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By CL's Terms of Use, it's not CL's data. They just post it. It's clearly a gray area, but let's be clear: IT'S NOT CL'S DATA. Craigslist actually makes it cle

by voxmatt 14y ago

By CL's Terms of Use, it's not CL's data. They just post it. It's clearly a gray area, but let's be clear: IT'S NOT CL'S DATA. Craigslist actually makes it clear that it's the user's data and that when it's posted on CL, it's being posted publicly.

eli 14y ago
This does not seem like an important distinction. The user implicitly authorized it to be posted on CL by virtue of, well, posting it on CL. They did not authorize any other sites to post it. Or am I missing something?
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- briandear 14y ago
  I agree. When I post a resume to a job site, that doean't mean I want it posted in other places without my consent. It seems like a dick move to repost people's ads without their consent. If, technically te data belongs to the poster, than it's distinctly dickish to post that data in other venues without their permission. Perhaps someone only wants their add on the Scanton Craigslist and not on other sites. I posted a classified add on a site once selling some furniture (not CL but a hyper local site) and I started getting dozens I calls from buyers after I had removed the ad because some ass thought it was a 'service' to repost my ad, even though the stuff sold via the original site within a day. I don't doubt Padmapper can be useful, but if it is genuinely better, then one shouldn't have to steal CL data to make it work. Build your own damned business.
- jellicle 14y ago
  If Craigslist is explicitly disclaiming copyright in the data they post, how can they sue for copyright infringement? The user may be able to. But the users won't do so, at least not in any significant numbers.
  - dangrossman 14y ago
    > If Craigslist is explicitly disclaiming copyright in the data they post, how can they sue for copyright infringement? By having the user sign their right to sue over to Craigslist. They're saying "it's your copyright, but you're giving us the enforcement rights to it". It's in their TOS: > 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).
    - natrius 14y ago
      I don't think that's possible, but I'm not a lawyer. I'm very interested in seeing an example of a clause like this being applied. Another commenter cited the Righthaven case as a counterexample: https://www.eff.org/press/releases/righthaven-case-ends-victory-fair-use https://www.eff.org/press/releases/righthaven-case-ends-vict...
- jessriedel 14y ago
  I don't think PadMapper puts up the entire post written by the user, just fact that the post exists and is in reference to a particular location. Likewise, it's kosher for me to tell Alice that Bob posted a poem on his window so that she can go read it, even though it would not be kosher for me to make her a copy.
Zimahl 14y ago
Closer to black than gray. It's data that a CL user has entrusted to CL. The user could've gone with PadMapper but they didn't. Being posted publicly is irrelevant, since the user agreed to CL's TOS not PadMapper's. The direction PadMapper should be going in is to forget about the CL data and do things that make it number one over CL. Stealing CL's clients is fair game and in the long run aren't one CL TOS change from being in the wrong again.
- usaar333 14y ago
  Let's be honest here. User's don't post to CL rather than Padmapper because of their TOS. 1. The average user has never read the TOS and doesn't care about it. 2. User's don't post to padmapper because A) they don't know about it and B) posting to craigslist is (until now) a superset of posting to padmapper and craigslist 3. The data Padmapper is taking is your address and posting time. You'd be hard pressed to find more than a handful of people who mind Padmapper reposting such info. Besides, it's incredibly difficult to steal CL data for apartments. The posters are incredibly technology unsophisticated; I'm amazed how apartment owners can't take a simple 2 minute video walk-through. A lot of places don't even have pictures!
voxmatt 14y ago
I'm copying and pasting from a reply I had below, but to respond: "Although I think this is a bad place to stake your claim, the posts themselves are arguably purely public data the second they hit Craigslist. The data conveyed is factual, there is no IP, and it's being disseminated publicly. It's similar to (and yes, there are a lot of ways to poke holes in this analogy, but for the sake of argument...) a town crier shouting an advertisement out in a crowded square and one of the listeners taking that information, traveling to another public square, and repeating it."

by voxmatt 14y ago

eli 14y ago

This does not seem like an important distinction. The user implicitly authorized it to be posted on CL by virtue of, well, posting it on CL. They did not authorize any other sites to post it. Or am I missing something?

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
briandear 14y ago
I agree. When I post a resume to a job site, that doean't mean I want it posted in other places without my consent. It seems like a dick move to repost people's ads without their consent. If, technically te data belongs to the poster, than it's distinctly dickish to post that data in other venues without their permission. Perhaps someone only wants their add on the Scanton Craigslist and not on other sites. I posted a classified add on a site once selling some furniture (not CL but a hyper local site) and I started getting dozens I calls from buyers after I had removed the ad because some ass thought it was a 'service' to repost my ad, even though the stuff sold via the original site within a day. I don't doubt Padmapper can be useful, but if it is genuinely better, then one shouldn't have to steal CL data to make it work. Build your own damned business.
jellicle 14y ago
If Craigslist is explicitly disclaiming copyright in the data they post, how can they sue for copyright infringement? The user may be able to. But the users won't do so, at least not in any significant numbers.
- dangrossman 14y ago
  > If Craigslist is explicitly disclaiming copyright in the data they post, how can they sue for copyright infringement? By having the user sign their right to sue over to Craigslist. They're saying "it's your copyright, but you're giving us the enforcement rights to it". It's in their TOS: > 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).
  - natrius 14y ago
    I don't think that's possible, but I'm not a lawyer. I'm very interested in seeing an example of a clause like this being applied. Another commenter cited the Righthaven case as a counterexample: https://www.eff.org/press/releases/righthaven-case-ends-victory-fair-use https://www.eff.org/press/releases/righthaven-case-ends-vict...
jessriedel 14y ago
I don't think PadMapper puts up the entire post written by the user, just fact that the post exists and is in reference to a particular location. Likewise, it's kosher for me to tell Alice that Bob posted a poem on his window so that she can go read it, even though it would not be kosher for me to make her a copy.

Zimahl 14y ago

Closer to black than gray. It's data that a CL user has entrusted to CL. The user could've gone with PadMapper but they didn't. Being posted publicly is irrelevant, since the user agreed to CL's TOS not PadMapper's. The direction PadMapper should be going in is to forget about the CL data and do things that make it number one over CL. Stealing CL's clients is fair game and in the long run aren't one CL TOS change from being in the wrong again.

usaar333 14y ago
Let's be honest here. User's don't post to CL rather than Padmapper because of their TOS. 1. The average user has never read the TOS and doesn't care about it. 2. User's don't post to padmapper because A) they don't know about it and B) posting to craigslist is (until now) a superset of posting to padmapper and craigslist 3. The data Padmapper is taking is your address and posting time. You'd be hard pressed to find more than a handful of people who mind Padmapper reposting such info. Besides, it's incredibly difficult to steal CL data for apartments. The posters are incredibly technology unsophisticated; I'm amazed how apartment owners can't take a simple 2 minute video walk-through. A lot of places don't even have pictures!

voxmatt 14y ago

I'm copying and pasting from a reply I had below, but to respond: "Although I think this is a bad place to stake your claim, the posts themselves are arguably purely public data the second they hit Craigslist. The data conveyed is factual, there is no IP, and it's being disseminated publicly. It's similar to (and yes, there are a lot of ways to poke holes in this analogy, but for the sake of argument...) a town crier shouting an advertisement out in a crowded square and one of the listeners taking that information, traveling to another public square, and repeating it."