
When Craigslist Blocks Innovations - iamwil
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/29/when-craigslist-blocks-innovations-disruptions/
======
kyro
This is a pretty black-and-white issue for me, and I don't quite understand
how so many are defending Padmapper. Much like the arguments for pirating
music, it all boils down to weak justifications for taking something that's
not yours.

I get that you may need to bend rules to innovate and that they were pulling
CL's data in a way that did not affect their bandwidth, but at the end of the
day, it's _Craigslist_ that has attracted the users, _Craigslist_ that has
engaged the user, and it's _Craigslist_ that has acquired and recorded that
data.

The fact that Padmapper's UI is better is totally irrelevant and is just a way
to distract from the real issue – blatant disregard of CL's wishes to hold on
to its data.

EDIT: Replies have made some good points, so this isn't so black-and-white to
me anymore.

~~~
pg
One thing that makes it not so black and white is that it's not Craigslist's
data. The posts belong to the users who submitted them; they just grant a
license to Craigslist. And the users clearly don't want or expect this license
to be an exclusive one, because the posts are indexed by all the major search
engines.

The other is that Craig has in the past stated publicly that they didn't take
issue with other sites using this data except when it caused increased
bandwidth costs for CL. Now it's clear either that they've changed their
position, or that the bandwidth argument was just an excuse for shutting down
sites they felt might one day compete with them.

~~~
wildmXranat
Hmm, I posted a job ad last week and saw this at the bottom of the submission
form:

"Clicking "Continue" confirms that craigslist is the exclusive licensee of
this content, with the exclusive right to enforce copyrights against anyone
copying, republishing, distributing or preparing derivative works without its
consent. "

I'm not sure whether your assumption or information was taken first hand from
from Craigslist guys, but it doesn't look like that's the current
implementation.

~~~
pg
This is just deliberately overstated language written by lawyers, to give CL
maximum legal power if they ever need it. In practice they let search engines
index them, and users know and expect that.

~~~
rubyrescue
That's really irrelevant, though, isn't it?

CL could allow search engines to index but could explicitly disallow third
parties (fourth parties?) from using the content, _regardless of how that
additional party retrieved that content_.

~~~
Natsu
> That's really irrelevant, though, isn't it?

To me, it sounds a lot like the MLB statements before every ballgame and I
question whether they have any actual legal force.

If CL had any sense, they'd try to buy PadMapper to improve their service.

------
stfu
This anti Craigslist crusade is just ridiculous. The most impressive thing to
me is how some startups that a knowingly violating TOS and intentionally
abusing another site are able to gain that much traction for their "cause".
Impressive PR/Buzz work!

~~~
iamwil
The press that you see is the result of users being disappointed at the
current-state-of-affairs. They don't see it as being helpful for the long term
innovation, or short term utility. Some of these users happen to be
journalists. Other journalists are reporting it because how this is ruled will
be precedence for future cases. I would say that's news.

If you've ever met Eric (Padmapper is a one-man shop), you'll quickly get the
sense that he isn't a slick-talkin' kind of guy. I can tell you that it is
journalists that approached Eric, not the other way around.

~~~
mprovost
It's not like the press (ie paper newspapers like the NYT) is a neutral party
in this - craigslist has pretty much destroyed one of their largest
traditional sources of revenue (classifieds).

~~~
iamwil
Whether press is a neutral party or not is a separate issue of the assumption
that it's PR work on Padmapper's part. The press may be having a field day,
but it's not Eric's doing.

------
learc83
Can anyone who supports Craigslist show me how, their selection and
arrangement of facts are _creative_ and original?

Because if they aren't, their data isn't copyrightable.

They don't select anything--there is no one at Craigslist performing a
creative act of selection.

Their arrangement of apartment listings isn't creative or original. It's based
solely on geography, and time. I also don't think Padmapper is actually
copying the arrangement.

Furthermore even if there were actually copyrightable text within the
individual ads, Padmapper doesn't copy the text, just the facts.

You should read the Feist v. Rural decision if you want more information on
copyrighting collections of facts.

------
agscala
I kind of feel bad for Craigslist. Everyone is attacking them for wanting to
hold onto their data. I don't think that they should be obligated to let just
anyone scrape it

~~~
aggronn
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?

~~~
anamax
> 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
>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?

------
overgard
The thing that strikes me is that it would have been a lot smarter for
craigslist to either buy padmapper or create their own version of it. I get
craigslist general stance of keeping things simple because its hard to predict
the consequences of changes (something that's been brought up in interviews w/
craig in the past), and the upsides of keeping the site as basic as possible,
but with something like padmapper you can almost view it as being a real life
proof of concept that's been shown to work.

Obviously it's something people want, so why wouldn't they integrate it? I
don't get the business goal here.

------
waterlesscloud
It's ironic that the post claims Craigslist cultivates an exaggerated image of
doing public good, but then repeats without question Padmapper's claim that
it's all about doing more good and saving people time.

