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Craigslist Suing Padmapper

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Re: Craigslist Suing Padmapper

#391

Post by paulsutter »

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…

Paul -

It's easy to interpret your post to mean that stealing/reusing data just because you can is fair competitive practice. Please do clarify because your words mean a lot to people and your post might be interpreted that way.

Hilarious to expose their sanctimonious nonsense though.

Re: Craigslist Suing Padmapper

#392

Post by rprasad »

kytmizuno wrote: post #129
rprasad wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Craiglist doesn't need to write those posts. Under their TOS, Craiglist has a license to the posts (which are copyrighted by their owners ). This license gives Craiglist the authority to enforce copyright against persons who interfere with Craigslists' license in the posts. Thus, the last sentence of their TOS is perfectly legal and enforceable. The license would not give Craiglist a license to do anything to other s…

From what I've read, only the actual copyright holder has the right to sue others for copyright infringement. See the Righthaven case from last year. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/09/righthaven-copyri...

Righthaven is different. Righthaven did not have a copyright use license, so it did not have the right to enforce the copyright. (A copyright enforcement "license" is a non-license, legally, since it does not convey any actual copy "right" such as distribution.)

Craiglist does have a copyright use license, and thus has the right to enforce the license it has been granted.

Re: Craigslist Suing Padmapper

#393

Post by pg »

res0nat0r wrote: post #366
pg wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"People posting ads on Craigslist do not necessarily want or intend for it to be reposted on other sites." That argument appears to be invalidated by Craiglist's own terms of use, which say that when you upload a listing to Craigslist they can syndicate it wherever they want ( http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4287519 ).

The key point is that the TOS says that you grant Craigslist the right to redistribute your listing where ever they see fit, it doesn't say some third party entity has the right to do that.

Yes it does: "fully sub-licensable (through multiple tiers)"

Re: Craigslist Suing Padmapper

#394

Post by cwp »

MichaelGG wrote: post #204
chimi wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty clear that Padmapper is making use of the craigslist posts without the rights to do so, which is defined by Merriam-Webster as "stealing". STEALING transitive verb 1a : to take or appropriate without right or leave and with intent to keep or make use of wrongfully http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/stealing If you're going to downvote me, that's fine, but if you do, please show how copyright infrin…

Because it's copyright infringement, that's what it is, no one disagrees on that. Using "steal" tries to load copyright violations with a specific meaning, and that is not agreed on. It frames the debate, and people take issue with that as it creates a more emotional and less objective discussion. Also: http://lesswrong.com/lw/nz/arguing_by_definition/

Nope, not copyright infringement either.

Re: Craigslist Suing Padmapper

#395

Post by rprasad »

learc83 wrote: post #370
jacoblyles wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Craigslist is a business. And a monopoly, like Microsoft in the 90s. Didn't they have the right to decide which browsers are packaged with their OS? Don't they even have the right to decide which browsers run on their OS?

Exactly, they've pretty much run every newspaper classified out of business. Consumers have no choice but to do business with craigslist if they want to list something in a classified.

People could always post to padmapper...directly. Or sell on Ebay...Or post it to the various subreddits...Or to local newspaper's community boards...

There is nothing forcing people to use Craiglist. They are not a monopoly, nor do they act like one.

Re: Craigslist Suing Padmapper

#396

Post by rprasad »

robotsgz wrote: post #372
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…

Not sure I would call that ingenious. But your point is sorely need of being made more often. How many other websites use arguments like "bandwidth" to falsely portray competitors who access their publicly shared data as somehow in the wrong? Many. Some here on HN. No need to name names. No doubt even Google would complain about people "scraping" search results. To me, it is a joke. Because the people who complain us…

The users chose to give Craiglist permission to use their data. They did not choose to give PadMapper their data, or else they would have posted their listing to PadMapper.

They did give Craiglist permission to prevent others from using their data without permission. In this context, scraping any version of Craiglist's site (whether CL itself or a third party cache) falls within Craiglist's rights under the license they were given, and within the user's expectations of what Craiglist will do with their data.

Re: Craigslist Suing Padmapper

#397

Post by dschobel »

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.

Good luck explaining that to a judge. Would you gamble a company based on that distinction?

Re: Craigslist Suing Padmapper

#398

Post by rprasad »

res0nat0r wrote: post #255
usaar333 wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would bet that 99% of CL users not only never read this TOS, but they also do not care if padmapper copies their listings.

I've never read my credit card TOS, so I don't have to pay my bills right?

Under the HN logic prevailing in this discussion, that would appear to be correct...

But like padmapper, you would be completely screwed if it turned into a lawsuit.

Re: Craigslist Suing Padmapper

#399

Post by dredmorbius »

debacle wrote: post #308
warfangle wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"You automatically grant and assign to CL, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant and assign to CL, a perpetual, irrevocable, unlimited, fully paid, fully sub-licensable (through multiple tiers), worldwide license to copy, perform, display, distribute, prepare derivative works from (including, without limitation, incorporating into other works) and otherwise use any content that you post. You…

Hadn't actually dug into the ToS, but the bit: > You also expressly grant and assign to CL all rights and causes of action to prohibit and enforce against any unauthorized copying, performance, display, distribution... Seems to be vital to this case.

CL revised their TOU recently (within the past year, possibly more recently than that). It wasn't a minor edit, it was a complete rewrite.

I suspect this may have been one of the introduced terms.

Re: Craigslist Suing Padmapper

#400

Post by cwp »

danielweber wrote: post #373
cwp wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If linking without permission is problematic, Hacker News is in real trouble. So is just about every blog and news site on the web.

Right. I've already agreed that there is a significant difference between displaying copies of CL listings and just having pointers to them. It doesn't seem, however, that the link is the crux of CL's complaint. Rather it's the fact that PM has copied CL's data in order to generate a mapping of physical locations to CL listings.

You can't copyright data, only its expression. That a certain apartment is available for rent is a fact. The text that appears on the CL website is one expression of that fact. The map that appears on Padmapper is another expression of the same fact.
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