6 ms·

Nice, you take the time to craft your listing on craigslist and now you've lost the right to repost your listing ANYWHERE else. I think we can safely assume tha

Nice, you take the time to craft your listing on craigslist and now you've lost the right to repost your listing ANYWHERE else. I think we can safely assume that craigslist has a monopoly in (free) online classifieds and this reeks of very anti-competitive behavior. Wonder what the DOJ thinks of this.

achompas 14y ago
This is a bit knee-jerk, no? I highly doubt you waive the right to repost your listing ANYWHERE; rather, this is legalese allowing them to sue anyone using their listings without consent.
- dangrossman 14y ago
  Read the text. Exclusive license. That means you may not license your post to any other site; giving someone else permission to display your listing is a grant of a license, and such a license is explicitly mentioned in the terms of any UGC site, including Craigslist. The difference is those other terms always say NON-exclusive. Go ahead and stop by YouTube and do a search for the word. This isn't boilerplate legalese.
  - jc123 14y ago
    Hard to see the day when craigslist tries to sue posters for this "violation"; so effectively posters can ignore this legalese as it's targeted to give craiglist ammunition against other sites.
    - talaketu 14y ago
      Probably not the best advice from a legal or ethical standpoint.
      - ralfn 14y ago
        To be fair, consumer organisations here in Holland once took 25 EULA's to a judge. Less than 1% of what was stated would ever be held up in a dutch court. Things like the concept that a company can just define their liabilty themselves. Or how they have the right to share personal data with 3rd parties. The laws can not overwritten with contracts, esspecially ones without signatures. In essence, and this was quite funny to realize. There is no EULA that would reduce liability, or increase rights of the seller. An EULA can really only be used against the company. Im not sure about the situation in the US. But the same should be true to some extend. EULA are fake legal documents lawyers sell as if they have any value. Its a complete scam.
        icebraining 14y ago
        This is not an EULA.
        ralfn 14y ago
        You are right. Although it comes down to the same thing. They are all just synonyms for contracts. ( a liscene is just a type of contract ) And this could very well be a good example of the 1% that would actually be uphold. If they had your signature, that is. Getting exclusive content liscence without explicit permission? They cant even prove it was you that submitted the content in the first place. Imagine a store having a sign that they own your bag, whenever you enter. Come on, this will not hold up in court. Compare certain opensoure companies that require contributions to assign copyright to them. They all demand a real piece of paper, with a real signature.
        briandear 14y ago
        When a user posts, they are representing that the content is theirs. If the real owner of the content posts somewhere else, that CL would have a claim against the fraudulent poster, not the actual creator. Either way, these contracts do hold up in court.
        zopa 14y ago
        > Im not sure about the situation in the US. But the same > should be true to some extend. My understanding is that it's not true to much of any extent in the US. The contract will generally win. It'll depend on the jurisdiction and the case, but it's certainly not the case that all EULAs are per se invalid. Nor is it the case that "the laws cannot be overwritten with contracts." Overwriting the legal default rules is what contracts do.
    - icebraining 14y ago
      They may not sue posters, but what if they sue the sites to where the poster voluntarily submitted copies of his post?
      - loceng 14y ago
        Clearly that's what they want to do or at least have the ability to threaten suit with this in their TOS.
        biafra 14y ago
        And then those sites will tell CL to sue the users who entered it into their site.
        icebraining 14y ago
        Is it that simple? If the license that those sites have is invalid - and it would be - then they're committing copyright infringement, and CL has an explicit license to go after those.
        dangrossman 14y ago
        The copyright is still with the post author; Craigslist is not asking for it to be transferred. The author still has the ability to license the content to the other sites. In doing so, they breach the agreement with Craigslist saying their license was exclusive. So it's simple breach of contract between the listing author and CL; the other site has done no wrong and is not a party to the breach. IOW: This text gives Craigslist some ammo to go after a site they can prove got the listing from copying Craigslist, but not sites the listing author also posted to.
    - defen 14y ago
      > effectively posters can ignore this legalese Operationally, probably true. However, ethically this is no different than the people who said PadMapper should just use "Craigslist's" data regardless of what Craigslist thought about the situation. To be consistent, either you believe: 1) It's ok for PadMapper to re-list Craigslist's data without Craigslist's consent. OR 2) If you post a housing listing to Craigslist, you cannot post it anywhere else.
      - alttab 14y ago
        If CraigsList ever went after a poster who also posted their classified on another site, that would probably be the day they begin to unravel. You don't want to instill fear into posters (IE, their product) that they could get sued by posting even a similar ad on a competing site. Then you enter the territory "I only have access to people who check craigslist" instead of an array of additional, complementary options. That doesn't sound very attractive.
        defen 14y ago
        Right, I don't think they would ever sue their own users. But the point is that you don't get to simply ignore parts of an agreement that you don't agree with, because "that's not what they meant". So the people who were saying that PadMapper has no right to use Craigslist's data should be careful not to submit to multiple listing services if they ever put a house up for rent on Craigslist, if they care at all about consistent application of their principles.
        alttab 14y ago