I strongly suspect both sites are pretty equal in their overstated desire to
"just do good".

~~~
ericd
That's not the only motivating factor, it's more complicated than that (not
wanting to see something I've worked on for a few years become less useful,
for example), but it was the main one in starting PadMapper, and the main one
in deciding to do this. He was saying that CL's actions seem to contradict
that mission.

~~~
waterlesscloud
I'm curious, are you saying that you have no commercial plans for this at all?

~~~
ericd
I'm not saying that. Like any person, I'm more than 2D and have a whole bunch
of motivations, but unlike most companies, making oodles of money isn't my
main one for this, and so I don't prioritize it very much when it conflicts
with other things. I find doing things that solve problems for people
interesting and fulfilling, and that's primarily what motivated the creation
of this.

------
ggwicz
When, specifically, did taking another company's data and trying to build your
own company around it become "innovating"?

I am _not_ saying such apps are useless; I'm building one now for a
marketplace with pretty shitty UI.

But it's not an innovation.

------
gdltec
Disagree. Everyone is open to compete against Craigslist... and good luck!

~~~
tylermenezes
You disagree with what? You don't think the lawsuits are real?

~~~
URSpider94
I think what the OP is saying is that there's no right, stated or implied, to
wrap Craigslist data in your own UI. If you want to write your own front end
for classified ads, you're going to have to bring your own ads to the table as
well.

~~~
huckleberries21
I don't think even Bilton is arguing that CL is not within their legal rights.
He is just pointing out that it seems contradictory to their claimed culture
of being community-driven, anti-SOPA, wanting to be a public good, and all
that jazz.

------
wildmXranat
I recently saw a Toronto area Craigslist job posting for a 3Tap/Padmapper type
of scraping contract, where it required the developer to have experience in
spidering Craigslist, despite the whole ongoing debacle. Oh the irony.

The whole thing stinks and Craigslist is completely right in putting a stop to
data leeching. There isn't enough CSS3 candy that you can slap on top stolen
data to wash it clean. It's a red herring argument that distracts from the
main issue that they don't obey they rules of the site that feeds them.

------
graue
PadMapper seems to be on relatively solid legal ground here. They are only
copying facts (address, price, contact info) and the post title (which is
likely too short to qualify for copyright). And as they aren't accessing
Craigslist directly, they aren't subject to its TOU.

But what 3Taps, the other lawsuit target, is doing seems far less defensible.
They use the trademarked name "Craigslist" prominently and repeatedly on their
site to promote their service. See <http://3taps.com> (screenshot at
<http://oi48.tinypic.com/1zx2qkk.jpg> in case the design changes).

Worse, the website Craiggers.com that's described in the lawsuit (and indeed
registered to 3Taps) not only uses the trademark, but reproduces posts
wholesale with the entire content and photographs. (Example:
<http://oi50.tinypic.com/5l9cvb.jpg>) At the bottom of each post it has a
"public domain" mark and says "This work ([name] by [poster email]),
identified by craigslist, is free of known copyright restrictions." This is
clearly untrue: the photographs are creative and original works copyrighted to
the poster (and licensed to Craigslist), as are the prose descriptions
whenever they carry more than a bare minimum of information.

I can't imagine what 3Taps is thinking. In contrast to the relatively cautious
approach of PadMapper, they're being extremely brazen in copying _everything_
from Craigslist and using its name to promote themselves. And if they get
smacked down, PadMapper's lost its data source.

------
CamperBob2
Something I think is being overlooked is that Craigslist's belligerent lawyers
and antediluvian website hurt the people who really do own the ads, as much as
they hurt the millions of users who have to sift through them.

So... how about if Padmapper were to change its approach, and start acting
like a value-added front end to Craigslist? Landlords and realtors could post
their ads on Padmapper instead of going directly to Craigslist. Padmapper
would then do two things: first, it would immediately forward a copy of each
ad to Craigslist on the user's behalf, as if it had been posted there
originally, and second, it would host the same ad itself, with all of the
accompanying maps and metadata that Craigslist refuses to support.

If a given ad was originally _submitted_ to Padmapper, their right to show it
would be absolutely indisputable. If Padmapper is indeed more user-friendly
than Craigslist, then more and more users will come to rely on them, and
ignore Craigslist altogether. At the same time, users who prefer to stick with
Craigslist wouldn't see any disruption at all.

~~~
ericd
PadLister lets you submit to PadMapper and repost to other places, but I think
that may actually be the sticking point, and might be harming PadMapper's
efforts to be an effective search engine if it's viewed as competitive with
other sources. So, I may need to shut it down to keep going with PadMapper's
mission.

------
jusben1369
There's a lot of discussions about the rights and wrongs of Craigslist
approach. It seems to me though the seeds to destroying it are all here. When
you enable a powerful ecosystem around your core offering you get a network
effect. Whomever decides to build a replacement to Craigslist should put at
the top of their list "Enable 3rd party developers to prosper from our core
offering".

