8 ms·

TL;DR: "this is a decision applying only to a narrow, specific circumstance." - Craigslist sent a legally valid cease & desist letter to 3taps, explicitly revok

by Shish2k 13y ago

TL;DR: "this is a decision applying only to a narrow, specific circumstance." - Craigslist sent a legally valid cease & desist letter to 3taps, explicitly revoking their default-allowed access. 3taps changed their IP and continued scraping -- it's the ignoring of the cease & desist that's the problem; that they did so by changing IP is just a technical detail.

grecy 13y ago
> Craigslist sent a legally valid cease & desist letter to 3taps, explicitly revoking their default-allowed access. I can have a site on the public internet and ban certain people from visiting it, then enforce that in court if they do? That seems... strange.
- kd5bjo 13y ago
  Just like you can have a store on the public street but ban certain people from visiting it, yes.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- yebyen 13y ago
  You can have and enforce a terms-of-service agreement for users without strongly and strictly identifying every user at every moment. You can enforce copyright on a dataset from a database through the courts. You do not have to allow every use just because you have allowed a certain use. These things should not be surprising. EDIT: I googled it because I could smell the wrong in my statement, it's not called copyright it's called "database right" because a compilation of facts is not a creative work. Still the right is real regardless of the distinction. EDIT2: CraigsList is a US company and apparently if you read deeper into the WikiPedia article, US copyrights do not respect databases and so it's not a real thing. Sorry for muddying the waters, but it doesn't change that service providers can have terms of service irrespective of how strongly they work to identify and segregate their users.
- alayne 13y ago
  Why don't you try scraping book reviews from Amazon onto your own website and see what happens?
  - japhyr 13y ago
    Is it about visiting and scraping the site, or what they do with the content they scrape?
    - res0nat0r 13y ago
      Both. CL wanted them to stop scraping their site because they were republishing content without CL's explicit permission.
      - sejje 13y ago
        What if they weren't republishing the data? I believe it's against TOS to scrape at all. Presume they were scraping the data to /dev/null, would that still be an issue? Further, aren't some things INTENDED to be scraped? Like their RSS feeds?
        res0nat0r 13y ago
        I believe all of that is against the law after they were specifically told not to via a C&D.
  - RyanMcGreal 13y ago
    You're conflating violating copyright with committing a crime under the CFAA. Then again, the Obama administration wants to make it a felony to stream compyrighted material, so maybe the conflation isn't so outrageous after all.
- bmelton 13y ago
  That seems perfectly in line with existing property rights. If I have a house and certain people are visiting it against my will, then I have legal recourse to prevent them from doing so. That it's digital doesn't really change the fact that, at the least, what 3taps was doing maps to trespassing. (Theft, at the worst, but I'm wary of invoking the 'copying isn't theft' mantra).
  - enry_straker 13y ago
    If you have a house, then it's your responsibility to have doors with locks and windows which are closed. You cannot have a house in a public space accessible worldwide, without doors or windows, and then randomly get to decide who can and can't visit, and have it enforced by courts.
    - bmelton 13y ago
      If you have property, and the house is on that property, then yes, you can. If I build my house in the public commons, on property that I do not own or lease, then I haven't any property rights as a homefront, and the relationship is more akin to one of a storefront than a home. If we're extrapolating from commercial property rights, then again, stores and merchants have the right to refuse entry to persons they choose as well, even though those buildings are in common areas, and their doors are commonly unlocked to allow free entry to all. Further, it is not incumbent upon you to have doors, windows and locks to prevent entry from your property, as the property needn't be a house at all, but could simply be land. I have the right to expel trespassers from land I own, whether or not any dwellings or structures exist upon such property. Even if you're assertion is just that I should have doors and locks to prevent them entering just my home, that is again a false claim. Whether or not my property is secure might be a matter of insurance liability, but does not obviate me from the expectation that others will respect my property rights. Even if I have no doors, windows, locks, or even walls, I have the right to expel others from my property.
    - DannyBee 13y ago
      "If you have a house, then it's your responsibility to have doors with locks and windows which are closed." Legally, it isn't. "You cannot have a house in a public space accessible worldwide, without doors or windows, and then randomly get to decide who can and can't visit, and have it enforced by courts. " Completely and totally false. Trespass to land, in fact, doesn't even require that you intend to trespass, only that you voluntarily traveled to the location. You do not need to know it's someone else's property or that you are trespassing to be liable. Getting injunctive relief is more difficult for other reasons, but you would at least get nominal damages. I think you will find trespass to land doctrines are not in your favor in this argument. You may want to try to argue it isn't like land at all :)
