4 ms·

>This isn't surprising of course, it is their data after all, But that's the thing. It isn't their data. They specifically say so in their TOS. The copyright b

by learc83 14y ago

>This isn't surprising of course, it is their data after all, But that's the thing. It isn't their data. They specifically say so in their TOS. The copyright belongs to the user. You can't say the listing belongs to the user (to protect you from liability) on one hand, and then say the data belongs to craigslist on the other. They could always do what map companies have done forever to prevent copyright. Facts can't be copyrighted so map makers insert fictional cities. If someone copies the map they are copying the fictional city and thus violating their copyright. Craigslist could add a fictional listing here and there that they do own the copyright to.

mikeryan 14y ago
I have no idea how this is going to playout but if there's a copyright argument to be made, it won't be on the copyright of each listing, but the copyright on the compilation of the listings. You can't say the listing belongs to the user on one hand, and then say the data belongs to craigslist on the other. You can in fact make this argument in the case of compilations in copyright law - think a compilation of short stories or one of those "Songs of the 90s albums" - the initial authors still own their work, but the entity which creates the compilation still owns the right to the entire compiled work. (I intentionally edited your statement - don't want to bring liability into this, I think its a separate issue and a bit of a red herring w/r/t this discussion).
- learc83 14y ago
  I don't think it's as clearcut as saying its a compilation. Here is the relevant wikipedia section on compilation copyright >Copyright Act allows for the protection of "compilations," provided there is a "creative" or "original" act involved in such a compilation, such as in the selection (deciding which things to include or exclude), and arrangement (how they are shown and in what order). The protection is limited only to the selection and arrangement, not to the facts themselves, which may be freely copied. >The Supreme Court decision in Feist v. Rural..rejected what was known as the "sweat of the brow" doctrine, in ruling that no matter how much work was necessary to create a compilation, a non-selective collection of facts ordered in a non-creative way is not subject to copyright protection. I think there is a good argument that there is no creativity on Craigslist's part in selecting postings, since they aren't selecting them--users are uploading them. If true selection wouldn't be covered. The arrangement might be (if it can be said to be creative), but I'm assuming padmapper isn't copying their arrangement.
lobotryas 14y ago
The individual posts belong to the users, that is true. However one post alone is worthless. What's valuable is Craigslist's collection of posts with lots of relevant data (location, description, price, etc). This collection belongs to Craigslist because their servers provide the environment for it, plus they wrote the architecture and back-end to support it.
- learc83 14y ago
  See my answer to mikeryan's post above for information on why that is not necessarily the case. An individual phone number is worthless as well, the collection is valuable. But case law says a phonebook isn't covered by copyright.
  - lobotryas 14y ago
    I see two problems with your argument: 1) You are comparing physical media to a web service 2) You are confusing content with access to content Since you mentioned Phonebook, let's take yellowpages.com This site has much of the same information that a phonebook does. I would argue that it would be illegal for company B to scrape yellowpages.com for this information in order to make money without express permission from yellowpages.com. However, if Company B found another way to access the same information (ex: scanning physical phonebooks or asking people to sign up to their site) then I'd say they're within the law. Craigslist is 100% within their rights to control who accesses their service and how. If CL users want to register for Padmapper and post the same ads on both services then that's their prerogative.
    - learc83 14y ago
      >if Company B found another way to access the same information (ex: scanning physical phonebooks or asking people to sign up to their site) then I'd say they're within the law. Company B has found another way. They are getting the data from Google's cache of the craigslist. Padmapper is not touching Craigslist's servers at all.
ChuckMcM 14y ago
