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Craigslist Suing Padmapper

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Re: Craigslist Suing Padmapper

#241

Post by stcredzero »

eli wrote: post #112
Kadrith wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does PadMapper respect the robots.txt file?

I thought it was weird that CL didn't add a Disallow line for padmapper to robots.txt from the start (just from a PR perspective). But robots.txt has no special legal authority, it's just a convention used to communicate a publisher's intent. I'm pretty sure the C&D letter made it 100% clear that CL did not want Padmapper crawling their site or using their data.

Padmapper doesn't crawl Craigslist. That's not how it happens.

Re: Craigslist Suing Padmapper

#242

Post by runako »

Flimm wrote: post #220
coliveira wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course. From their TOS: "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…

That just means that the users of Craiglist grant them an unlimited license. The users still own the copyright, though.

Where does Padmapper's license to the listing data originate? When do the posters of listings grant Padmapper a license of any kind?

Re: Craigslist Suing Padmapper

#243

Post by icebraining »

tptacek wrote: post #176
icebraining wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not Craigslist data, it's the users'. They just have a license. /pedant

Users are free to post their listings to both Padmapper and Craigslist. Padmapper is not therefore automatically entitled to repurpose Craigslist as a kind of ad-hoc aggregator API for user listings.

I know, I wasn't claiming otherwise, I just meant what I wrote.

Re: Craigslist Suing Padmapper

#244

Post by untog »

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…

what Craigslist really dislikes is competition

Hm, would you not say that what Craigslist really dislikes is their competition piggy-backing off their data? Craigslist seemed quite happy with the existing situation until Padmapper launched their own listing service.

Though I agree that it's not in the spirit of a .org, if such concept exists.

Re: Craigslist Suing Padmapper

#245

Post by stcredzero »

ceejayoz wrote: post #226
scotty79 wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No they don't. They just have to check the stupid checbox that doesn't do anything because otherwise they can't post advertisment they wrote. I'd say cheking this checkbox is coerced. Also you may check it witout reading what's written next to it.

Posting to Craigslist isn't a Constitutional right. Don't agree with the terms? Don't post there. No one's coercing.

Let me know if you rent your next place without it.

Re: Craigslist Suing Padmapper

#246

Post by icebraining »

waterlesscloud wrote: post #146
icebraining wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not Craigslist data, it's the users'. They just have a license. /pedant

Great. Have the users provided a license to PadMapper? Where is this license agreement? How is it made?

Stop assuming things that I didn't claim. I meant what I wrote, nothing else.

Re: Craigslist Suing Padmapper

#247

Post by flinty »

waterlesscloud wrote: post #144
wickedchicken wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see this from the opposite viewpoint, that PadMapper is operating as a search engine designed to help you find the right Craigslist posts for your apartment hunt. Claiming that PadMapper's success is from Craigslist failing to 'provide a good UI' is like suggesting that Google News' success is because newspaper companies failed to provide good article SEO. Instead, it's a different modality of content discovery, an…

For that analogy to hold, PadMapper would have to be pulling data from a large number of sources. The value that Google News provides is that it aggregates a very large number of sources. PadMapper does not.

But that is where the source of the problem is - CL has the largest user base for listing and classifieds on the internet and since they have the monopoly on this they have never felt the need to improve the experience on their site. Now that padmapper has started getting large number of users CL feels threatened and is suing them to shut them down.

Re: Craigslist Suing Padmapper

#248

Post by usaar333 »

res0nat0r wrote: post #205
ataggart wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The posts on CL are no more "Craigslist data" than videos on YouTube are "Google data". The data is submitted by the users for the express purpose of being seen by other people. Does anyone seriously argue that users listing flats on CL do not want their listing found by other avenues? It is clear that Padmapper is providing a service beneficial to both suppliers and consumers of rental properties, and CL is using th…

The users of CL never agreed to let you copy their postings to whatever website you feel like, also it is against their TOS to do so: Any copying, aggregation, display, distribution, performance or derivative use of craigslist or any content posted on craigslist whether done directly or through intermediaries (including but not limited to by means of spiders, robots, crawlers, scrapers, framing, iframes or RSS feeds)…

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.

Re: Craigslist Suing Padmapper

#250

Post by kloncks »

untog wrote: post #244
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…

what Craigslist really dislikes is competition Hm, would you not say that what Craigslist really dislikes is their competition piggy-backing off their data ? Craigslist seemed quite happy with the existing situation until Padmapper launched their own listing service. Though I agree that it's not in the spirit of a .org, if such concept exists.

No.

It's not their data. It's ours, as the users. Craigslist doesn't own anything I upload to them.

The reason PadMapper exists is because Craigslist refuses to not suck.

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