- AlisdairSH 13y ago
  I view it much like a bar owner. The bar is default-open to any patron. But, if a patron gets drunk and makes a scene, they can be asked to leave. If that patron sneaks around back and climbs in through an open window, they are trespassing. The actual legal details may be different, but that's how I see this case.
  - atmosx 13y ago
    That's a bit naive: If that's the case, then you need to put a user/password. Having a website on the internet is like shouting on a public square: it's main function is to be accessible world-wide (or internet-wide). So if you "shout" on a public square (blog, post, etc.) you can't tell which group of people can and can not hear what you say. The bar example would be fit for websites that raise paywalls, or some sort of access control. That's idiotic, it's just another case where the judge is 20 years behind current affairs, he is judging something he clearly doesn't understand.
    - processcontrol 13y ago
      Having a website is not at all like 'shouting on a public square' and is exactly like having a bar open to the public. Craigslist told a patron they couldn't come in any more. The patron put on a fake mustache and tried to come in the back door. Would you support someone scraping a blog to repost it elsewhere? Do you support crawlers that don't respect robots.txt? I don't see a problem with Craigslist saying 'No, you can't scrape our users content to post on your website'. The exact details of which laws and how the court case went may not be correct, but at a theoretical level the website as open-to-public bar/store/etc is a perfectly valid analogy.
      - sejje 13y ago
        And what makes it hilarious is that the fake moustache is seemingly illegal.
        Helianthus 13y ago
- anigbrowl 13y ago
  It seems...normal. Same way you can have a store on the public street and ban certain people from visiting it, then enforce that in court if they do.
- jemfinch 13y ago
  You can have a house or a business on a public street and ban certain people from visiting it as well. Why does it seem strange that the same law applies online?
  - devcpp 13y ago
    I have always considered websites to be comparable to public shops. Any "client" can enter and profit from a "[web] service" given by a "server", so it seems much more fitting than a private house or office, which would be comparable to the backend, itself off limits in most cases. And in most cases, in the areas I've lived in, you have no right to refuse service to "certain people". So, yes, this seems just as bad as a baker who would refuse a certain subset of people from even entering his shop.
    - ori_b 13y ago
      Just about any store in the USA can ban customers for non-discriminatory reasons. For example, if you go to a restaurant, start swearing at the servers, throwing your food, and misbehaving, you'll quickly find yourself banned from the location. I think it varies by state, but as long as the banning isn't because you're part of a protected class[1], a private establishment can refuse service for any reason it sees fit, including none at all. [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_class http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_class
      - devcpp 13y ago
        Ah, yes, that's what I meant by most cases. If you establish rules that do not discard a class of the population, then it's very much acceptable to reject those who infringe them, in my opinion. In any case, I was just correcting your analogy, not your premise.
      - baddox 13y ago
        Right, and banning a customer from a store is equivalent to a computer denying a request from a remote client. But in this case, the computer didn't deny the request.
nanomage 13y ago
This kind of thing used to happen with map makers, for 1000 years. Their solution was to make random small inaccuracies so they could detect when their maps were being stolen. Additionally, Google has been doing this to small start ups in 3rd world countries for years. This was an over produced decision, that should have been left to dealing with ignoring the cease and desist letter, instead of setting a president for banning VPNs and proxies, potentially.
Zuider 13y ago
I think you may be mistaken on this. Craigslist specifically argued that masking their IP address to bypass blocking "violated the CFAA and Penal Code § 502" and District Judge Charles Breyer agreed.
- anigbrowl 13y ago
  Yes - because 3taps had already been given proper legal notice in the form of a C&D letter (which was CL's right to issue as a property owner), and 3taps knew that it was no longer welcome to access CL.
gwu78 13y ago
You could say it's even more narrow than that. It only applies to these two parties and this particular case. While it might be informative with respect to what and how this particular judge thinks, it's merely a decision on a pre-trial motion and provides no precedent that other parties could cite in future CFAA cases.