        I don't conflate the two at all. Padmapper scraping data put up on CraigsList and adding it to their own listings is very very different than me putting my own listing on multiple sites. I don't see this as a "application of principles" issue. The principle I'm consistently applying is "I have the right to tell whomever I want about something I want to sell." And Craigslist is applying the consistent principle that the listing I provided belongs to them. If you ask me, putting my listing somewhere else makes it a different listing, because it didn't originate at craigslist (Like stolen listings on PadMapper), but instead, originated through me. To apply my principle consistently, I wouldn't post a link to my Craigslist posting on another site, but I am perfectly entitled to re-post its content where-ever I please.
  - achompas 14y ago
    Are you a lawyer? EDIT: Okay, let me be less flippant. I ask about you being a lawyer because we don't know how Craigslist will enforce this policy. Everyone is assuming the worst -- CL will not let you post anywhere else! -- when, in practice, such a policy is probably not enforceable in court. You have a well-reasoned comment, sure, but someone can't really speak to the enforceability of this without practicing law.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
- dchest 14y ago
  "Exclusive licensee" is exactly what it says -- you agree not to use the same content anywhere else.
- melvinmt 14y ago
  Whatever the agenda behind pushing this might be, the "legalese" has real implications IRL. You don't own the content of your listings anymore if you post on craigslist - so you're going to be liable if you're going to use any of the content elsewhere (including pictures).
  - wilfra 14y ago
    That might technically be true but that clearly isn't the intent here. Craigslist is not going to be suing their users for copy/pasting the same listing across multiple sites... This is clearly directed to services like Padmapper - which, by the way, I strongly support and wish Craigslist would leave TF alone.
    - scotty79 14y ago
      But it will be suing those sites. So If you have a site where people can put their advertisements you better look if they haven't posted same advertisement on craigslist and when they do don't publish it on your site. Of course you can just slap the same lawyer silliness on your form and claim that you have also been given exclusive licence by your users and counter sue craigslist. I'm not sure if court is required to resolve the matter if you both have identical claims. Not sure if who got their "exclusive" licence first matters anything in such case.
      - sageikosa 14y ago
        Actually, if you do the cross-posting, Craigslist would be entitled to sue you for violating their exclusivity agreement, not the other site. What this would put on a poster is the extra work to make the copyrightable content different between sites.
        scotty79 14y ago
        I don't think any company would sue their users. PR in at least remotely sane companies trumps legal.
- einhverfr 14y ago
  Exclusive license means exactly what it says. You are giving Craigslist essentially full copyright ownership over your listing. The only exception is that in moral rights jurisdictions you aren't giving them moral rights.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
briandear 14y ago
It's not anti-competitive any more than a book publisher not allowing you to serialize your novel in some other company's publication. No one is forcing anyone to use Craigslist. You are free not to post and free to not agree to those terms. Why should a publisher (which is what CL is) grant non exclusive rights? It's a business. If you don't like the terms, you aren't forced to sign the contract. You can always post a newspaper ad, or start your own site. Just because CL has the user base doesn't mean that they are preventing competitors from entering the market any more than Stephen King's publisher is stopping other writers from writing and publishing novels. Stephen King is well known and sells lots of books, but that's not a monopoly, it's a competitive advantage. Should all companies be forced to give up their competitive advantage to make it easier for competition? Of course not. Competitors need to create their own advantage. It's like suggesting that FB has a monopoly on social simply because they have the most users. You can start your own. Facebook (and CL) aren't preventing users from visiting your site, nor are they preventing sellers from writing a different post for a different site. They're claiming rights to the specific ad posting. It's exactly like the publishing industry. This anger seems to stem directly from Padmapper blatantly stealing CL data and acting as if it was perfectly fine. I'm no fan of CL, but they have the right to do whatever they want with their data, just as users have the right to not use CL. Don't like the terms, don't do business with them. The Padmapper guys could take on CL and likely succeed I they had any clue about business development. Instead they spend their time trying to game CL instead of building their own business. If they started hyper locally and focused on a small area or neighborhood, they could easily dominate in that neighborhood with just the cost of some kinkos flyers (assuming they have a great product.) they need only contact landlords in their area, offer to post their ads for free and then flyer the neighborhood advertising 'Park Slope Apartments for Rent' or whatever neighborhood they choose. They'll start to build users. Then they add another neighborhood until eventually they reach critical mass in a specific city. CL took years to get where they were. It takes hard work and getting out from behind the computer screen from time to time. In the rental listings market, the code and UX is easy, the hard work is getting out there and building the business. I din't get why CL has any obligation to help a competitor short circuit CL's 10+ years of hard work. Do some hard work yourself -- CL is beatable. Look at MySpace: millions of engaged users suffering through a horrid UX, yet they fell to some geographically marketed site called Facebook. You want to build a better CL -- learn from Zuck and Co how they beat MySpace. It's a hell of a lot more than just code.
andrewflnr 14y ago
Couldn't you just substantially rephrase your post for other sites?
- badclient 14y ago
  Usually you can't "just substantially" do something without a huge inconvenience.

