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Craigslist Suing Padmapper

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Re: Craigslist Suing Padmapper

#131

Post by coliveira »

debacle wrote: post #76
nostromo wrote: post #60

Commenters here make this sound like an open and shut case in favor of Craigslist. IANAL, so could someone explain why Google's index of material covered by copyright is ok and PadMapper's is not?

Because if you ask Google to remove you from their index, they will. Rupert Murdoch has threatened this in the past. Each time he's backed down, because he knows that being removed from Google's index is akin to being removed from the Internet.

Which shows just how much Google profits from their virtual monopoly. If content companies knew that Google would make billions of dollars selling advertisement based on the content that they generated, it would be very hard for Google to pull the massive Internet scrapping that they managed to do from day one. It is interesting that people understand the illegitimacy of taking data from a single content source (Craigslist), but fail to see how unethical is to take data from everyone and sell advertisements based on that.

Re: Craigslist Suing Padmapper

#133

Post by learc83 »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #93

This isn't surprising of course, it is their data after all, but it brings up the 'easy problem' / 'hard problem' (E/H-P) conundrum quite nicely. The conundrum is that it is 'easy' to take an existing, quality data source, and re-skin it for broader market appeal. This is something that Craigslist should be doing but perhaps through poor management are not. It is 'hard' to take a conceptual model of skinning and buil…

>This isn't surprising of course, it is their data after all,

But that's the thing. It isn't their data. They specifically say so in their TOS. The copyright belongs to the user.

You can't say the listing belongs to the user (to protect you from liability) on one hand, and then say the data belongs to craigslist on the other.

They could always do what map companies have done forever to prevent copyright. Facts can't be copyrighted so map makers insert fictional cities.

If someone copies the map they are copying the fictional city and thus violating their copyright.

Craigslist could add a fictional listing here and there that they do own the copyright to.

Re: Craigslist Suing Padmapper

#134

Post by debacle »

IanDrake wrote: post #126
bluesnowmonkey wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Craigslist doesn't needs to be removed from the search index. They just need to prevent caching of posts, which is what 3Taps was abusing. Noarchive in robots.txt ought to take care of that.

To your knowledge, is it against the law to not follow a site's robots.txt? I'm not aware of one, but I am curious.

I don't know if it's illegal, but Google would follow the site's robots.txt.

Re: Craigslist Suing Padmapper

#135

Post by coliveira »

runako wrote: post #16

A key part of building a business around stealing IP is getting acquired by a big firm that can fight legal battles. YouTube executed well on this plan; I'm curious how Padmapper planned for this obvious development.

Or alternatively, steal IP while nobody is looking and then launch an IPO that will pay for the lawyers: that is what Google itself did.

Re: Craigslist Suing Padmapper

#136

Post by DASD »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #93

This isn't surprising of course, it is their data after all, but it brings up the 'easy problem' / 'hard problem' (E/H-P) conundrum quite nicely. The conundrum is that it is 'easy' to take an existing, quality data source, and re-skin it for broader market appeal. This is something that Craigslist should be doing but perhaps through poor management are not. It is 'hard' to take a conceptual model of skinning and buil…

With regard to the re-skin there was quite some external interest in this around 2009. Wired Magazine asked several leading designers to present their version of Craigslist redux.

http://www.wired.com/entertainment/theweb/magazine/17-09/ff_...

An article in the same interest, "Why Craigslist Is Such a Mess" ( http://www.wired.com/entertainment/theweb/magazine/17-09/ff_... ).

Re: Craigslist Suing Padmapper

#137

Post by ig1 »

IanDrake wrote: post #119
Maascamp wrote: post #43

The tone in this article is unbelievable. > The case raises questions over whether Craigslist is stifling innovation or simply protecting its data There is no question. Craigslist isn't stopping Padmapper from being built, its stopping Padmapper from using Craigslist data . The continuous attempts to reframe Craigslist's actions as an attempt to stifle innovation seem almost surreal. I just can't understand how a com…

> its stopping Padmapper from using Craigslist data Is it Craigslist's data? Does Craigslist own the posts that caused women to be murdered and stolen property to be sold? If they own that data, then they must be culpable (to some degree) for these bad acts. If they own it, they are now more than just a service provider (IMO) and can no longer be protected by the DCA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Dece…

No. I could write something illegal (libelous, inciting a crime, etc) and assign copyright to you without your consent.

Re: Craigslist Suing Padmapper

#138

Post by nlh »

I find this sort of thing very frustrating to read:

"The search tool is antiquated, the images are poor or nonexistent, locations of listings are hardly dependable, and you can forget about an integrated way to save anything for later reference. There is a litany of shortcomings that come with the Craigslist apartment search; they are many and they are painful..."

If you don't like the site, don't like the UI, and can't stand the UX, then don't use the site. Nobody is forcing you to search for an apartment on CL. Nobody is forcing owners to list apartments on CL.

And so now we get to the meat ...

"...Your site is chock-full of data I need..."

Ahh...data you NEED.

So here's the thing. If you truly need the data, then you need Craigslist and you have an obligation to use it the way they (and only they) want you to use it. If you don't like the way they want you to use it, there are several choices:

* Go work for them and convince them to improve it. * Build a better mousetrap.

The former probably won't succeed, so the latter seems to be the way to go.

Look, there's nothing preventing landlords from listing their apartments on Craigslist AND your new Craigslist replacement/improvement. They're not locked in. If they were, that would be a whole different discussion - then we can talk about anti-competitive, innovation-stifling behavior. But that's not the case - the only reason people list apartments on CL is because it works. Despite the bad UI. Hence the reason CL hasn't changed it.

So it's the job of some enterprising entrepreneur not only ro build a better mousetrap, but convince people to use it. Until that happens, as much as I too dislike the Craigslist UI, I can't say I support PadMapper on this one.

Re: Craigslist Suing Padmapper

#139

Post by nostromo »

coliveira wrote: post #131
debacle wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because if you ask Google to remove you from their index, they will. Rupert Murdoch has threatened this in the past. Each time he's backed down, because he knows that being removed from Google's index is akin to being removed from the Internet.

Which shows just how much Google profits from their virtual monopoly. If content companies knew that Google would make billions of dollars selling advertisement based on the content that they generated, it would be very hard for Google to pull the massive Internet scrapping that they managed to do from day one. It is interesting that people understand the illegitimacy of taking data from a single content source (Crai…

Interestingly, Craigslist is being consistent when it comes to not allowing scrapers, including Google.

http://www.craigslist.org/robots.txt

edit: oops! they're not actually blocking google from the apartment listings. thanks smackfu.

Re: Craigslist Suing Padmapper

#140

Post by callmevlad »

debacle wrote: post #76
nostromo wrote: post #60

Commenters here make this sound like an open and shut case in favor of Craigslist. IANAL, so could someone explain why Google's index of material covered by copyright is ok and PadMapper's is not?

Because if you ask Google to remove you from their index, they will. Rupert Murdoch has threatened this in the past. Each time he's backed down, because he knows that being removed from Google's index is akin to being removed from the Internet.

I can imagine some clever hacks where Padmapper uses Google targeted searches and Google's cache exclusively to get Craigslist data. Since Craigslist would never ask Google to remove them from their index, I wonder if Craigslist would still go after those who get their data as proxied by Google.
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