3 ms·
Craigslist can claim whatever they want but that does not make it true. When you post an apartment for rent that is factual information that an apartment at a p
by jahmed 14y ago
Craigslist can claim whatever they want but that does not make it true. When you post an apartment for rent that is factual information that an apartment at a particular location is available for a specific price. Much like the case of a movie theater offering tickets to a showing at a specific place and time.
Padmapper (which I just used just before this whole situation and found an awesome place) doesnt take your 'creative' post. They merely take the factual title and existence of a listing and direct you to it.
- cynicalkane 14y agoOne, the presentation of factual information can be intellectual property; two, the presentation of someone else's factual information can be intellectual property. The Craigslist-hate is very strange considering much of this community was seeded by people providing web interfaces to information. I bet there are a number of YC companies that would send out the lawyers if they found their sites being illegally scraped and repackaged.
- ericd 14y agoI'm not sure if you've used PadMapper, but it's showing things about the listings, not the listings themselves. To see those, you have to click through to the listing.
- dwynings 14y agoI bet you most YC startups offer an API, negating the need for scraping =)
- jahmed 14y agoYes the creative presentation of factual information can be protected intellectual property. Craigslist however only collects information it is given and displays them as such. Craigslist does not add any creativity or originality to the posts. The is no "Craigslist-hate" but I do disagree on their claimed ownership of facts. I think Feist v. Rural (http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=499&invol=340 http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US...) covered this pretty well.