
Craigslist Suing Padmapper - staunch
http://gigaom.com/2012/07/24/craigslist-sues-competitor-padmapper-over-listings/
======
pg
Craig Newmark said on Quora that the reason they didn't like people building
stuff on top of Craigslist was simply the extra bandwidth they consumed:

[http://www.quora.com/Why-hasnt-anyone-built-any-products-
on-...](http://www.quora.com/Why-hasnt-anyone-built-any-products-on-top-of-
Craigslist-data)

But now that 3Taps has found an ingenious way to get at the data with zero
extra bandwidth cost to Craigslist (by retrieving it from the Google cache
rather than CL itself), it's clear that what Craigslist really dislikes is
competition.

While Craigslist is probably within their legal rights here, this case shows
that for all their talk about their benevolent aims, Craigslist is no
different from other companies.

~~~
sulife
Just like they try to keep the facade up that CL barely makes money. They are
swimming in so much $ it's insane.

~~~
binarysolo
For the immense value they provide to the hundreds of millions of users,
having a 100-200M revenue is not "swimming in [insane] $".

They're profitable alright, but let's not kid ourselves that they have by
choice left a LOT of money on the table, which is why all these value-added
services are trying to take a share of the CL-pie.

~~~
sulife
They have an estimated 70-80% margins... maybe I should have said drowning in
money!

------
Maascamp
The tone in this article is unbelievable.

> _The case raises questions over whether Craigslist is stifling innovation or
> simply protecting its data_

There is no question. Craigslist isn't stopping Padmapper from being built,
its stopping Padmapper from using _Craigslist data_. The continuous attempts
to reframe Craigslist's actions as an attempt to stifle innovation seem almost
surreal. I just can't understand how a community of professionals could
support Padmapper in this.

~~~
ataggart
The posts on CL are no more "Craigslist data" than videos on YouTube are
"Google data". The data is submitted by the _users_ for the express purpose of
being seen by other people. Does anyone seriously argue that users listing
flats on CL do _not_ want their listing found by other avenues? It is clear
that Padmapper is providing a service beneficial to both suppliers and
consumers of rental properties, and CL is using the police power of the state
to prevent that benefit. _Why_ they're doing this is still a mystery to me.

~~~
res0nat0r
The users of CL never agreed to let you copy their postings to whatever
website you feel like, also it is against their TOS to do so:

 _Any copying, aggregation, display, distribution, performance or derivative
use of craigslist or any content posted on craigslist whether done directly or
through intermediaries (including but not limited to by means of spiders,
robots, crawlers, scrapers, framing, iframes or RSS feeds) is prohibited. As a
limited exception, general purpose Internet search engines and noncommercial
public archives will be entitled to access craigslist without individual
written agreements executed with CL that specifically authorize an exception
to this prohibition if, in all cases and individual instances: (a) they
provide a direct hyperlink to the relevant craigslist website, service, forum
or content; (b) they access craigslist from a stable IP address using an
easily identifiable agent; and (c) they comply with CL's robots.txt file;
provided however, that CL may terminate this limited exception as to any
search engine or public archive (or any person or entity relying on this
provision to access craigslist without their own written agreement executed
with CL), at any time and in its sole discretion, upon written notice,
including, without limitation, by email notice._

~~~
ataggart
The notion that I am bound by whatever legalese someone happens to put on
their publicly accessible website is absurd in the extreme; I am not the one
checking the box to submit a post. CL is perfectly able to restrict read-
access to those who agree to the terms, e.g., by requiring registration. That
they choose not to is _their choice_ , and the state should not be used as a
substitute bludgeon whenever they dislike the unintended consequences.

Furthermore, the _publicly-accessible_ data isn't being copied, it's being
_consumed_. I may consume the data to find an apartment. Someone might consume
the data to calculate the average market prices in a city. Padmapper consumes
the data to generate locations on a map.

~~~
res0nat0r
This makes no sense. You agree to the TOS when you post information to CL, not
when you are just browsing for listings; that submitted information is what is
bound by the TOS above. Also if you aren't the one checking the agree box, who
is?

From what you've written above it sounds like you believe any contract between
two parties is absurd in the extreme.

------
jaysonelliot
_"(Craigslist) said it offered a license that would have allowed PadMapper to
use its data on mobile applications but that the competitor did not accept the
terms."_

But on the other hand, _"users and developers are exasperated with
Craigslist’s insistence on preserving an outdated interface and design."_

I don't know the legal merits of either party's position, but from an ethical
perspective, I tend to side with Craigslist here. Dissatisfaction with a
commercial site's UI is not just cause for using their data without
permission, particularly if they had made an effort to offer a licensing
agreement, whatever the terms might have been.

~~~
wickedchicken
I see this from the opposite viewpoint, that PadMapper is operating as a
search engine designed to help you find the right Craigslist posts for your
apartment hunt. Claiming that PadMapper's success is from Craigslist failing
to 'provide a good UI' is like suggesting that Google News' success is because
newspaper companies failed to provide good article SEO. Instead, it's a
different modality of content discovery, and it ultimately _redirects you to
the original source_.

In my (personal) opinion, I would argue that the content providers or
aggregators and search engines benefit synergistically. CL and Belgian
newspapers appear to disagree.

~~~
waterlesscloud
For that analogy to hold, PadMapper would have to be pulling data from a large
number of sources. The value that Google News provides is that it aggregates a
very large number of sources. PadMapper does not.

~~~
wickedchicken
> PadMapper does not.

It does.

~~~
huhtenberg
But without the Craigslist data it has no value.

~~~
jlgreco
Total nonsense. I found my current place with them, without craigslist.

------
patdennis
My logical brain says that suing Padmapper is perfectly reasonable. My
emotional brain is crying at the idea of using raw Craigslist ads to find an
apartment the next time I move to a new city.

I move to a new city every year, usually on short notice, and I often go into
the process of apartment hunting with no knowledge of local neighborhoods, the
public transportation system, or general geography. Without Padmapper, the
process would be unbearable.

~~~
guelo
That's ridiculous. Craigslist lets you refine your search down to the
neighborhood. It's not that hard to use. People find apartments on there all
the time.