I hear you, but I don't know if the courts will agree with your interpretation. The reason for that is that the courts will look at the consequence of having that interpretation widely accepted and the impact on the current state of affairs. There are many many places where this has been litigated and the courts always come down on the side of the data aggregator owning rights to the data aggregated. If PadMapper wanted to legally exploit the fact that the users own the listings, not Craigslist, they would have to establish a relationship with the user and get the information directly from them. They could contact the listing owners and suggest they list on PadListing. They can 'spiff' people who do so (meaning give them some benefit if they list on PadListing and the person discovers and rents through PadMapper). If they can prove that the listing owner asked them to list their property, Craigslist can't sue. Alternatively PadMapper "need only"[1] create their own apartment listing service to have their own database where people listing apartments go to them directly. And that is a much harder thing to do than something which scrapes the listings from Craigslist and drops them on to a Google Map. As a proof-of-concept, PadMapper is excellent. As a product, it has a data contamination issue. [1] The scare quotes are there to acknowledge that its a challenge to get people to move from the known, to the new. I am trying to move people from Google to a new search service, its hard, its slow, but its the only way to do this and avoid this sort of litigation.
- learc83 14y ago
  >If they can prove that the listing owner asked them to list their property, Craigslist can't sue. Look at the Rightshaven case. The judge ruled that Rightshaven didn't have standing to sue on behalf just because the copyright holder granted it license to. If that theory holds up, Craigslist wouldn't have standing to sue on behalf of the copyright holders. Additionally copyright would only apply if the listings are considered creative works. Most of them are clearly simple statements of fact that wouldn't merit copyright protection in the first place.
  - ChuckMcM 14y ago
    As others have pointed out Craigslist can claim copyright to the collection. The legal theory I would expect them to use is that PadMapper wouldn't know about these listings if they didn't access Craigslist's collection, therefore their use of the collection violated Craigslist's copyright. I did a quick Blekko for the case with the Yellow Pages that was litigated this way (but alas did not find it) where a AT&T sued the maker of a competitive Yellow Pages over using the collection of businesses in their book. The defendant argument was similar to yours, that they could have walked down the street and collected the information so the information wasn't copyrightable, but the judge ruled in favor of AT&T because it was clear the defendant could have done that but they didn't do that. There was some errors and omissions that mirrored the Yellow pages and 'proved' the defendant took their data from the Yellow Pages rather than collect it themselves. For PadMapper to escape liability they have to be able to prove they came to know about these listings in some other way than through Craigslist's collection of them. They argued in their blog that 3Taps did that for them because they got them from 3Taps they aren't liable for what ever 3Taps is doing. And my take on it is that given the case law it will be a very hard thing to prove. If Eric Goldman is reading he could probably whip out a definitive argument here. If it goes to trial I'll definitely follow the case to see how it plays out.
res0nat0r 14y ago
The users never agreed to their data being displayed on any other sites besides CL. If they wanted that to happen they would personally place their listings on other websites, or sign up for some type of 'post your classified add to 100s of sites from us' service, which CL clearly is not.
- learc83 14y ago
  That doesn't necessarily mean that Craigslist has standing to sue on it's users behalf however. Also most of those listings don't merit copyright protection, because they are statements of fact not creative works.
  - res0nat0r 14y ago
    The user owns the post and grants CL the right to display it, and the TOS also grants CL the right to prevent others from displaying it without CL's permission.
    - learc83 14y ago
      If the user isn't posting a creative work just a statement of fact, it doesn't what the user says--it's not protected by copyright. >the TOS also grants CL the right to prevent others from displaying it without CL's permission. Just because the ToS says it doesn't mean it will work. Recently a judge said that a copyright troll called Rightshaven didn't have standing to sue on behalf of copyright holders for works that they licensed.
      - res0nat0r 14y ago
        Assemblages of fact are protected by copyright tpateck has commented in the previous threads on Padmapper about this. This is why a Farmers Almanac is under copyright and I cannot wholesale copy a phonebook or Encyclopedia Britannica without infringing their rights. Regarding Righthaven, the original media company never gave Righthaven control of the copyright of their data, just the right to sue. This is why it was struck down. As for Righthaven's lack of standing to sue over Review-Journal content, Hunt wrote the recently unsealed lawsuit contract between Righthaven and Stephens Media -- called the Strategic Alliance Agreement (SAA) -- clearly leaves Stephens Media in control of the copyrights and gives Righthaven only the right to sue. In order to file lawsuits, copyright plaintiffs have to have actual control of the copyrights, not just the right to sue, Hunt found. http://www.vegasinc.com/news/2011/jun/14/judge-rules-righthaven-lacks-standing-sue-threaten/ http://www.vegasinc.com/news/2011/jun/14/judge-rules-rightha...