achompas 14y ago

This is a bit knee-jerk, no? I highly doubt you waive the right to repost your listing ANYWHERE; rather, this is legalese allowing them to sue anyone using their listings without consent.

dangrossman 14y ago
Read the text. Exclusive license. That means you may not license your post to any other site; giving someone else permission to display your listing is a grant of a license, and such a license is explicitly mentioned in the terms of any UGC site, including Craigslist. The difference is those other terms always say NON-exclusive. Go ahead and stop by YouTube and do a search for the word. This isn't boilerplate legalese.
- jc123 14y ago
  Hard to see the day when craigslist tries to sue posters for this "violation"; so effectively posters can ignore this legalese as it's targeted to give craiglist ammunition against other sites.
  - talaketu 14y ago
    Probably not the best advice from a legal or ethical standpoint.
    - ralfn 14y ago
      To be fair, consumer organisations here in Holland once took 25 EULA's to a judge. Less than 1% of what was stated would ever be held up in a dutch court. Things like the concept that a company can just define their liabilty themselves. Or how they have the right to share personal data with 3rd parties. The laws can not overwritten with contracts, esspecially ones without signatures. In essence, and this was quite funny to realize. There is no EULA that would reduce liability, or increase rights of the seller. An EULA can really only be used against the company. Im not sure about the situation in the US. But the same should be true to some extend. EULA are fake legal documents lawyers sell as if they have any value. Its a complete scam.
      - icebraining 14y ago
        This is not an EULA.
        ralfn 14y ago
        You are right. Although it comes down to the same thing. They are all just synonyms for contracts. ( a liscene is just a type of contract ) And this could very well be a good example of the 1% that would actually be uphold. If they had your signature, that is. Getting exclusive content liscence without explicit permission? They cant even prove it was you that submitted the content in the first place. Imagine a store having a sign that they own your bag, whenever you enter. Come on, this will not hold up in court. Compare certain opensoure companies that require contributions to assign copyright to them. They all demand a real piece of paper, with a real signature.
        briandear 14y ago
        When a user posts, they are representing that the content is theirs. If the real owner of the content posts somewhere else, that CL would have a claim against the fraudulent poster, not the actual creator. Either way, these contracts do hold up in court.
      - zopa 14y ago
        > Im not sure about the situation in the US. But the same > should be true to some extend. My understanding is that it's not true to much of any extent in the US. The contract will generally win. It'll depend on the jurisdiction and the case, but it's certainly not the case that all EULAs are per se invalid. Nor is it the case that "the laws cannot be overwritten with contracts." Overwriting the legal default rules is what contracts do.
  - icebraining 14y ago
    They may not sue posters, but what if they sue the sites to where the poster voluntarily submitted copies of his post?
    - loceng 14y ago
      Clearly that's what they want to do or at least have the ability to threaten suit with this in their TOS.
      - biafra 14y ago
        And then those sites will tell CL to sue the users who entered it into their site.
        icebraining 14y ago
        Is it that simple? If the license that those sites have is invalid - and it would be - then they're committing copyright infringement, and CL has an explicit license to go after those.
        dangrossman 14y ago
        The copyright is still with the post author; Craigslist is not asking for it to be transferred. The author still has the ability to license the content to the other sites. In doing so, they breach the agreement with Craigslist saying their license was exclusive. So it's simple breach of contract between the listing author and CL; the other site has done no wrong and is not a party to the breach. IOW: This text gives Craigslist some ammo to go after a site they can prove got the listing from copying Craigslist, but not sites the listing author also posted to.
  - defen 14y ago
