courts triple the actual damages for willful violations. [0]
If a reasonable person wouldn't realize that they were "exceeding authorized access", that probably limits a potential CFAA claim, but that's it, and that's not only the potentially perilous statute when you're a scraper. In the QVC case, Resultly got lucky that QVC did not have an up-to-date robots.txt; otherwise, they very well may have been on the hook for multiple days of lost online revenue, despite their immediate cessation upon receipt of a C&D.
Again, you are more than welcome to take your perspective and run with it, and it's plausible that no one will get mad enough at you to sue over it. That doesn't change the law.
I would assume that 3Taps pursued this litigation not because they had special love for PadMapper, but because they felt it was important for their business to be allowed to scrape major data sources and thought they'd be able to win. Pretty sure Skadden was their law firm so they gave it an earnest try, but ultimately lost.
You can be sued for crossing the street. You can be sued for flipping the bird and someone happens to get aneurism from it. You can be sued for writing what you just wrote!
Yes, but if you fight it adequately, you won't lose. If you get sued for scraping, it's quite likely you'll lose, as the law has numerous pitfalls for scrapers, including things as basic as regarding RAM copies as infringing.
In fact, it's assumed that defendants weren't intentionally breaking the law, which is why when it's clear that they were, courts triple the actual damages for willful violations. [0]
If a reasonable person wouldn't realize that they were "exceeding authorized access", that probably limits a potential CFAA claim, but that's it, and that's not only the potentially perilous statute when you're a scraper. In the QVC case, Resultly got lucky that QVC did not have an up-to-date robots.txt; otherwise, they very well may have been on the hook for multiple days of lost online revenue, despite their immediate cessation upon receipt of a C&D.
Again, you are more than welcome to take your perspective and run with it, and it's plausible that no one will get mad enough at you to sue over it. That doesn't change the law.
I would assume that 3Taps pursued this litigation not because they had special love for PadMapper, but because they felt it was important for their business to be allowed to scrape major data sources and thought they'd be able to win. Pretty sure Skadden was their law firm so they gave it an earnest try, but ultimately lost.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treble_damages