~~~
jfb
Depends on which Craigslist you use -- the neighborhood listings aren't
particularly granular, and neighborhoods themselves aren't fixed, so one
person's Glen Park (for instance) could be another's Outer Mission. Using a
map is an uncontestedly superior interface for organizing geographic data.
People find apartments on Craiglist _despite_ the interface.

This is not to address the issue of ownership of listing data, or the case
law, which latter isn't settled anyway.

------
ChuckMcM
This isn't surprising of course, it is their data after all, but it brings up
the 'easy problem' / 'hard problem' (E/H-P) conundrum quite nicely.

The conundrum is that it is 'easy' to take an existing, quality data source,
and re-skin it for broader market appeal. This is something that Craigslist
should be doing but perhaps through poor management are not. It is 'hard' to
take a conceptual model of skinning and building a quality data source behind
it.

As I said elsewhere, the PadMapper guys might have taken this to Craigslist
and said "Look what we can do with your data, lets make happy music together."
and then debated the terms. Or they could take their UX to the venture capital
world and say "Look at this cool product we could build if we had access to a
database with Craig list's quality" and debate cap tables and dilution
(assuming they got to that stage of a term sheet).

But they chose the third route, "Lets see how long we can get away with
this..." and the timer on that just ran out.

Sadly, this third path makes the first two paths much harder. Craigslist
already sees them as the 'enemy' and VCs will see them as a team that makes
poor choices. Both views make it harder (but certainly not impossible) to
consummate a deal. However, from the blog and from previous postings here it
seems they made those choices with their eyes open.

~~~
learc83
>This isn't surprising of course, it is their data after all,

But that's the thing. It _isn't_ their data. They specifically say so in their
TOS. The copyright belongs to the user.

You can't say the listing belongs to the user (to protect you from liability)
on one hand, and then say the data belongs to craigslist on the other.

They could always do what map companies have done forever to prevent
copyright. Facts can't be copyrighted so map makers insert fictional cities.

If someone copies the map they are copying the fictional city and thus
violating their copyright.

Craigslist could add a fictional listing here and there that they do own the
copyright to.

~~~
ChuckMcM
I hear you, but I don't know if the courts will agree with your
interpretation. The reason for that is that the courts will look at the
consequence of having that interpretation widely accepted and the impact on
the current state of affairs. There are many many places where this has been
litigated and the courts always come down on the side of the data aggregator
owning rights to the data aggregated.

If PadMapper wanted to legally exploit the fact that the users own the
listings, not Craigslist, they would have to establish a relationship with the
user and get the information directly from them. They could contact the
listing owners and suggest they list on PadListing. They can 'spiff' people
who do so (meaning give them some benefit if they list on PadListing and the
person discovers and rents through PadMapper). If they can prove that the
listing owner asked them to list their property, Craigslist can't sue.

Alternatively PadMapper "need only"[1] create their own apartment listing
service to have their own database where people listing apartments go to them
directly. And that is a much harder thing to do than something which scrapes
the listings from Craigslist and drops them on to a Google Map.

As a proof-of-concept, PadMapper is excellent. As a product, it has a data
contamination issue.

[1] The scare quotes are there to acknowledge that its a challenge to get
people to move from the known, to the new. I am trying to move people from
Google to a new search service, its hard, its slow, but its the only way to do
this and avoid this sort of litigation.

~~~
learc83
>If they can prove that the listing owner asked them to list their property,
Craigslist can't sue.

Look at the Rightshaven case. The judge ruled that Rightshaven didn't have
standing to sue on behalf just because the copyright holder granted it license
to.

If that theory holds up, Craigslist wouldn't have standing to sue on behalf of
the copyright holders.

Additionally copyright would only apply if the listings are considered
creative works. Most of them are clearly simple statements of fact that
wouldn't merit copyright protection in the first place.

~~~
ChuckMcM
As others have pointed out Craigslist can claim copyright to the collection.
The legal theory I would expect them to use is that PadMapper wouldn't know
about these listings if they didn't access Craigslist's collection, therefore
their use of the _collection_ violated Craigslist's copyright.

I did a quick Blekko for the case with the Yellow Pages that was litigated
this way (but alas did not find it) where a AT&T sued the maker of a
competitive Yellow Pages over using the collection of businesses in their
book. The defendant argument was similar to yours, that they could have walked
down the street and collected the information so the information wasn't
copyrightable, but the judge ruled in favor of AT&T because it was clear the
defendant _could_ have done that but they _didn't_ do that. There was some
errors and omissions that mirrored the Yellow pages and 'proved' the defendant
took their data from the Yellow Pages rather than collect it themselves.

For PadMapper to escape liability they have to be able to prove they came to
know about these listings in some other way than through Craigslist's
collection of them. They argued in their blog that 3Taps did that for them
because they got them from 3Taps they aren't liable for what ever 3Taps is
doing. And my take on it is that given the case law it will be a very hard
thing to prove. If Eric Goldman is reading he could probably whip out a
definitive argument here.

If it goes to trial I'll definitely follow the case to see how it plays out.

~~~
learc83
See this <http://www.copyright.gov/reports/dbase.html>

In Feist Publications v. Rural Telephone Service Co, a phone directory was
ruled to be protected by copyright only if the selection and arrangement of
facts was an original creative act (listing numbers alphabetically was not).

I'm aware of a case after Feist where a yellow pages for chinese immigrants
was copyrightable because of the creativity involved in selection of the facts
and the arrangement into categories. But even then the facts themselves are
not copyrightable.

Craigslist's selection is nonexistent, you send it they publish it. And the
arrangement of the subset that padmapper is using is solely by geographic
location and time. In addition padmapper is not copying the arrangement.

------
nlh
I find this sort of thing very frustrating to read:

 _"The search tool is antiquated, the images are poor or nonexistent,
locations of listings are hardly dependable, and you can forget about an
integrated way to save anything for later reference. There is a litany of
shortcomings that come with the Craigslist apartment search; they are many and
they are painful..."_

If you don't like the site, don't like the UI, and can't stand the UX, then
don't use the site. Nobody is forcing you to search for an apartment on CL.
Nobody is forcing owners to list apartments on CL.

And so now we get to the meat ...

 _"...Your site is chock-full of data I need..."_

Ahh...data you NEED.

So here's the thing. If you truly need the data, then you need Craigslist and
you have an obligation to use it the way they (and only they) want you to use
it. If you don't like the way they want you to use it, there are several
choices:

* Go work for them and convince them to improve it. * Build a better mousetrap.

The former probably won't succeed, so the latter seems to be the way to go.

Look, there's nothing preventing landlords from listing their apartments on
Craigslist AND your new Craigslist replacement/improvement. They're not locked
in. If they were, that would be a whole different discussion - then we can
talk about anti-competitive, innovation-stifling behavior. But that's not the
case - the only reason people list apartments on CL is because _it works_.
Despite the bad UI. Hence the reason CL hasn't changed it.

So it's the job of some enterprising entrepreneur not only ro build a better
mousetrap, but convince people to use it. Until that happens, as much as I too
dislike the Craigslist UI, I can't say I support PadMapper on this one.