    > effectively posters can ignore this legalese Operationally, probably true. However, ethically this is no different than the people who said PadMapper should just use "Craigslist's" data regardless of what Craigslist thought about the situation. To be consistent, either you believe: 1) It's ok for PadMapper to re-list Craigslist's data without Craigslist's consent. OR 2) If you post a housing listing to Craigslist, you cannot post it anywhere else.
    - alttab 14y ago
      If CraigsList ever went after a poster who also posted their classified on another site, that would probably be the day they begin to unravel. You don't want to instill fear into posters (IE, their product) that they could get sued by posting even a similar ad on a competing site. Then you enter the territory "I only have access to people who check craigslist" instead of an array of additional, complementary options. That doesn't sound very attractive.
      - defen 14y ago
        Right, I don't think they would ever sue their own users. But the point is that you don't get to simply ignore parts of an agreement that you don't agree with, because "that's not what they meant". So the people who were saying that PadMapper has no right to use Craigslist's data should be careful not to submit to multiple listing services if they ever put a house up for rent on Craigslist, if they care at all about consistent application of their principles.
        alttab 14y ago
        I don't conflate the two at all. Padmapper scraping data put up on CraigsList and adding it to their own listings is very very different than me putting my own listing on multiple sites. I don't see this as a "application of principles" issue. The principle I'm consistently applying is "I have the right to tell whomever I want about something I want to sell." And Craigslist is applying the consistent principle that the listing I provided belongs to them. If you ask me, putting my listing somewhere else makes it a different listing, because it didn't originate at craigslist (Like stolen listings on PadMapper), but instead, originated through me. To apply my principle consistently, I wouldn't post a link to my Craigslist posting on another site, but I am perfectly entitled to re-post its content where-ever I please.
- achompas 14y ago
  Are you a lawyer? EDIT: Okay, let me be less flippant. I ask about you being a lawyer because we don't know how Craigslist will enforce this policy. Everyone is assuming the worst -- CL will not let you post anywhere else! -- when, in practice, such a policy is probably not enforceable in court. You have a well-reasoned comment, sure, but someone can't really speak to the enforceability of this without practicing law.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
dchest 14y ago
"Exclusive licensee" is exactly what it says -- you agree not to use the same content anywhere else.
melvinmt 14y ago
Whatever the agenda behind pushing this might be, the "legalese" has real implications IRL. You don't own the content of your listings anymore if you post on craigslist - so you're going to be liable if you're going to use any of the content elsewhere (including pictures).
- wilfra 14y ago
  That might technically be true but that clearly isn't the intent here. Craigslist is not going to be suing their users for copy/pasting the same listing across multiple sites... This is clearly directed to services like Padmapper - which, by the way, I strongly support and wish Craigslist would leave TF alone.
  - scotty79 14y ago
    But it will be suing those sites. So If you have a site where people can put their advertisements you better look if they haven't posted same advertisement on craigslist and when they do don't publish it on your site. Of course you can just slap the same lawyer silliness on your form and claim that you have also been given exclusive licence by your users and counter sue craigslist. I'm not sure if court is required to resolve the matter if you both have identical claims. Not sure if who got their "exclusive" licence first matters anything in such case.
    - sageikosa 14y ago
      Actually, if you do the cross-posting, Craigslist would be entitled to sue you for violating their exclusivity agreement, not the other site. What this would put on a poster is the extra work to make the copyrightable content different between sites.
      - scotty79 14y ago
        I don't think any company would sue their users. PR in at least remotely sane companies trumps legal.
einhverfr 14y ago
Exclusive license means exactly what it says. You are giving Craigslist essentially full copyright ownership over your listing. The only exception is that in moral rights jurisdictions you aren't giving them moral rights.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

