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But does that mean its okay for them to sue anyone who does? If they make the information public, how could they think they have a right to keep their data pri
by aggronn 14y ago
But does that mean its okay for them to sue anyone who does? If they make the information public, how could they think they have a right to keep their data private from applications they think could be a competitive threat? Should Walmart sue Target if target scrapes walmart prices to help make decisions about their own online pricing schemes?
In what way is it "their data" if they release it to the public? The law is pretty clear about this--facts can't be copyrighted. They don't own the facts. They don't own the bits that padmapper is referencing. All they own is the db records for the posts that originated the information.
Imagine if they had a CL user meetup in public somewhere, and then they charged users to use a megaphone to announce that they were selling something. Someone writes down the information and has their own meetup for people who couldn't make it to the free, public CL meetup. Whats the difference between that and what padmapper is doing, except that padmapper is getting the information second hand?
If CL thinks they have a right to their data, they should be suing google should they?
- smashing 14y ago"...they[Craigslist] charged users to use a megaphone to announce that they were selling something." I don't get where you came up with that. It wasn't in the article at all.
- aggronn 14y agoI wasn't referencing the article.
- anamax 14y ago> The law is pretty clear about this--facts can't be copyrighted. While it is true that "facts can't be copyrighted", it's unclear that Craigslist listings qualify as facts in the relevant sense. (The singles listings, for example, surely don't.) > Someone writes down the information and has their own meetup for people who couldn't make it to the free, public CL meetup. Whats the difference between that and what padmapper is doing, except that padmapper is getting the information second hand? Getting the information second-hand seems fairly significant. Don't get me wrong - I think that craigslist should be disrupted, but I don't think that you should just do the easy parts. Note that the NYT has a dog in this fight - Craigslist has "disrupted" the newspaper biz.
- aggronn 14y ago>Getting the information second-hand seems fairly significant. I meant to suggest that that made it even less significant. The information is already widely disseminated across multiple platforms because its public information. Sure, everyone knows that CL is the original source for the information, but that doesn't meant that only people they say can have the information should have the information. Its public, broadcasted information. Sure, they can put something on their website along the lines of "You're not allowed to distribute this information", but why does that have any weight if they don't own the information?
- learc83 14y ago> it's unclear that Craigslist listings qualify as facts in the relevant sense. Padmapper only publishes the relavant facts from the listing. Even if the whole text contains copyrightable material (some prose describing the house maybe), they don't copy the whole text just the facts. This apartment is available for rent here, it has 4 bedrooms etc...