Web Scraping

[Veek M]

Steve D'Aprano wrote:

> On Sat, 12 Nov 2016 11:07 pm, Veek M wrote:
> 
>> 121sukha wrote:
>> 
>>> I am new to python and I want to use web scraping to download songs
>>> from website. how do I write code to check if the website has
>>> uploaded a new song and have that song automatically be downloaded
>>> onto my computer. I know how to use the requests.get() module but i
>>> am more interested in knowing how to download and save every new
>>> song that the website uploads on the site. I would extremely
>>> appreciate the help from anyone. Thanks!
>> 
>> What you're doing is illegal
> 
> Really? Everywhere in the world? And you're sure of this because
> you're a lawyer?

'probably illegal' (i did mentally assume he's from India - the nick is 
very indianish and since I am Indian and noticed many badly formatted 
posts I felt obliged to help out)

> Even if the website uses public domain or freely licenced songs?
> 
> Even if the downloads count as fair use, time-shifting or
> format-shifting?

ah true

>> but Youtube/websites have a lot of stuff up
>> that's easily accessible - the moral issue seems ambiguous especially
>> if you use adblocker..
> 
> Doesn't seem ambiguous to me.

> Or are you one of those people who think that you are a thief for
> leaving the room when ads are playing on TV?
> 
> https://yro.slashdot.org/story/02/05/02/0550214/turner-ceo-pvr-users-are-thieves

yep as in.. do the networks have a right to tempt me
 
> 
> Downloading may, or may not, violate the terms of use of the website.
> But you *literally* cannot watch the video without downloading it: in
> order for the video to play in your browser, it must be downloaded.
> That's the end of the story. "Streaming video" is just another way of
> saying "downloading video, where the video is deleted afterwards".
> 
> (Actually, streaming video is just another way of saying "lots of
> pauses, stuttering, dropped frames and a really awful user
> experience".)

also true, but gramophone records were an inconvenience we put up with 
lacking a better solution.. so an inconvenience strictly speaking 
doesn't imply you can break the law.. however, is it fair to tempt us 
with these delights.. hence my moral confusion..

Anyway.. yes I agree that I have no business telling people off (and 
that was not my intention) it was a succinct warning of the dangers..