by learc83 14y ago

mikeryan 14y ago

I have no idea how this is going to playout but if there's a copyright argument to be made, it won't be on the copyright of each listing, but the copyright on the compilation of the listings. You can't say the listing belongs to the user on one hand, and then say the data belongs to craigslist on the other. You can in fact make this argument in the case of compilations in copyright law - think a compilation of short stories or one of those "Songs of the 90s albums" - the initial authors still own their work, but the entity which creates the compilation still owns the right to the entire compiled work. (I intentionally edited your statement - don't want to bring liability into this, I think its a separate issue and a bit of a red herring w/r/t this discussion).

learc83 14y ago
I don't think it's as clearcut as saying its a compilation. Here is the relevant wikipedia section on compilation copyright >Copyright Act allows for the protection of "compilations," provided there is a "creative" or "original" act involved in such a compilation, such as in the selection (deciding which things to include or exclude), and arrangement (how they are shown and in what order). The protection is limited only to the selection and arrangement, not to the facts themselves, which may be freely copied. >The Supreme Court decision in Feist v. Rural..rejected what was known as the "sweat of the brow" doctrine, in ruling that no matter how much work was necessary to create a compilation, a non-selective collection of facts ordered in a non-creative way is not subject to copyright protection. I think there is a good argument that there is no creativity on Craigslist's part in selecting postings, since they aren't selecting them--users are uploading them. If true selection wouldn't be covered. The arrangement might be (if it can be said to be creative), but I'm assuming padmapper isn't copying their arrangement.

lobotryas 14y ago

The individual posts belong to the users, that is true. However one post alone is worthless. What's valuable is Craigslist's collection of posts with lots of relevant data (location, description, price, etc). This collection belongs to Craigslist because their servers provide the environment for it, plus they wrote the architecture and back-end to support it.

learc83 14y ago
See my answer to mikeryan's post above for information on why that is not necessarily the case. An individual phone number is worthless as well, the collection is valuable. But case law says a phonebook isn't covered by copyright.
- lobotryas 14y ago
  I see two problems with your argument: 1) You are comparing physical media to a web service 2) You are confusing content with access to content Since you mentioned Phonebook, let's take yellowpages.com This site has much of the same information that a phonebook does. I would argue that it would be illegal for company B to scrape yellowpages.com for this information in order to make money without express permission from yellowpages.com. However, if Company B found another way to access the same information (ex: scanning physical phonebooks or asking people to sign up to their site) then I'd say they're within the law. Craigslist is 100% within their rights to control who accesses their service and how. If CL users want to register for Padmapper and post the same ads on both services then that's their prerogative.
  - learc83 14y ago
    >if Company B found another way to access the same information (ex: scanning physical phonebooks or asking people to sign up to their site) then I'd say they're within the law. Company B has found another way. They are getting the data from Google's cache of the craigslist. Padmapper is not touching Craigslist's servers at all.

ChuckMcM 14y ago

I hear you, but I don't know if the courts will agree with your interpretation. The reason for that is that the courts will look at the consequence of having that interpretation widely accepted and the impact on the current state of affairs. There are many many places where this has been litigated and the courts always come down on the side of the data aggregator owning rights to the data aggregated. If PadMapper wanted to legally exploit the fact that the users own the listings, not Craigslist, they would have to establish a relationship with the user and get the information directly from them. They could contact the listing owners and suggest they list on PadListing. They can 'spiff' people who do so (meaning give them some benefit if they list on PadListing and the person discovers and rents through PadMapper). If they can prove that the listing owner asked them to list their property, Craigslist can't sue. Alternatively PadMapper "need only"[1] create their own apartment listing service to have their own database where people listing apartments go to them directly. And that is a much harder thing to do than something which scrapes the listings from Craigslist and drops them on to a Google Map. As a proof-of-concept, PadMapper is excellent. As a product, it has a data contamination issue. [1] The scare quotes are there to acknowledge that its a challenge to get people to move from the known, to the new. I am trying to move people from Google to a new search service, its hard, its slow, but its the only way to do this and avoid this sort of litigation.