by Shish2k 13y ago

grecy 13y ago

> Craigslist sent a legally valid cease & desist letter to 3taps, explicitly revoking their default-allowed access. I can have a site on the public internet and ban certain people from visiting it, then enforce that in court if they do? That seems... strange.

kd5bjo 13y ago
Just like you can have a store on the public street but ban certain people from visiting it, yes.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
yebyen 13y ago
You can have and enforce a terms-of-service agreement for users without strongly and strictly identifying every user at every moment. You can enforce copyright on a dataset from a database through the courts. You do not have to allow every use just because you have allowed a certain use. These things should not be surprising. EDIT: I googled it because I could smell the wrong in my statement, it's not called copyright it's called "database right" because a compilation of facts is not a creative work. Still the right is real regardless of the distinction. EDIT2: CraigsList is a US company and apparently if you read deeper into the WikiPedia article, US copyrights do not respect databases and so it's not a real thing. Sorry for muddying the waters, but it doesn't change that service providers can have terms of service irrespective of how strongly they work to identify and segregate their users.
alayne 13y ago
Why don't you try scraping book reviews from Amazon onto your own website and see what happens?
- japhyr 13y ago
  Is it about visiting and scraping the site, or what they do with the content they scrape?
  - res0nat0r 13y ago
    Both. CL wanted them to stop scraping their site because they were republishing content without CL's explicit permission.
    - sejje 13y ago
      What if they weren't republishing the data? I believe it's against TOS to scrape at all. Presume they were scraping the data to /dev/null, would that still be an issue? Further, aren't some things INTENDED to be scraped? Like their RSS feeds?
      - res0nat0r 13y ago
        I believe all of that is against the law after they were specifically told not to via a C&D.
- RyanMcGreal 13y ago
  You're conflating violating copyright with committing a crime under the CFAA. Then again, the Obama administration wants to make it a felony to stream compyrighted material, so maybe the conflation isn't so outrageous after all.
bmelton 13y ago
That seems perfectly in line with existing property rights. If I have a house and certain people are visiting it against my will, then I have legal recourse to prevent them from doing so. That it's digital doesn't really change the fact that, at the least, what 3taps was doing maps to trespassing. (Theft, at the worst, but I'm wary of invoking the 'copying isn't theft' mantra).
- enry_straker 13y ago
  If you have a house, then it's your responsibility to have doors with locks and windows which are closed. You cannot have a house in a public space accessible worldwide, without doors or windows, and then randomly get to decide who can and can't visit, and have it enforced by courts.
  - bmelton 13y ago
    If you have property, and the house is on that property, then yes, you can. If I build my house in the public commons, on property that I do not own or lease, then I haven't any property rights as a homefront, and the relationship is more akin to one of a storefront than a home. If we're extrapolating from commercial property rights, then again, stores and merchants have the right to refuse entry to persons they choose as well, even though those buildings are in common areas, and their doors are commonly unlocked to allow free entry to all. Further, it is not incumbent upon you to have doors, windows and locks to prevent entry from your property, as the property needn't be a house at all, but could simply be land. I have the right to expel trespassers from land I own, whether or not any dwellings or structures exist upon such property. Even if you're assertion is just that I should have doors and locks to prevent them entering just my home, that is again a false claim. Whether or not my property is secure might be a matter of insurance liability, but does not obviate me from the expectation that others will respect my property rights. Even if I have no doors, windows, locks, or even walls, I have the right to expel others from my property.
  - DannyBee 13y ago
    "If you have a house, then it's your responsibility to have doors with locks and windows which are closed." Legally, it isn't. "You cannot have a house in a public space accessible worldwide, without doors or windows, and then randomly get to decide who can and can't visit, and have it enforced by courts. " Completely and totally false. Trespass to land, in fact, doesn't even require that you intend to trespass, only that you voluntarily traveled to the location. You do not need to know it's someone else's property or that you are trespassing to be liable. Getting injunctive relief is more difficult for other reasons, but you would at least get nominal damages. I think you will find trespass to land doctrines are not in your favor in this argument. You may want to try to argue it isn't like land at all :)