~~~
Goronmon
_If you don't like the site, don't like the UI, and can't stand the UX, then
don't use the site. Nobody is forcing you to search for an apartment on CL.
Nobody is forcing owners to list apartments on CL._

Apartments aren't a fungible item. If I'm looking for an apartment in a
certain area and 75% of the apartments in that area are only being listed on
Craigslist, then how can I realistically "choose" to use another avenue for
apartment listings?

 _Look, there's nothing preventing landlords from listing their apartments on
Craigslist AND your new Craigslist replacement/improvement._

There are huge barriers preventing landlords from listing their apartments
outside of craigslist. Nothing is as popular, so why waste the time? They
don't have hours to scour the internet looking for alternatives, nor do they
probably want to have to manage listings at many difference sites.

~~~
ChuckMcM
I think you are looking at this backwards. How many listings are there on
Craigslist for a given city? 100, 200, 500, 1000? (I know city dependent)

There is absolutely no reason that PadMapper cannot call them on the phone,
and ask them to list with PadMapper. They can make it trivially easy
supporting email, phone, or fax listings. They can _sell them_ on using
PadMapper.

Many apartments are owned by Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) there are
dozens (not hundreds) of those. You can _sell the REIT_ on the concept of easy
listings that are so much better/cleaner/easier than Craigslist.

Craigslist was created when near every apartment was listed in the Classified
Ads in the print newspaper. That wasn't "lock in" it was an opportunity, they
sold these folks on lower costs (since Classifieds were a money fund for
newspapers) Landlords hated the extortionate prices that the newspapers
charged but they didn't have an alternative, Craigslist gave them that
alternative, they moved.

So the 'answer' here is to actually build a classifieds business around rental
space. That takes more than slinging some node.js and scraping other sites.
Granted its 'easier' for a technical person to do it that way, but its not a
'sustainable' way of doing it.

~~~
Goronmon
_That wasn't "lock in" it was an opportunity, they sold these folks on lower
costs (since Classifieds were a money fund for newspapers) Landlords hated the
extortionate prices that the newspapers charged but they didn't have an
alternative, Craigslist gave them that alternative, they moved._

But you are using an example in which there was a clear downside to using the
existing listing model. The price. If you are a landlord and you have no
problem renting out apartments in a reasonable amount of time on Craigslist,
and it's free, what exactly can another site offer that is "better"?

They are already getting their apartments rented, there is minimal overhead to
using Craigslist. You can't compete with Craigslist on price, unless you are
actually giving landlords money for listing on your site. And trying to say
"It's easier for users to find your properties." doesn't help if they aren't
having a problem with renting out their properties.

------
res0nat0r
Here's a nugget from the article which I didn't hear anything about in the
previous Padmapper postings and chat here on HN:

"The company said it offered a license that would have allowed PadMapper to
use its data on mobile applications but that the competitor did not accept the
terms."

~~~
pavel_lishin
How many people use PadMapper on a mobile device, vs. the desktop site?

~~~
pchristensen
Their iPad app is one of my guilty pleasures. (ditto HotPads and Redfin)

------
mootothemax
I can't say that I'm that surprised; Padmapper wrote a whole blog post about
how they were adding Craigslist support back to their site after being sent a
C&D by Craigslist.

It's a shame for the guy behind Padmapper, but hopefully there'll be a lesson
learnt about knowing which fights are worth picking versus knowing when to
move on.

Somehow Google managed to overcome Yahoo and Altavista without scraping their
data. And look at something like GumTree in the UK, which has always been
miles ahead of Craigslist - no first mover advantage taken up there. Plus,
GumTree's design has been equally woeful over the years.

~~~
jaems33
Speaking of the UK, Foxtons also does a great job providing two interfaces for
searching properties (list vs. map view) as well as organizing photos by room
with specified dimensions. I wish their design was pretty much applied to
Craiglist for property finding in the U.S.

------
dap
"You're not wrong, [Craigslist], you're just an asshole."

I don't know who's legally right, but I've got no sympathy for Craigslist.
They've got a monopoly on the data (whether right or wrong) and refuse to
either build a decent UI for consumers or let other people do so.

That sounds bad, but I think you can't know how infuriating it really is until
you've tried to find housing in a town where CL is the only real option _and_
where demand far exceeds supply (where you spend many, many hours on the
effort because of intense demand-side competition).

------
_sentient
Just because you don't like the interface, does not give you license to steal
their data. I think HN is fairly ugly, but that doesn't mean I have a right to
scrape the site in order to reproduce a slightly better looking, for-profit
clone. At least not without PG's express permission.

Yahoo search would be a hell of a lot better if they could just scrape results
from Google, but thankfully they lack the misguided sense of entitlement that
Padmapper seems to suffer from.

~~~
rprasad
You actually do under the HN terms of use, which are permissive in the
licenses they grant regarding HN posts. For example, see HN Magazine and
various other HN-based sites and services.

But as you note, the important thing here is the "license." Craigslist offers
paid licenses to app develoeprs, which PadMapper chose not to pay for.

~~~
juiceandjuice
The license doesn't cover websites, only mobile applications.

------
debacle
> The lawsuit raises questions about who should be able to use the vast amount
> of user-created data hosted on a site like Craigslist.

No, it really doesn't. This isn't going to be a long, exciting case
challenging the underpinnings of copyright law and server terms of services.
Padmapper isn't that company.

