Craigslist now asks for exclusive license when posting • Hacker News Board

Re: Craigslist now asks for exclusive license when posting

#121

Post by paulgb » Wed, Aug 01, 2012, 2:58 PM UTC

hnriot wrote: post #108

jeremymims wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Craigslist could: - kill Padmapper instantly by building a map function to view their listings. - elect not to build a map feature because they think it's trivial and they believe no one cares. So Padmapper should languish. - buy Padmapper for a little bit of money and have Eric help make their product better. - hire Eric to make their product better. - invest a little money into Padmapper as a hedge and hope it does…

This seems very naive to think that Craig gives a damn about padmapper, they (CL) have every right to license their data to whomever they want, and PM choose not to seek such a license so I seriously doubt Eric would really stand much of a chance getting a job with CL. You speak as though CL is broken, and it clearly isn't, as a marketplace it functions well. You may not like the website, but it's marketplace first,…

> You speak as though CL is broken, and it clearly isn't, as a marketplace it functions well.

I'm guessing you've never had to find an apartment on Craigslist. Sifting through spam, scams, fake listings by agents, listings that have already been sold... sure, you can do it, but it's not efficient.

Re: Craigslist now asks for exclusive license when posting

#122

Post by jeremymims » Wed, Aug 01, 2012, 2:58 PM UTC

hnriot wrote: post #108

jeremymims wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Craigslist could: - kill Padmapper instantly by building a map function to view their listings. - elect not to build a map feature because they think it's trivial and they believe no one cares. So Padmapper should languish. - buy Padmapper for a little bit of money and have Eric help make their product better. - hire Eric to make their product better. - invest a little money into Padmapper as a hedge and hope it does…

This seems very naive to think that Craig gives a damn about padmapper, they (CL) have every right to license their data to whomever they want, and PM choose not to seek such a license so I seriously doubt Eric would really stand much of a chance getting a job with CL. You speak as though CL is broken, and it clearly isn't, as a marketplace it functions well. You may not like the website, but it's marketplace first,…

Actually, Craig has a history of speaking personally with founders using CL data, acting nice, and then mysteriously shutting down their mechanism for getting data without replying. Even if they weren't trying to make money.

http://techcrunch.com/2009/12/16/craigslist-yahoo-pipes/

Craigslist is broken. And successful. Those aren't mutually exclusive things. Newspapers are broken yet they'll do nearly $20 billion of dollars in revenue this year. They were broken and did peak revenue in 2005. Nokia was broken but had record profits two years ago. RIM was broken and did record profits last year.

Craigslist will eventually lose. It's just going to take longer than any of us reasonably expect.

Re: Craigslist now asks for exclusive license when posting

#123

Post by tomc1985 » Wed, Aug 01, 2012, 2:59 PM UTC

jeremyarussell wrote: post #111

hnriot wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems very naive to think that Craig gives a damn about padmapper, they (CL) have every right to license their data to whomever they want, and PM choose not to seek such a license so I seriously doubt Eric would really stand much of a chance getting a job with CL. You speak as though CL is broken, and it clearly isn't, as a marketplace it functions well. You may not like the website, but it's marketplace first,…

That's the thing though, remember that old adage "The customer is always right" it means that at the end of the day, right or wrong, good or bad, allowed or not-allowed, caring or cold, sue-happy or not if the people that use the website are complaining (and so far it seems they are) than cragislist is broken, because it's leadership lost the respect of it's market. There is absolutely nothing stopping someone from m…

That old adage is dead. "The customer is always right" is a prescription for terror

Re: Craigslist now asks for exclusive license when posting

#124

Post by flinty » Wed, Aug 01, 2012, 3:09 PM UTC

duked wrote: post #92

Honestly I have no stake in this, but I'm happy CL is doing that change. 3TAP and Padmapper and just trying to build a "buisness" sucking up posts from CL and tried to find doggy way around it. CL don't want their post used somehwere else, no fancy UI it's their right and it's now becoming their clear LEGAL right. I have zero sympathy for padmapper I actually think their buisness practices are disgusting (CL offered…

CL offered them a mobile license and Padmapper is primarily a web only application. Besides this trying to search for an apartment on mobile would be incredibly tedious. And this is likely why CL is willing to offer a mobile license.

Re: Craigslist now asks for exclusive license when posting

#125

Post by defen » Wed, Aug 01, 2012, 3:12 PM UTC

jc123 wrote: post #38

dangrossman wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read the text. Exclusive license. That means you may not license your post to any other site; giving someone else permission to display your listing is a grant of a license, and such a license is explicitly mentioned in the terms of any UGC site, including Craigslist. The difference is those other terms always say NON-exclusive. Go ahead and stop by YouTube and do a search for the word. This isn't boilerplate legales…

Hard to see the day when craigslist tries to sue posters for this "violation"; so effectively posters can ignore this legalese as it's targeted to give craiglist ammunition against other sites.