learc83 14y ago
>If they can prove that the listing owner asked them to list their property, Craigslist can't sue. Look at the Rightshaven case. The judge ruled that Rightshaven didn't have standing to sue on behalf just because the copyright holder granted it license to. If that theory holds up, Craigslist wouldn't have standing to sue on behalf of the copyright holders. Additionally copyright would only apply if the listings are considered creative works. Most of them are clearly simple statements of fact that wouldn't merit copyright protection in the first place.
- ChuckMcM 14y ago
  As others have pointed out Craigslist can claim copyright to the collection. The legal theory I would expect them to use is that PadMapper wouldn't know about these listings if they didn't access Craigslist's collection, therefore their use of the collection violated Craigslist's copyright. I did a quick Blekko for the case with the Yellow Pages that was litigated this way (but alas did not find it) where a AT&T sued the maker of a competitive Yellow Pages over using the collection of businesses in their book. The defendant argument was similar to yours, that they could have walked down the street and collected the information so the information wasn't copyrightable, but the judge ruled in favor of AT&T because it was clear the defendant could have done that but they didn't do that. There was some errors and omissions that mirrored the Yellow pages and 'proved' the defendant took their data from the Yellow Pages rather than collect it themselves. For PadMapper to escape liability they have to be able to prove they came to know about these listings in some other way than through Craigslist's collection of them. They argued in their blog that 3Taps did that for them because they got them from 3Taps they aren't liable for what ever 3Taps is doing. And my take on it is that given the case law it will be a very hard thing to prove. If Eric Goldman is reading he could probably whip out a definitive argument here. If it goes to trial I'll definitely follow the case to see how it plays out.

res0nat0r 14y ago

The users never agreed to their data being displayed on any other sites besides CL. If they wanted that to happen they would personally place their listings on other websites, or sign up for some type of 'post your classified add to 100s of sites from us' service, which CL clearly is not.

learc83 14y ago
That doesn't necessarily mean that Craigslist has standing to sue on it's users behalf however. Also most of those listings don't merit copyright protection, because they are statements of fact not creative works.
- res0nat0r 14y ago
  The user owns the post and grants CL the right to display it, and the TOS also grants CL the right to prevent others from displaying it without CL's permission.
  - learc83 14y ago
    If the user isn't posting a creative work just a statement of fact, it doesn't what the user says--it's not protected by copyright. >the TOS also grants CL the right to prevent others from displaying it without CL's permission. Just because the ToS says it doesn't mean it will work. Recently a judge said that a copyright troll called Rightshaven didn't have standing to sue on behalf of copyright holders for works that they licensed.
    - res0nat0r 14y ago
      Assemblages of fact are protected by copyright tpateck has commented in the previous threads on Padmapper about this. This is why a Farmers Almanac is under copyright and I cannot wholesale copy a phonebook or Encyclopedia Britannica without infringing their rights. Regarding Righthaven, the original media company never gave Righthaven control of the copyright of their data, just the right to sue. This is why it was struck down. As for Righthaven's lack of standing to sue over Review-Journal content, Hunt wrote the recently unsealed lawsuit contract between Righthaven and Stephens Media -- called the Strategic Alliance Agreement (SAA) -- clearly leaves Stephens Media in control of the copyrights and gives Righthaven only the right to sue. In order to file lawsuits, copyright plaintiffs have to have actual control of the copyrights, not just the right to sue, Hunt found. http://www.vegasinc.com/news/2011/jun/14/judge-rules-righthaven-lacks-standing-sue-threaten/ http://www.vegasinc.com/news/2011/jun/14/judge-rules-rightha...