~~~
mootothemax
Agreed - there have been an awful lot of armchair lawyers asserting that
there's more to this case than there really is.

~~~
debacle
There really is a lot to this case and a lot of precedent to be set, I wont
deny that, but PadMapper doesn't have the resources to fight this battle.

------
blhack
Previous discussion: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4218714>

Eric, everybody saw this coming.

------
nostromo
Commenters here make this sound like an open and shut case in favor of
Craigslist. IANAL, so could someone explain why Google's index of material
covered by copyright is ok and PadMapper's is not?

~~~
unavoidable
[Law student here, but I don't know the full details of the claim CL is
making]

The case doesn't actually seem open and shut at all. CL seems to have a "moral
high ground" in that they provide the original service and the platform for
users to post information, but the legal ground is more shaky. It is
relatively settled in copyright law (which appears to be the main thrust of
CL's argument) that effort alone does not award copyright protection[1] (or
indeed, any property rights in general[2]).

For example, phone listings are not copyrightable, nor is news. The general
question is whether there was creative expression (which can include
'creative' presentation or organization). If I were Padmapper, I would argue
that classified listings are just a collection of facts, in which case they
are not copyrightable. Padmapper does not actually use the listings directly,
but extracts the information and puts it in a different format (their
interface). On this point I think their case is relatively strong.

Where CL might be able to make a better case is their TOU. The TOU forms a
contract between CL and their users. In almost all such prominent cases, this
type of contract has been found to be enforceable[3]. If this line of
reasoning is followed, then Padmapper will probably lose on this point because
they agreed not to "copy, aggregate, distribute", etc.[4]

If this is a contractual claim the damages would be what CL could have
expected if Padmapper had not 'breached' the contract - in this case I'm not
sure that amount is particularly large, because Padmapper redirects to CL's
site for the actual listings.

TLDR: copyright claim seems weak, but the contractual claim might succeed. The
trademark stuff seems like a red herring and is CL throwing stuff at the wall
to see what sticks.

[EDIT: see below, I overlooked the fact that Padmapper is no longer using CL
data directly, so they might not be bound by the TOU at all. Same goes for
3Taps since they use Google's cache. Looking stronger for Padmapper]

[1] Feist v. Rural, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feist_v._Rural>

[2] INS v. AP,
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_News_Service_v._A...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_News_Service_v._Associated_Press)

[3] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clickwrap>

[4] CL Terms of Use (see section 3),
<http://www.craigslist.org/about/terms.of.use>

~~~
p0ckets
Is it clear that Padmapper is bound by the TOU of CL? Padmapper probably has a
contractual relationship with 3Taps, and Google probably has a contractual
relationship with CL. I'm not sure 3Taps has entered into a contractual
relationship with Google by scraping their cache, but even if they did, what
is the legal agreement between CL and Padmapper?

~~~
unavoidable
Hmm that is a good question, which I didn't consider. What I said would have
applied to the original method that Padmapper used to scrape data directly
from Craigslist but probably not under the new arrangement through 3Taps.
Probably nobody is bound by the TOU except Google, and unless Google has a
collateral contract (TOU) with 3Taps and/or Padmapper there probably isn't a
claim at all. Good catch.

------
gfosco
Who didn't see this coming? I almost feel bad for Padmapper, but not really,
because they should have known better.

~~~
citricsquid
If anyone is the party we should feel bad for in this case it's 3Taps. They
_seemed_ to be flying under the radar until Padmapper started using them.

~~~
debacle
They're running a service called 'craiggers' that scrapes Craigslist listings
and sells an API. It's clear trademark infringement. Why would we feel bad for
them?

~~~
usaar333
Alright, perhaps one can argue the name is too close.

But craiggers provides a very valuable service, namely showing pictures of
items as you search. It made furniture searching so much easier.

I have zero sympathy for craigslist. They didn't get into their position
through "years of hard work". They won the lottery (someone had to win it).
They have done zero innovation (other than maybe anti-spam) for years and
prevent others from innovating on top. Society wins if they are forced to open
their data.

------
astrodust
When you can't beat them, sue them into the ground.

Craigslist is one of the poorest user experiences around and succeeds only
because people insist on using it. The alternatives somehow manage to be even
more spectacularly useless by over-designing their apps and cluttering them up
with junk.

Padmapper is one of the few that does what they're supposed to do, and it's
not even an optimal implementation of this sort of thing.

~~~
ori_b
> _Craigslist is one of the poorest user experiences around and succeeds only
> because people insist on using it._

So, to paraphrase, it only succeeds because something about it attracts
customers. As opposed to other sites, which succeed by fairy dust and
rainbows.

If padmapper has a great user experience, that's wonderful -- They should be
able to get customers to post their listings on it, and generate data without
relying on Craigslist. Or, if they rely on Craigslist, and what the article
said is true, they could have negociated a license to the data, instead of
scraping it.

~~~
astrodust
It only succeeds because it has a historical legacy that's proving difficult
to displace. This is the same thing driving eBay.

It's a difficult nut to crack. Kajiji seems to be gaining some traction, but
it's trading one set of UX nightmares for another.

~~~
jonny_eh
It's <http://kijiji.com> (looks to be ebayized now). Although in Canada,
<http://kijiji.ca> is more popular than Craigslist.

~~~
astrodust
Sourceforge looked impossible to displace and yet GitHub happened. I can't
wait for the same thing to happen to Craigslist.

~~~
usaar333
Why was Sourceforge so tough to displace, aside from no one having the will to
do it?

Craigslist controls a two-sided market. If I build a new site, I can't get
buyers without there already being sellers. And vice-versa. That's an
incredibly difficult business problem.