briandear 14y ago

It's not anti-competitive any more than a book publisher not allowing you to serialize your novel in some other company's publication. No one is forcing anyone to use Craigslist. You are free not to post and free to not agree to those terms. Why should a publisher (which is what CL is) grant non exclusive rights? It's a business. If you don't like the terms, you aren't forced to sign the contract. You can always post a newspaper ad, or start your own site. Just because CL has the user base doesn't mean that they are preventing competitors from entering the market any more than Stephen King's publisher is stopping other writers from writing and publishing novels. Stephen King is well known and sells lots of books, but that's not a monopoly, it's a competitive advantage. Should all companies be forced to give up their competitive advantage to make it easier for competition? Of course not. Competitors need to create their own advantage. It's like suggesting that FB has a monopoly on social simply because they have the most users. You can start your own. Facebook (and CL) aren't preventing users from visiting your site, nor are they preventing sellers from writing a different post for a different site. They're claiming rights to the specific ad posting. It's exactly like the publishing industry. This anger seems to stem directly from Padmapper blatantly stealing CL data and acting as if it was perfectly fine. I'm no fan of CL, but they have the right to do whatever they want with their data, just as users have the right to not use CL. Don't like the terms, don't do business with them. The Padmapper guys could take on CL and likely succeed I they had any clue about business development. Instead they spend their time trying to game CL instead of building their own business. If they started hyper locally and focused on a small area or neighborhood, they could easily dominate in that neighborhood with just the cost of some kinkos flyers (assuming they have a great product.) they need only contact landlords in their area, offer to post their ads for free and then flyer the neighborhood advertising 'Park Slope Apartments for Rent' or whatever neighborhood they choose. They'll start to build users. Then they add another neighborhood until eventually they reach critical mass in a specific city. CL took years to get where they were. It takes hard work and getting out from behind the computer screen from time to time. In the rental listings market, the code and UX is easy, the hard work is getting out there and building the business. I din't get why CL has any obligation to help a competitor short circuit CL's 10+ years of hard work. Do some hard work yourself -- CL is beatable. Look at MySpace: millions of engaged users suffering through a horrid UX, yet they fell to some geographically marketed site called Facebook. You want to build a better CL -- learn from Zuck and Co how they beat MySpace. It's a hell of a lot more than just code.

andrewflnr 14y ago

Couldn't you just substantially rephrase your post for other sites?

badclient 14y ago
Usually you can't "just substantially" do something without a huge inconvenience.