Good News: Craigslist drops exclusive license to your posts

So what does this mean for services such as PadMapper?

The exclusive license effectively meant that you couldn't cross-post to both CraigsList and PadMapper because you had granted exclusivity to CraigsList.

People do read, and some likely thought twice about clicking "Continue", and did not post because of the ridiculous license. If it happened too frequently, CL might have noticed a dip in posts.

CL has also removed themselves from search engines, so PadMapper can no longer use the google cache workaround.

I don't think they can go back to scraping either, but I'm not certain of that aspect of it.

This may be the real reason behind the change. Perhaps CL just doesn't need it any more.

Two things: CL didn't pull back as far as it could of: > This new language was a marked difference from prior Terms of Use (2008/2011), which clearly stated “craigslist does not claim ownership of content that its users post.” While this clear language has not returned to the TOU, the same result comes from the non-exclusive license currently in the TOU.

And why can't the EFF just quote the current passage in its changed form? The post itself is still unclear. Is this the affected passage?

> 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 also expressly grant and assign to CL all rights and causes of action to prohibit and enforce against any unauthorized copying, performance, display, distribution, use or exploitation of, or creation of derivative works from, any content that you post (including but not limited to any unauthorized downloading, extraction, harvesting, collection or aggregation of content that you post).

http://www.craigslist.org/about/terms.of.use