Github seems to have had it easier. I can just host my new project on github
and be done with it (my website links to it after all). I'm sure sourceforge
had some value just by being the go-to place, but how strong was the network
effect from a developer perspective?

~~~
astrodust
To deconstruct the SourceForge decline, which felt as painfully slow as the
glacially slow erosion of IE 6 market share, it's important to recognize it in
context.

SourceForge and its related properties were the backbone of the early web,
supporting a number of important efforts to which people felt a strong
allegiance. It was like a benevolent force at the time.

SourceForge had, at the time, a fairly formal process for registration. They
considered themselves more like a library where getting shelf space was a
privilege not doled out lightly. This is not unlike how getting into the
Yahoo! directory required a lot of begging and pleading.

While this meant that most of the projects hosted by it had a lot of merit,
those lesser efforts were left out in the cold. They failed to switch to a
more casual model as the "Web 2.0" philosophy started being the dominant mind-
set, where expectations shifted dramatically from carefully curated content to
emergent user-driven communities.

Also worth noting, GitHub's pace of innovation is so far beyond nearly
anything else in the industry that it was only a matter of time before they
became the superior platform in terms of technology.

Additionally they were able to ride the surge of popularity that git was
gaining, something that SourceForge didn't support at the time, and persuaded
a number of high-profile projects to move to them. The real coup was Ruby on
Rails, which once hosted there, solidified their position.

Any Craiglist displacer would need to swing a few important, strategic deals
to cement it in the minds of people as a reasonable alternative. The rest
would be a case of just driving harder than Craiglist is willing to keep up
with.

------
keeptrying
Heartbreaking.

Padmapper is the best apartment rental interface out there. The author has
been single handedly working on this for 3-4 years and constantly improving
his system.

Legally he might not have been in the right but we should be helping him out
not uselessly debating and casting judgement.

If theres anyone who exmplifies the true spirit of Hacker News it would be the
author of PadMapper.

~~~
greyboy
> Legally he might not have been in the right but we should be helping him out
> not uselessly debating and casting judgement.

If he's not "legally not in the right," why should I be helping him (doesn't
that imply casting a judgement - that PadMapper is elevated above CraigsList
because it's "the best apartment rental interface our there")?

What if the tables were turned and CraigsList was violating PadMapper's TOS?
Would you be willing to help CraigsList (they serve more than only apartment
listings)?

Should somebody be rewarded, even if (legally) not in the right, just because
he/she is a hard worker/smarty pants/exemplifies the True Hacker Spirit?

I often wonder if there is some sort of unwritten clause that You-Must-Pull-
For-The-Underdog to join Hacker News? (In the name of Divine Disruption, of
course.)

~~~
potatolicious
> _"If he's not "legally not in the right," why should I be helping him
> (doesn't that imply casting a judgement - that PadMapper is elevated above
> CraigsList because it's "the best apartment rental interface our there")?"_

Because legal right and moral right sometimes intersect, but not nearly
always.

Because once in a blue moon somebody comes along and creates something with
such enormous public good that it forces us to reconsider the context of both
legal and moral righteousness.

~~~
greyboy
That's all well and good, and I understand the point, but it does't appear to
apply to PadMapper.

Personally, while I'm not a big fan of Craiglist's UI, it's stretching it to
think that PadMapper would be classified as "such enormous public good" simply
because a small subset of total Craigslist (and Internet) users (most likely
in a small subset of American cities) are fond of it.

------
bugsbunnyak
Padmapper ought to do a better job of leveraging this publicity. Apartment
season is in full swing in college towns across the country and they need to
push really hard to get the word out about Padlister: in particular, the fact
that it will cross-post to Craigslist automatically (so you don't lose any
viewers). This doesn't matter for realtors - they already have systems to
autospam Craiglist. But it does matter to self-listers. They could get good
traction targeting roommate listers and seekers as a way to build organic
listings and eyeballs. Create a viral campaign. I would share it, and I know
plenty of other people who would because Padmapper has made such a difference.

------
aggronn
[http://www.quora.com/Why-hasnt-anyone-built-any-products-
on-...](http://www.quora.com/Why-hasnt-anyone-built-any-products-on-top-of-
Craigslist-data)

In particular, read the comments by Craig himself. Funny how these things
change.

~~~
IanDrake
Snip from Craig - "Actually, we take issue with only services which consume a
lot of bandwidth, it's that simple."

I guess that wasn't true.

------
webwright
What's it like to work as Craigslist and read this stuff? How could you be
excited to come to work every day knowing that network effects have carved a
deep moat around a site that people describe as "an exercise in torture"?

~~~
danielweber
"Yay I have job security" most likely.

------
beatpanda
This is _absolute bullshit_. Craigslist is located in San Francisco, and they
should be _intimately aware_ of how fucking difficult it is to find an
apartment in this city with Craigslist's garbage interface.

Are there any Craigslist employees reading this? Would any of _you_ like a
full time job sorting through the cesspool that is your apartment listings
page? Oh, you wouldn't? I don't blame you, because that's _my_ job right now,
and PadMapper is the only thing helping me preserve what's left of my sanity.

Do a better job than them or shut the fuck up. Stop hurting people by trying
to shut PadMapper down.

------
runako
A key part of building a business around stealing IP is getting acquired by a
big firm that can fight legal battles. YouTube executed well on this plan; I'm
curious how Padmapper planned for this obvious development.

~~~
cwp
Padmapper doesn't steal IP.

~~~
chimi
It's pretty clear that Padmapper is making use of the craigslist posts without
the rights to do so, which is defined by Merriam-Webster as "stealing".

    
    
      STEALING
      transitive verb
      1a : to take or appropriate without right or leave 
      and with intent to keep or make use of wrongfully
    

<http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/stealing>

If you're going to downvote me, that's fine, but if you do, please show how
copyright infringement does not fit within the definition of stealing. I'd
like to settle this semantic debate once and for all.

~~~
potatolicious
There ought to be a rule that when someone reaches for the dictionary in a
debate they've already lost. I keep seeing this on HN - a dictionary is
probably the _worst_ place go find out about what a word really means.

