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Craigslist Suing Padmapper

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Re: Craigslist Suing Padmapper

#351

Post by dredmorbius »

adestefan wrote: post #153
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…

I'm also pretty confident that if it was the opposite (PadMapper suing Craigslist for using PadMapper data), then most people would be cheering on PadMapper.

Craigslist makes use of both Google Maps and Yahoo Mapquest to present locations of individual properties through links on the CL site.

Note that these are free links, not paid-for API calls.

Who's free-riding whom?

Re: Craigslist Suing Padmapper

#352

Post by dredmorbius »

kaonashi wrote: post #214
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…

On a purely philosophical level, the data 'belongs' to the people posting it.

Actually, that's on a legal copyright data -- the expression of the information belongs to its author.

The facts themselves aren't subject to copyright.

Access through the CL site is governed by various computer use statutes. Though aggregation-via-proxy as PM are doing through Google cache raises some interesting issues.

Re: Craigslist Suing Padmapper

#353

Post by cft »

malandrew wrote: post #309
eli wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly right. And if you want your data to be reposted on another site, then you should repost it. Craigslist is delivering exactly what it its users signed up for (no more no less). People posting ads on Craigslist do not necessarily want or intend for it to be reposted on other sites.

Uh oh... Bye bye Google and all search engines.

Google obeys robots.txt file. Padmapper does not. That's a critical difference.

Re: Craigslist Suing Padmapper

#354

Post by qq66 »

eli wrote: post #314
ameasure wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you automatically grant Craigslist your first born child and all future earnings and your left index finger. Laywers love to fill these things with unenforceable outlandish crap. The courts are more discerning.

Err, that's actually a very reasonable Terms of Service. It says that you own everything you post, but you are granting them the rights to use it. The only unusual bit is that you are additionally granting them the right to go after people who scrape your content on your behalf.

That's not that unusual for sites that contain user-generated content. If someone's hosting a blog full of scraped YouTube videos, YouTube can go after them without contacting the owner of each individual video.

Re: Craigslist Suing Padmapper

#355

Post by dredmorbius »

My view on this is much as it was before:

- The Craigslist apartments listing interface really, really sucks.

- Padmapper's search interface is much, much better.

- CL almost certainly have legal recourse to control use of their data and trademarks, or at least make things miserable for PadMapper should they choose to do so. Which would put a crimp on PM's future growth prospects as a lawsuit magnet.

- CL undoubtedly add value to their listings by filtering (through community input) for misclassified and spam listings.

- I really wish the two organizations could reach an equitable compromise which preserves the PM interface concept. Licensed use. Buyout. Whatever.

- Barring that, CL are ripe for disruption. My read is that PM have enough mojo at this point to make it on their own by licensing listings from other sources and soliciting them on their own.

Re: Craigslist Suing Padmapper

#356

Post by malandrew »

cft wrote: post #353
malandrew wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh oh... Bye bye Google and all search engines.

Google obeys robots.txt file. Padmapper does not. That's a critical difference.

True, but that's irrelevant to the comment I was replying to. We are talking about user expectations with regard to content they posted being made available on other sites.

Re: Craigslist Suing Padmapper

#357

Post by jahewson »

pg wrote: post #210

Craig Newmark said on Quora that the reason they didn't like people building stuff on top of Craigslist was simply the extra bandwidth they consumed: http://www.quora.com/Why-hasnt-anyone-built-any-products-on-... But now that 3Taps has found an ingenious way to get at the data with zero extra bandwidth cost to Craigslist (by retrieving it from the Google cache rather than CL itself), it's clear that what Craigslist…

Craigslist is probably within their legal rights here

I would really call this into question for the copyright claims. The key claim is copyright infringement, and the listings on Craigslist are almost certainly unprotected, much like telephone directory listings. They are statements of fact rather than creative works.

Craigslist may attempt to claim copyright over reproduction of their database as a whole (compilation), but the Supreme Court has ruled that in order to be eligible the compilation must be "original in its selection, coordination, and arrangement", and Craigslist can hardly claim that.

The breach of contract claims may be stronger though. The pages on the Google cache presumably still contain the ToS, and if they apply (who knows?) then PadMapper's use of Craigslist would likely constitute a breach. A ruling on this would be very interesting.

Re: Craigslist Suing Padmapper

#358

Post by learc83 »

mikeryan wrote: post #155
learc83 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

I have no idea how this is going to playout but if there's a copyright argument to be made, it won't be on the copyright of each listing, but the copyright on the compilation of the listings. You can't say the listing belongs to the user on one hand, and then say the data belongs to craigslist on the other. You can in fact make this argument in the case of compilations in copyright law - think a compilation of short…

I don't think it's as clearcut as saying its a compilation.

Here is the relevant wikipedia section on compilation copyright

>Copyright Act allows for the protection of "compilations," provided there is a "creative" or "original" act involved in such a compilation, such as in the selection (deciding which things to include or exclude), and arrangement (how they are shown and in what order). The protection is limited only to the selection and arrangement, not to the facts themselves, which may be freely copied.

>The Supreme Court decision in Feist v. Rural..rejected what was known as the "sweat of the brow" doctrine, in ruling that no matter how much work was necessary to create a compilation, a non-selective collection of facts ordered in a non-creative way is not subject to copyright protection.

I think there is a good argument that there is no creativity on Craigslist's part in selecting postings, since they aren't selecting them--users are uploading them. If true selection wouldn't be covered.

The arrangement might be (if it can be said to be creative), but I'm assuming padmapper isn't copying their arrangement.

Re: Craigslist Suing Padmapper

#359

Post by learc83 »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #186
learc83 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

I hear you, but I don't know if the courts will agree with your interpretation. The reason for that is that the courts will look at the consequence of having that interpretation widely accepted and the impact on the current state of affairs. There are many many places where this has been litigated and the courts always come down on the side of the data aggregator owning rights to the data aggregated. If PadMapper wan…

>If they can prove that the listing owner asked them to list their property, Craigslist can't sue.

Look at the Rightshaven case. The judge ruled that Rightshaven didn't have standing to sue on behalf just because the copyright holder granted it license to.

If that theory holds up, Craigslist wouldn't have standing to sue on behalf of the copyright holders.

Additionally copyright would only apply if the listings are considered creative works. Most of them are clearly simple statements of fact that wouldn't merit copyright protection in the first place.

Re: Craigslist Suing Padmapper

#360

Post by learc83 »

res0nat0r wrote: post #211
learc83 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

The users never agreed to their data being displayed on any other sites besides CL. If they wanted that to happen they would personally place their listings on other websites, or sign up for some type of 'post your classified add to 100s of sites from us' service, which CL clearly is not.

That doesn't necessarily mean that Craigslist has standing to sue on it's users behalf however. Also most of those listings don't merit copyright protection, because they are statements of fact not creative works.
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