The fact that some of those people chose to use automated means in violation of the websites' terms of service may result in a breach-of-contract claim, but does not convert otherwise authorized access into a crime."

Is automated CAPTCHA illegal?

There are both legitimate and illegal reasons to use automated CAPTCHA solving. ... As for the legal ones, it could be a new business partner wanting to automate access to the service of a certain company but the service is protected by CAPTCHA (to prevent abuse).

Can bots get past CAPTCHA?

Some bots can get past the text CAPTCHAs on their own. Researchers have demonstrated ways to write a program that beats the image recognition CAPTCHAs as well. In addition, attackers can use click farms to beat the tests: thousands of low-paid workers solving CAPTCHAs on behalf of bots.