~~~
danielweber
Maybe, if we get a rule that people aren't allowed to say _no, they didn't_
_steal_ _your work, because you still have it_.

~~~
potatolicious
It's all framing, I'd be happy if we stopped arguing over the word "steal" all
the damned time instead of addressing the finer points of copyright and its
role in our society.

The people who will whip out dictionaries over "steal" are crudely trying to
inject an emotional response into the debate and trying to override rational
discourse with rhetoric.

The people who are constantly whipping out "you still have it" are naively
pretending that, just because it doesn't fit within _all_ the criteria of
physical theft, it also means that the _other_ moral concerns associated with
it are equally moot.

tl;dr: Both sides of the "stealing!" debate are being incredibly disingenuous.

------
robomartin
Here are a couple of legal questions (not taking sides, just honest
questions):

Does the data belong to Craigslist or to those posting on Craigslist?

If so, is this in their TOS? I don't remember ever clicking a checkbox that
says "we own your listing" whenever I have sold stuff on Craigslist or posted
jobs/gigs. Maybe real estate is different.

Why would I want to give Craigslist ownership of my listing? If I were posting
a property for rent I would probably want other services to pick-up the
listing.

Similarly, why do they own the Copyright on something I have written?

Again, I don't remember ever giving that away either.

~~~
rm445
Last time this was discussed, people posted excerpts from Craigslist's terms,
in which the user grants Craigslist the right to (i) Use their post, (ii)
defend against others copying it.

So, I haven't verified it, but the idea seems to be the user owns their post,
and could post it elsewhere if they wanted - but Craigslist has the right to
stop other sites copying posts direct from Craigslist.

~~~
learc83
There was a recent case where the judge ruled that a company that didn't own a
copyright, but was assigned a license in order to sue infringers on the owners
behalf, didn't in fact have standing to sue.

------
picklefish
Why is craigslist going after people who bring them traffic? Is it because
they don't bring in much money themselves so they have to sell licenses? I've
never really thought about craigslists business model. I assume it's almost
entirely ad based / premium placement of your ad on their site based.

~~~
avolcano
From a Wired article, circa 2009 (so this may be out of date):

"Craigslist is not only gigantic in scale and totally resistant to business
cooperation, it is also mostly free. The only things that cost money to post
on the site are job ads in some cities ($25 to $75), apartment listings by
brokers in New York ($10), and—in a special case born of recent legal
trouble—advertisements in categories commonly used by prostitutes, because
authorities encourage vendors to maintain a record that would aid
investigators. There is no banner advertising. They won't let you join them,
and at this price you can't beat them either."

[http://www.wired.com/entertainment/theweb/magazine/17-09/ff_...](http://www.wired.com/entertainment/theweb/magazine/17-09/ff_craigslist)

Usually, when companies get mad about scraping, it's because it's either
bypassing the ads that make them money, or in rare cases bypassing a premium
API. Here, PadMapper is doing neither.

In fact, if Craiglist is so committed to not updating their ugly website, why
don't they just license out a public API, killing two birds (new monetization
strategy and having a better interface for free) with one stone?

~~~
diminoten
I'm guessing that PadMapper said no to paying for API access, for some reason.

Though to be honest that makes no sense, because that's exactly what they're
getting from the third party site, and they're paying for that...

~~~
mikegirouard
AFAIK, there is only a license available for mobile apps. Not websites.

------
205guy
I'm rather tired of all the sanctimonious, edgier-than-thou commenters and
bloggers who keep saying CL has a "shitty UI." And that't not just because I
like it (it's clean, simple, and easy to use). I totally agree that it could
be improved, and maps do make it easier, but the CL interface never breaks or
gets in the way the way an actual shitty UI does.

Also, I think a lot of complainers are not aware of what it takes to roll out
UI design changes to hundreds of millions of users. Frankly, I'm not very
knowlegeable myself, but I can stop and think about it for a second and
imagine there are huge logistical issues (performance, browsers, etc.) and
huge psychological issues (non-technical users, familiarity, etc.)

And then there's the whole question of whether CL's UI should be improved.
There are clear benefits to having a simple UI that does not do everything for
the user. When I used it to find housing near SF, I copy-pasted addresses to
map them, and I did a little extra work, but I never found that CL was
actually in my way. For neighborhoods and recommendations, I asked real
people. When I looked for a car, I made a little spreadsheet to give weighted
scores to the features I wanted--I did not go around whining that CL didn't do
everything for me.

My impression is that CL wants to be a basic classified service. For whatever
reason they don't want to morph into a specialized listing service, and I can
understand and respect that. After all, the CL interface is not that much
different from HN's.

PS: I've had this item open in my browser for maybe an hour or two--why does
the Add Comment button turn into a "dead link" OMG such a shitty UI, if they
won't fix it, I am justified in rehosting all the content on a better site.

~~~
jacoblyles
The millions of people who use padmapper every month seem to think it is a
preferable experience to going on Craigslist, trying to figure out if Mountain
View is a "Peninsula" or "South Bay" city, and then discovering the wonderful
diversity of places that humans will call "Mountain View" one listing at a
time.

------
oacgnol
There's no doubting the legality of Padmapper scraping Craigslist data, so I
think now would be a good time for him to innovate and really push his other
product, PadLister. If Eric were to write another blog post, I'd make
PadLister the focus of it and start building a new community there.

------
bherms
I know Calacanis is a polarizing figure in the community, but I've always
agreed with him that you shouldn't piggyback your company's success on top of
a single service.

edit: especially one that doesn't allow you to use their data in the first
place.

------
rezaman
I wonder why craigslist hasn't shut down <http://housingmaps.com> yet. They
appear to be doing the exact same thing as padmapper and mapskrieg, albeit
with a much smaller feature set.

------
blissofbeing
I feel like there is a win win solution for everyone here.

How about Padmapper develop a plugin for chrome/firefox that once you go to a
craigslist appartment list page, it does what it does now: loops through them
all and displays them on a google map. Padmapper could even develop on API on
their end which handled all the hard work of actually finding the correct
address of the posts and sends it back to the plugin in a nice format and all
it has to do is plot in on a map that the plugin places on the craigslist
page.

This sounds legal to me, as Padmapper isn't actually storing anything, and it
puts a UI on top of the apartment search page.

~~~
danielweber
That sounds similar to RECAP, which is a free interface to the for-money PACER
database of legal filings.

RECAP is on a better legal footing because the filings are public domain
instead of owned by someone.