AlisdairSH 13y ago
I view it much like a bar owner. The bar is default-open to any patron. But, if a patron gets drunk and makes a scene, they can be asked to leave. If that patron sneaks around back and climbs in through an open window, they are trespassing. The actual legal details may be different, but that's how I see this case.
- atmosx 13y ago
  That's a bit naive: If that's the case, then you need to put a user/password. Having a website on the internet is like shouting on a public square: it's main function is to be accessible world-wide (or internet-wide). So if you "shout" on a public square (blog, post, etc.) you can't tell which group of people can and can not hear what you say. The bar example would be fit for websites that raise paywalls, or some sort of access control. That's idiotic, it's just another case where the judge is 20 years behind current affairs, he is judging something he clearly doesn't understand.
  - processcontrol 13y ago
    Having a website is not at all like 'shouting on a public square' and is exactly like having a bar open to the public. Craigslist told a patron they couldn't come in any more. The patron put on a fake mustache and tried to come in the back door. Would you support someone scraping a blog to repost it elsewhere? Do you support crawlers that don't respect robots.txt? I don't see a problem with Craigslist saying 'No, you can't scrape our users content to post on your website'. The exact details of which laws and how the court case went may not be correct, but at a theoretical level the website as open-to-public bar/store/etc is a perfectly valid analogy.
    - sejje 13y ago
      And what makes it hilarious is that the fake moustache is seemingly illegal.
      - Helianthus 13y ago
anigbrowl 13y ago
It seems...normal. Same way you can have a store on the public street and ban certain people from visiting it, then enforce that in court if they do.
jemfinch 13y ago
You can have a house or a business on a public street and ban certain people from visiting it as well. Why does it seem strange that the same law applies online?
- devcpp 13y ago
  I have always considered websites to be comparable to public shops. Any "client" can enter and profit from a "[web] service" given by a "server", so it seems much more fitting than a private house or office, which would be comparable to the backend, itself off limits in most cases. And in most cases, in the areas I've lived in, you have no right to refuse service to "certain people". So, yes, this seems just as bad as a baker who would refuse a certain subset of people from even entering his shop.
  - ori_b 13y ago
    Just about any store in the USA can ban customers for non-discriminatory reasons. For example, if you go to a restaurant, start swearing at the servers, throwing your food, and misbehaving, you'll quickly find yourself banned from the location. I think it varies by state, but as long as the banning isn't because you're part of a protected class[1], a private establishment can refuse service for any reason it sees fit, including none at all. [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_class http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_class
    - devcpp 13y ago
      Ah, yes, that's what I meant by most cases. If you establish rules that do not discard a class of the population, then it's very much acceptable to reject those who infringe them, in my opinion. In any case, I was just correcting your analogy, not your premise.
    - baddox 13y ago
      Right, and banning a customer from a store is equivalent to a computer denying a request from a remote client. But in this case, the computer didn't deny the request.

nanomage 13y ago

This kind of thing used to happen with map makers, for 1000 years. Their solution was to make random small inaccuracies so they could detect when their maps were being stolen. Additionally, Google has been doing this to small start ups in 3rd world countries for years. This was an over produced decision, that should have been left to dealing with ignoring the cease and desist letter, instead of setting a president for banning VPNs and proxies, potentially.

Zuider 13y ago

I think you may be mistaken on this. Craigslist specifically argued that masking their IP address to bypass blocking "violated the CFAA and Penal Code § 502" and District Judge Charles Breyer agreed.

anigbrowl 13y ago
Yes - because 3taps had already been given proper legal notice in the form of a C&D letter (which was CL's right to issue as a property owner), and 3taps knew that it was no longer welcome to access CL.

gwu78 13y ago

You could say it's even more narrow than that. It only applies to these two parties and this particular case. While it might be informative with respect to what and how this particular judge thinks, it's merely a decision on a pre-trial motion and provides no precedent that other parties could cite in future CFAA cases.