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Good News: Craigslist drops exclusive license to your posts

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Re: Good News: Craigslist drops exclusive license to your posts

#11

Post by danso »

abbott wrote: post #6

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.

I highly, highly doubt this. How many users on a given day are brand new users? How many are users who have used CL occasionally or regularly? And how many of those are likely to read the text of the license on their nth post?

Very, very few, I bet, unless CL highlighted the change in red and made them click through a few Confirm dialogs.

Re: Good News: Craigslist drops exclusive license to your posts

#12

Post by danso »

waterlesscloud wrote: post #8
BadassFractal wrote: post #3

Does this effectively mean Padmapper can use CL data once again?

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.

I think this is correct, though the EFF post is too vague, and doesn't quote the passage in its current state.

Also, CL has not removed itself from search engines. They're using NOARCHIVE.

Re: Good News: Craigslist drops exclusive license to your posts

#13

Post by danso »

BadassFractal wrote: post #9
pyre wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Ok makes sense, so that legitimizes something like PadLister. Does this however enable one to scrape CL for data?

...this does not legitimize anything in particular. It says it's OK for users to post ads on multiple sites, not that other sites can scrape CL's user content.

This is akin to freelance contract work: if you're a news photographer, there's usually a clause saying that while you can own your photos, you may not sell them to your client's competitors (at least right away).

So CL is saying to its users: Go ahead and copy and paste your stuff to other sites. So, not a huge difference by any means in what most users assumed.

Re: Good News: Craigslist drops exclusive license to your posts

#14

Post by dredmorbius »

danso wrote: post #12
waterlesscloud wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think this is correct, though the EFF post is too vague, and doesn't quote the passage in its current state. Also, CL has not removed itself from search engines. They're using NOARCHIVE.

Last I checked, robots.txt excludes all crawlers from at least several major classifications, including housing listings (/hhh):

    User-agent: *
    Disallow: /cgi-bin
    Disallow: /cgi-secure
    Disallow: /forums
    Disallow: /search
    Disallow: /res/
    Disallow: /post
    Disallow: /email.friend
    Disallow: /eaf
    Disallow: /reply
    Disallow: /?flagCode
    Disallow: /ccc
    Disallow: /hhh
    Disallow: /sss
    Disallow: /bbb
    Disallow: /ggg
    Disallow: /jjj
    Disallow: /*rss$
http://www.craigslist.org/robots.txt

'jjj' is jobs, 'ggg' is gigs, 'bbb' is services, 'sss' is for sale, 'ccc' is community, 'res' is resumes.

Re: Good News: Craigslist drops exclusive license to your posts

#16

Post by BadassFractal »

danso wrote: post #13
BadassFractal wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok makes sense, so that legitimizes something like PadLister. Does this however enable one to scrape CL for data?

...this does not legitimize anything in particular. It says it's OK for users to post ads on multiple sites, not that other sites can scrape CL's user content. This is akin to freelance contract work: if you're a news photographer, there's usually a clause saying that while you can own your photos, you may not sell them to your client's competitors (at least right away). So CL is saying to its users : Go ahead and co…

PadMapper was doing the cross-posting to PadList to slowly build its user base. I however did not realize that Craigslist frowned upon that until the change in the agreement.

Re: Good News: Craigslist drops exclusive license to your posts

#17

Post by slaven »

abbott wrote: post #6

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.

I think this has less to do with a drop in user postings and more to do with the obvious irony of an EFF Advisory Board member extending their rights over user content so broadly.

Re: Good News: Craigslist drops exclusive license to your posts

#18

Post by mbreese »

danso wrote: post #10

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 cha…

You also expressly grant and assign to CL all rights and causes of action to prohibit and enforce against any unauthorized...

How is this in effect any different from a non-exclusive license? Are they going to ask each person if they gave permission for something that was cross posted multiple places? At least now people can post an ad to multiple place, but CL wants to make sure that they aren't crawled?

If I were CL, I'd be more worried about losing Safe Harbor protection than whether or not I owned user submissions.

Re: Good News: Craigslist drops exclusive license to your posts

#19

Post by danso »

dredmorbius wrote: post #14
danso wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is correct, though the EFF post is too vague, and doesn't quote the passage in its current state. Also, CL has not removed itself from search engines. They're using NOARCHIVE.

Last I checked, robots.txt excludes all crawlers from at least several major classifications, including housing listings (/hhh): User-agent: * Disallow: /cgi-bin Disallow: /cgi-secure Disallow: /forums Disallow: /search Disallow: /res/ Disallow: /post Disallow: /email.friend Disallow: /eaf Disallow: /reply Disallow: /?flagCode Disallow: /ccc Disallow: /hhh Disallow: /sss Disallow: /bbb Disallow: /ggg Disallow: /jjj D…

Right...but not apartment listings (aap)

http://newyork.craigslist.org/aap/ http://newyork.craigslist.org/roo/ http://newyork.craigslist.org/sub/

http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=...

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