------
binaryorganic
How does this differ from Readability or Instapaper stripping advertisements
away and serving users pure content in their respective interfaces? I'm not
sure what they're doing is illegal.

~~~
bcbrown
Readability is just client-side code. Think of it as just a different
implementation of a browser that ignores some markup and renders some markup
in a non-standard way.

------
enduser987
Ha. They need to sue Google and other search engines that provide caches. Good
luck with that.

Second, it's not infromation that's protectable by copyright (at least not in
the US). It's like the telephone book as others have said.

There's heaps of websites that mistakenly believe they have some copyrights to
assert against users that harvest data. But it's not just websites. A
longstanding, classic example of this sort of silly argument is WHOIS. The
registries can't stand the thought of others getting the data. They claim
bandwidth is an issue. Yet they won't provide (mirrored) bulk data, which
would easily resolve any such bandwidth claims. They purport to "license" the
right to do things with the data, yet they have no rights to grant to begin
with. It is public data.

Then there's the "spam issue". As if email is somehow different from direct
mail, and from telemarketing. Why don't we outlaw those practices?

Anyhow, again, it's public data: addresses and phone numbers. We call it the
telephone book. If, e.g., a brokerage wants to have its summer interns do cold
calling to solicit new institutional investors, the interns do not need a
"license to use the telephone book". If someone listed in the phone directory
does not want to be called, there's no law that says they have to be listed;
they can use a nonlisted phone number.

People who list with CL presumably want their information to be found and to
be presented in an appealing way. Maybe not exclusively on CL. Maybe CL should
ask them what they would prefer.

------
blorenz
I hope that PadMapper does not back down. Craigslist is making their data
publicly displayed. Consumers consume it - be it people or machines. It will
be interesting how this plays out. Screen scraping is analogous to the analog
loophole: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analog_loophole>.

------
allardschip
Why did Craigslist decided to sue padmapper but let housingmaps.com live for
many years is puzzling to me. Anyone has an idea why?

------
mnicole
I think Padmapper in particular is in a unique position where while they
started with CL listings, it's proven itself an invaluable enough service to
enough of us to the point where I'd use it exclusively to list my apartment
over Craigslist. I'd even pay month-to-month for exclusive or time-sensitive
listings given the way I use it.

Whether or not Padmapper is in the right here, CL's long-standing stance in
not evolving their UI or creating a decent API is going to bite them in the
ass. Helping people sort your content is now more important for them than the
idea that change is bad or time-consuming. As many people have said in the
past, it wouldn't take much to really bring CL up-to-speed, but if they don't
want to do it themselves, they should at least make it an option for others to
pay a fee to use the data.

Edit: Didn't realize <http://www.padlister.com/> already existed. Score.

------
RandallBrown
Why doesn't Craigslist want PadMapper using their information? (I know that's
irrelevant to the lawsuit)

The more people that use PadMapper and find CraigsList entries on there, the
more people that are using CraigsList.

Why wouldn't they want that? If I were a real estate listing company, I'd want
my data to be found on as many real estate search apps as possible.

~~~
slig
One reason is that once they're big enough, they can just flip the bird at
craigslist and use their own data.

------
awkward
I think a lot of the work to put a quality UI on craigslist ignores something
very important about user psychology - seeing your data that you willingly
gave to one organization publicly available in the hands of another one is
generally perceived as creepy. Apartment listings may be less sensitive than
other kinds of data, but they're still personal, and some users may not want
their listing showing up in different venues even if others will take whatever
publicity they get.

Most programmers and designers have made peace with the idea that what's
public on the internet is public for the whole internet, but I think most
people perceive this kind of information leakage as a lack of control. I think
that Craigslist, more than most companies, has a real understanding of this,
and a lot of their restrictions that may seem arbitrary to entrepreneurs come
out of it.

------
callmeed
Google indexes craigslist (obviously)

[https://www.google.com/search?btnG=1&pws=0&q=iphone+...](https://www.google.com/search?btnG=1&pws=0&q=iphone+site%3Asfbay.craigslist.org)

They even have cached thumbnails and you can likely use their custom search
API to get results, snippets, etc.

Is what 3taps does _that_ different?

------
jonny_eh
"unlawfully and unabashedly mass-harvesting and redistributing postings
entrusted by craigslist users to their local craigslist sites"

Boo on Craigslist! They claim that they're protecting their users, but what
harm is padmapper causing to people listing properties on Craigslist? Getting
them more potential renters?

------
declan
Craigslist has the better of the arguments; both Padmapper and 3taps are
violating (and probably bound by) the terms of use agreement:
[https://plus.google.com/112961607570158342254/posts/HcCuHVG7...](https://plus.google.com/112961607570158342254/posts/HcCuHVG7rLM)

------
dredmorbius
My view on this is much as it was before:

\- The Craigslist apartments listing interface really, really sucks.

\- Padmapper's search interface is much, much better.

\- CL almost certainly have legal recourse to control use of their data and
trademarks, or at least make things miserable for PadMapper should they choose
to do so. Which would put a crimp on PM's future growth prospects as a lawsuit
magnet.

\- CL undoubtedly add value to their listings by filtering (through community
input) for misclassified and spam listings.

\- I really wish the two organizations could reach an equitable compromise
which preserves the PM interface concept. Licensed use. Buyout. Whatever.

\- Barring that, CL are ripe for disruption. My read is that PM have enough
mojo at this point to make it on their own by licensing listings from other
sources and soliciting them on their own.

------
MnkyPwz
In my mind this article, and moreover the lawsuit itself, may be a glimpse
into what might be a revolutionary revamp of Craigslist and it's community.

Its no secret that the CL community have frequently requested an update to the
UI as well as many additional features to be added in order to make using the
site much more friendly; although with no changes being implemented at this
point. I look at this litigation as a foreshadowing of what may be in store
for the CL community.

With that said, shutting off access of those parties utilizing their services
without proper consent may be the first in a strategic battle plan for the CL
team in order to ensure they have the most optimal acceptance of their revamp.

Anyone else see it this way, or am I indulging wishful thinking?

------
learc83
If you look at the case of Righthaven (copyright troll), a federal judge ruled
that even though the copyright owner granted them a license to sue infringers
to stop copying, Righthaven didn't have standing to sue because they didn't
actually own the copyright.

------
slowpoison
I'm getting sick of the general attitude here. A majority of people seem to
think that it's OK to copy user posting data from CL, because they are a
monopoly. IE is cited as an example of a monopoly, thus anything is OK to take
it down.

