4 ms·

Elon Musk's X can't invent its own copyright law, judge says

63 points by MBCook 3y ago

jauntywundrkind 3y ago
Judge Alsup! Man it's so just so refreshing when people are competent and capable & know their stuff. Alsup and Senator Ron Wyden are the two people who reliably make me feel better about the intersection of technology and law. The topic here reminds me so strongly of Web Scraping for Me but not for Thee, which talks about how viciously companies are trying to fight scraping on the public internet. The use of contract law - writing whatever terms of use you want - to erode away at humanity's rights has been a long running war, and it's great to see some push back against companies being able to strip rights away from the public as they please (of course add in any DRM at all and suddenly that same exercise of rights is now a felony sooo don't get too happy yet). This could totally be a momentous red letter day! https://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2023/08/web-scraping-for-me-but-not-for-thee-guest-blog-post.htm https://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2023/08/web-scraping-f... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37264676 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37264676 (It's not like Bright Cove is some noble cause here, but use of clickwrap contract-law to rebuff loose coupling of systems, to prevent re-use & remix, is a totalizing & winnowing horror against the spirit of the internet & against human cause. And it's been creeping outward for way too long. Thanks Mark Lemley's Terms of Use for discussing, back in 2006.)
- reaperman 2y ago
  We are very lucky that Alsup seems to be handed so many of these cases. I don’t always entirely agree with his rulings on every point, but I am always incredibly reassured to see his name attached to an important case. I know the decision will be fair, informed, and not cause major problems for society or industry. Obligatory mention that Alsup taught himself Java so that he would have confidence evaluating arguments and evidence for Oracle vs. Google. Also I read this decision, and thought it was unusually well written, even for him. It’s unsurprising that he took notice of hiQ vs. LinkedIn but he made it very clear why this case did not intersect with that decision. I’m happy with this case because it clarifies the legal landscape even further for a broad swath of the industry. The scraping niche is still a place where many young entrepreneurs cut their teeth on their first enterprises, and it will be nice for them to avoid costly legal battles relitigating this common issue.
sgc 3y ago
I love it. The permissiveness of copyright law preempts restrictive user agreements. Finally, a drop of sanity in an insane world.
toomuchtodo 3y ago
Order: https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/X-Corp-v-Bright-Data-Order-Dismissing-Complaint-5-9-24.pdf https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/X-Cor...
- fragmede 3y ago
  > A social media company asserts breach-of-contract and tort claims against a data- scraping company. It seeks to bar the data-scraping company from extracting and copying public data from its social media platform, and from selling tools that enable others to extract and copy public data from its social media platform. Meanwhile, the social media company sells its own tools that enable others to extract and copy public data from its social media platform. The data-scraping company has moved to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction and failure to state a claim. A prior order denied the motion to dismiss as to lack of personal jurisdiction. For the reasons stated herein, the motion to dismiss as to failure to state a claim is GRANTED and the instant complaint is DISMISSED.
Tiberium 2y ago
Maybe I'm missing something, but isn't this also directly applicable to services like Reddit, especially after their API changes?
- isaacfrond 2y ago
  It seems so, yes
honeybadger1 2y ago
It seems short sighted, people pay to use certain features of X for high scale posting and social media activity, but businesses shouldn't have to pay to consume this information from X? Seems like X messed up with their arguments, allowing for the Judge to come to this decision.

63 points by MBCook 3y ago

Judge Alsup! Man it's so just so refreshing when people are competent and capable & know their stuff. Alsup and Senator Ron Wyden are the two people who reliably make me feel better about the intersection of technology and law. The topic here reminds me so strongly of Web Scraping for Me but not for Thee, which talks about how viciously companies are trying to fight scraping on the public internet. The use of contract law - writing whatever terms of use you want - to erode away at humanity's rights has been a long running war, and it's great to see some push back against companies being able to strip rights away from the public as they please (of course add in any DRM at all and suddenly that same exercise of rights is now a felony sooo don't get too happy yet). This could totally be a momentous red letter day! https://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2023/08/web-scraping-for-me-but-not-for-thee-guest-blog-post.htm https://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2023/08/web-scraping-f... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37264676 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37264676 (It's not like Bright Cove is some noble cause here, but use of clickwrap contract-law to rebuff loose coupling of systems, to prevent re-use & remix, is a totalizing & winnowing horror against the spirit of the internet & against human cause. And it's been creeping outward for way too long. Thanks Mark Lemley's Terms of Use for discussing, back in 2006.)

reaperman 2y ago
We are very lucky that Alsup seems to be handed so many of these cases. I don’t always entirely agree with his rulings on every point, but I am always incredibly reassured to see his name attached to an important case. I know the decision will be fair, informed, and not cause major problems for society or industry. Obligatory mention that Alsup taught himself Java so that he would have confidence evaluating arguments and evidence for Oracle vs. Google. Also I read this decision, and thought it was unusually well written, even for him. It’s unsurprising that he took notice of hiQ vs. LinkedIn but he made it very clear why this case did not intersect with that decision. I’m happy with this case because it clarifies the legal landscape even further for a broad swath of the industry. The scraping niche is still a place where many young entrepreneurs cut their teeth on their first enterprises, and it will be nice for them to avoid costly legal battles relitigating this common issue.

sgc 3y ago

I love it. The permissiveness of copyright law preempts restrictive user agreements. Finally, a drop of sanity in an insane world.

toomuchtodo 3y ago

Order: https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/X-Corp-v-Bright-Data-Order-Dismissing-Complaint-5-9-24.pdf https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/X-Cor...

fragmede 3y ago
> A social media company asserts breach-of-contract and tort claims against a data- scraping company. It seeks to bar the data-scraping company from extracting and copying public data from its social media platform, and from selling tools that enable others to extract and copy public data from its social media platform. Meanwhile, the social media company sells its own tools that enable others to extract and copy public data from its social media platform. The data-scraping company has moved to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction and failure to state a claim. A prior order denied the motion to dismiss as to lack of personal jurisdiction. For the reasons stated herein, the motion to dismiss as to failure to state a claim is GRANTED and the instant complaint is DISMISSED.

Tiberium 2y ago

Maybe I'm missing something, but isn't this also directly applicable to services like Reddit, especially after their API changes?

isaacfrond 2y ago
It seems so, yes

honeybadger1 2y ago

It seems short sighted, people pay to use certain features of X for high scale posting and social media activity, but businesses shouldn't have to pay to consume this information from X? Seems like X messed up with their arguments, allowing for the Judge to come to this decision.