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I reported two scrapers which were violating the license* recently, as I'd done some time last year as well. I got this email in return:

Hello,

All content on Stack Exchange is licensed under either CC-BY-SA 3.0 or CC-BY-SA-4.0. The Creative Commons licenses permit other sites to reproduce content that appears on the Stack Exchange network, so long as they follow the Creative Commons attribution requirements.

Because we have no standing to ask another site to take down content they have reproduced from our site, there is unfortunately very little we can do to address scrapers, and we are no longer pursuing these avenues as a company.

Thank you for your diligence. The attention paid by users like you keeps Stack Exchange a functional and durable community resource.

Please write back if you have any further questions.
Thanks,
The Stack Overflow & Stack Exchange support teams

I proceeded to be confused. From the first paragraph, it looks like the email excuses anyone "so long as they follow the Creative Commons attribution requirements"- which these sites were not. This put me in the wrong state of mind for the second paragraph about how the company has "no standing" to ask the other site to take down copied content. The Tavern pointed me to the FAQ saying that scrapers are simply not being pursued anymore, no matter the attribution. That's more honest at least.

The email should be more honest too. The first two paragraphs could be replaced with:

Because we have no standing to ask another site to take down content they have reproduced from our site, regardless of whether they follow Creative Commons attribution requirements, there is unfortunately very little we can do to address scrapers, and we are no longer pursuing these avenues as a company. See this FAQ, especially "What actions can I take myself?", for further information.

* Each had a link back to the original content hidden at the bottom, labeled "more detail". Both the Qs and As were attributed to (fake?) authors, neither of which was correct. There was no indication, visually, that this was copied content.

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  • 1
    I recall reporting such kinda sites and I didn't even get a reply from SE :(
    – Random Person
    Commented May 9, 2022 at 17:59
  • Perhaps if you were to post details of the sites on meta, those members who's content was copied without attribution might be willing to take action. - Could the E-Mail include instructions to do that? It seems only reasonable that the members involved should have access to a record of such things somewhere.
    – W.O.
    Commented May 9, 2022 at 19:21
  • 8
    The statement is being made from a legal context. Only the copyright holder, or their assigned agent, has the ability to sue someone who is violating their copyright (i.e. has "standing" in court). Stack Overflow/Stack Exchange doesn't hold the copyright to user contributions and isn't an "agent" of the copyright holders (i.e. the contributors). Thus, SO/SE doesn't actually have the ability to force other parties to comply with the license.
    – Makyen
    Commented May 9, 2022 at 19:56
  • 3
    @Makyen yes, that's correct, but that's not the most natural reading of the first two paragraphs so I propose a rewrite to clarify
    – bobble
    Commented May 9, 2022 at 19:57
  • 2
    Yes, they have given up.
    – This_is_NOT_a_forum
    Commented May 10, 2022 at 11:00
  • @Luuklag nope, because that is from a time they still pursued scrapers, so the proposed emails would tell about the company's progress. However I'm asking the company to explain their current stance that such pursuit will not happen at all.
    – bobble
    Commented May 10, 2022 at 14:01
  • @bobble you read the answer from Animuson there, right?
    – Luuklag
    Commented May 10, 2022 at 14:03
  • 2
    @Luuklag even with that answer, it's not asking the same thing: for follow-ups instead of specific wording changes. The answer says there won't be follow-ups but says nothing about changing the wording, rightfully, since the question isn't asking about that.
    – bobble
    Commented May 10, 2022 at 14:07
  • A partial default duplicate is the FAQ: A site (or scraper) is copying content from Stack Exchange. What should I do? because it ought to correctly explain the current situation, and what the user should do / expect (fixing the email to correspond with the expected outcomes is what this FR asks); and meta.stackexchange.com/a/343405/282094
    – Rob
    Commented May 10, 2022 at 14:50

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