That attitude is horribly wrong. Agreed, CL is a monopoly. Agreed, they are
holding back innovation. But, you don't disrupt a business (and build yours)
by copying their data, especially illegally. Although, the legality of issue
at hand is up in the air right now, the general attitude is a bit appalling.

What's required is a way for users to post their listings simultaneously at
other properties. The content of the postings belongs to the user and they
should be free to re-post it anywhere.

------
zspade
Has there ever been any consideration at some kind of partnership? I know
there may be some bad blood at this point, but I don't see how it wouldn't
benefit both Padmapper and Craigslist to potentially work together to create
an alternate Craigslist(using the same data). The contracts would have to be
thorough about profit sharing, but it seems at least possible.

If people had a secondary Craigslist portal they could use to access the same
data, while avoiding the shitty interface, more and more might migrate over to
the new 'design'. The current Craislist design has been dated for some time,
and I just can't see a startup or even a big player not moving into their
space with a better design and interface.

~~~
iamwil
Eric from Padmapper has tried to get an audience with them, but both Craig and
Jim wouldn't take a meeting. They sent a license, but that was only for mobile
apps. Most people use padmapper though the website.

------
user49598
A few of humble opinions:

Padmapper is probably getting enough publicity out of this to get over the
critical mass problem and will be able to rely on their own listings.

Craigslist content is user generated, and the copyrights remain property of
the users. While facts aren't copyrightable anything that padmapper displays
that isn't just a fact, photos or a realtor's description for example, is a
copyright violation.

This is why sites like stack overflow are awesome, because they licence
"their" content, aka your work cc-wiki and claim no ownership.

The bummer here is not that craigslist is suing over unauthorized data access,
it's that your work is too restrictively licenced on their site to be of
maximum benefit to you.

------
joshAg
this reminds me a lot of Feist V Rural [1]; I just hope it turns out the same
way.

[1]: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feist_v._Rural>

------
Killswitch
I'm very interested in the outcome of this as I am building a service similar
to Padmapper in the sense that it uses data from other sources to make a
better user experience for people, and I'd love to include Craigslist (Would
be a big supplier of data for my users), but I don't want to deal with these
types of things so I have been leaving it out.

~~~
jcurbo
I think the key thing here is that you have to talk to your data sources. You
have to use their data source the way they want you to, or come to some sort
of agreement (licensing or somesuch), else you are moving into the same legal
territory Padmapper was in and risk getting sued.

------
delackner
The USER intent is to have their listing seen by as many people as possible.
If the courts decide that the listing site can block access to such public
listings they have been entrusted with, I don't know how the law needs to
change, but the current legal situation is bad for the general public, bad for
commerce, and bad for progress.

------
rabidsnail
At least they're not claiming a violation of the CFAA (which I think would
actually be a more straightforward argument).

~~~
debacle
Care you explain? I don't know what the CFAA is.

~~~
rabidsnail
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Fraud_and_Abuse_Act>

The relevant part of the act would be: "Intentionally accessing a computer
without authorization to obtain ... information from any protected computer".
A "protected computer" is a computer "which is used in or affecting interstate
or foreign commerce or communication", which fits Craisglist pretty well.

Violation of the clause I quoted is a criminal offense with potential jail
time.

~~~
sureshv
That clause could be construed in any number of ways. Anyone accessing a web
page could be liable if they have not 'obtained authorization' from the site
owner.

------
drumdance
Compare & contrast the CL lawyers' behavior with the Jack Daniels trademark
lawyers a few days ago.

------
AndyKelley
Craigslist makes its data publicly available. How can it be illegal to access
that data? It may be against Craigslist's Terms of Service, but that means
it's up to Craigslist to figure out how to prevent scraping. It does not mean
the law needs to be involved.

------
badclient
This is the beginning of the end for CL. You can just sense by actions such as
this what their survival strategy is. While legally they may win this battle,
in the long run, I think CL is headed to deadpool in the next 5 years.

------
dave1619
Does anybody know if Craigslist is cracking down on all the Craigslist iPhone
apps?

~~~
runako
I'm guessing they're not cracking down on the ones that opted to contractually
license the CL data.

------
pirateking
I love Craigslist, and have used it for years successfully. It is the type of
tool I love using the web for - simple, functional, and document based.

All of this anti-Craigslist sentiment makes me sad.

------
drumdance
Reminds me of Craig Newmark's lawsuit against the networks a few years back.
In that case he wanted to assert the right to use DVRs to skip commercials.

------
cwp
Well, I can't say this was a surprise, but it is disappointing. I hope
Padmapper has the wherewithal to fight the suit. Bon courage, Eric.

------
antidaily
Craig is paranoid about changing the UI of craigslist. So while I don't feel
they're unjust in suing, he is indeed stifling innovation.

~~~
ben0x539
Why wouldn't he offer an alternative UI for craigslist while leaving the
original running?

------
paulschreiber
If Craigslist spent as much on UI or API designers as they did on lawyers,
we'd all be better off.

------
Apreche
If what 3Taps is doing is illegal, then what Google is doing is illegal. It's
a search engine.

~~~
intended
If you send google a c and d, they will comply.

Pad mapper was sent a c&d and decided to not comply. Hence the case.

Edit: and as has been pointed out, google isn't competing with Craig's list.

Padmapper's gameplan is to disintermediate Craigslist away.

------
aneth4
If we are lucky, they will settle for PadMapper's assets - and use them.

------
njharman
> Users and developers are exasperated with Craigslist’s insistence on
> preserving an outdated interface and design.

Well then go use / collect your own apt listings, lobby congress to pass
compulsory use licensing for all entities that collect data, or STFU.

------
bicknergseng
How Craigslist can evolve:

Become a for-pay API.

Thoughts?

~~~
davidcollantes
It is up to Craigslist, and Craigslist only. I prefer not to speculate.

They already offer an API for mobile.

------
dotborg
Craiglist doesn't display ads

~~~
dredmorbius
Craigslist _is_ ads.

------
moron
The suit is understandable, but I wish craigslist would get over themselves
already and allow users to look at listings on a map. That's all anyone really
wants here, and this is getting a bit ridiculous.