> effectively posters can ignore this legalese

Operationally, probably true. However, ethically this is no different than the people who said PadMapper should just use "Craigslist's" data regardless of what Craigslist thought about the situation. To be consistent, either you believe:

1) It's ok for PadMapper to re-list Craigslist's data without Craigslist's consent.

OR

2) If you post a housing listing to Craigslist, you cannot post it anywhere else.

Re: Craigslist now asks for exclusive license when posting

#126

Post by smspence » Wed, Aug 01, 2012, 3:12 PM UTC

archangel_one wrote: post #90

briandear wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does the chick down the street selling her old couch really care about exclusive rights or not? Not anymore than I care about the lubricant used on the subway wheels. I just want to get there cheaply and quickly and that chick just wants to sell her couch. The HN community is a very tiny subset of the population and our views often have little corespondence to those of muggles.

She doesn't think she does, but if she lists that couch on ebay as well she is technically in breach of craigslist's terms of service, and if they decide to enforce it then she is going to be forced to care. Not that I expect them to actually try to enforce it in that way, of course.

"...if she lists that couch on ebay as well she is technically in breach of craigslist's terms of service."

No, I do not think that has anything to do with the new craiglist terms of service. The new terms of service just prevents other people from copying the content of the craigslist ad.

So, no the hypothetical woman selling the couch would not be affected by the new terms in any way.

Re: Craigslist now asks for exclusive license when posting

#127

Post by CodeCube » Wed, Aug 01, 2012, 3:21 PM UTC

smspence wrote: post #126

archangel_one wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She doesn't think she does, but if she lists that couch on ebay as well she is technically in breach of craigslist's terms of service, and if they decide to enforce it then she is going to be forced to care. Not that I expect them to actually try to enforce it in that way, of course.

"...if she lists that couch on ebay as well she is technically in breach of craigslist's terms of service." No, I do not think that has anything to do with the new craiglist terms of service. The new terms of service just prevents other people from copying the content of the craigslist ad. So, no the hypothetical woman selling the couch would not be affected by the new terms in any way.

I wonder if there's a market for a rewriting service ... takes a volume of text, and rewrites it using different words so that it's the same content, but not copied.

Re: Craigslist now asks for exclusive license when posting

#128

Post by alan_cx » Wed, Aug 01, 2012, 3:34 PM UTC

Um, dont most people just click OK, Accept or whatever, with out ever reading on? Cant see the vast majority giving a toss. How many stories have there been about ebay, paypal, facebook, etc, and none of those sites seem to be losing loads of users, if any.

I mean, I even had a facebook "friend" forward a circular about the evils of facebook, saying "we" should all be up in arms. I asked her if she was going to close her FB account. Yeah, you all know the answer.

Re: Craigslist now asks for exclusive license when posting

#129

Post by chainedtodesk » Wed, Aug 01, 2012, 3:38 PM UTC

wmeredith wrote: post #47

chrisacky wrote: post #43

Ask AirBnB: Going to change your integration now? Since AirBnB has tight Craigslist integration, allowing the user to post their listing after they have posted on AirBnB, this sounds like a total paradoxical situation (for lack of a better word). AirBnB kind of set up a listing acting a "proxy", but the owner of the listing hits the final "confirm" to post. Take a look here for example of the integration. http://andr…

I'm wondering the same thing for the excellent classifieds app on iOS: Yardsale.

How much does Yardsale rely on Craigslist to stay alive? I posted a few items on Yardsale but got empty, flaky replies from Craigslist and still had the "crazy inbox" problem. Using this as a jumping off point to divorce from Craigslist, it would be good for Yardsale to differentiate itself with quality of buyers and manageability of enquiries rather than act as just a portal with all of the same problems and no real benefits.

Re: Craigslist now asks for exclusive license when posting

#130

Post by nathan_long » Wed, Aug 01, 2012, 3:43 PM UTC

paulgb wrote: post #121

hnriot wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems very naive to think that Craig gives a damn about padmapper, they (CL) have every right to license their data to whomever they want, and PM choose not to seek such a license so I seriously doubt Eric would really stand much of a chance getting a job with CL. You speak as though CL is broken, and it clearly isn't, as a marketplace it functions well. You may not like the website, but it's marketplace first,…

> You speak as though CL is broken, and it clearly isn't, as a marketplace it functions well. I'm guessing you've never had to find an apartment on Craigslist. Sifting through spam, scams, fake listings by agents, listings that have already been sold... sure, you can do it, but it's not efficient.

Or a car. Try searching for one of three brands you like within a specified range prices and years, excluding vehicles that have salvage titles, sorted by how close the seller is to you.