PadMapper Gets C&D From Craigslist Over Apartment Listing Maps 140
First time accepted submitter Autumnmist writes "Craigslist has
sent a Cease and Desist to PadMapper, a site that does a mashup of Craigslist (as well as Rent.com, Apartments.com) apartment listings and Google Maps. Craigslist is great, but apartment hunting through Craigslist has always been a needle in a haystack proposition, because all apartments for an entire city area are shown in a giant list. PadMapper made Craigslist better by locating each listing on a Google Map of the area.
From PadMapper: 'I recently received a Cease and Desist letter from Craigslist, and wasn't able to get a meeting or convince Craigslist's lawyer that PadMapper was beneficial to Craigslist and apartment hunters in general. They allow mobile apps to display their listings if you buy a license from them, but not websites."
Market Share Abuse, Nothing New (Score:2, Interesting)
The more people using Craigslist the worse craigslist will abuse it's market share.
No doubt if Craigslist was some how paid before hand, they wouldn't care to send their sharks.
Best advice, people should convince their friends to stop using Craigslist and start using something else.
Re:Why only PadMapper? (Score:4, Interesting)
"Of course they do, the data on craigslist in © craigslist, they can tell you anything about what you do with it."
No, you are quite wrong.
As recently re-affirmed by the Federal Supreme Court, what is considered "tabular data" is not copyrightable.
There was a case a few years ago, in which a small-town telephone directory company saw a big-name telephone directory company come to town and take over their business.
Due to economies of scale, the smaller company could not compete on a cost basis. So what they did, was just use information from the bigger company in their own listings. The bigger company sued.
Although this was already an established legal principle, it went all the way to the Supreme Court. And the Supreme Court re-affirmed: if it's FACTUAL DATA -- such as names, addresses, phone numberes, real-estate listings, etc. -- it is not covered by copyright and can be used and reproduced by anybody.
The lesson to be learned here is that you don't want to spend a fortune tabulating data, unless your business model takes into account that if you publish it, others will use it too.