> effectively posters can ignore this legalese

Operationally, probably true. However, ethically this is no different than the people who said PadMapper should just use "Craigslist's" data regardless of what Craigslist thought about the situation. To be consistent, either you believe:

1) It's ok for PadMapper to re-list Craigslist's data without Craigslist's consent.

OR

2) If you post a housing listing to Craigslist, you cannot post it anywhere else.

If CraigsList ever went after a poster who also posted their classified on another site, that would probably be the day they begin to unravel.

You don't want to instill fear into posters (IE, their product) that they could get sued by posting even a similar ad on a competing site. Then you enter the territory "I only have access to people who check craigslist" instead of an array of additional, complementary options. That doesn't sound very attractive.

Right, I don't think they would ever sue their own users. But the point is that you don't get to simply ignore parts of an agreement that you don't agree with, because "that's not what they meant". So the people who were saying that PadMapper has no right to use Craigslist's data should be careful not to submit to multiple listing services if they ever put a house up for rent on Craigslist, if they care at all about consistent application of their principles.

I don't conflate the two at all.

Padmapper scraping data put up on CraigsList and adding it to their own listings is very very different than me putting my own listing on multiple sites.

I don't see this as a "application of principles" issue. The principle I'm consistently applying is "I have the right to tell whomever I want about something I want to sell." And Craigslist is applying the consistent principle that the listing I provided belongs to them. If you ask me, putting my listing somewhere else makes it a different listing, because it didn't originate at craigslist (Like stolen listings on PadMapper), but instead, originated through me.

To apply my principle consistently, I wouldn't post a link to my Craigslist posting on another site, but I am perfectly entitled to re-post its content where-ever I please.

The new agreement says that by posting on Craigslist, you give them an exclusive license to the content. You can't give them an exclusive license and then turn around and give the content to someone else.

They may not sue posters, but what if they sue the sites to where the poster voluntarily submitted copies of his post?

Clearly that's what they want to do or at least have the ability to threaten suit with this in their TOS.

And then those sites will tell CL to sue the users who entered it into their site.

Is it that simple? If the license that those sites have is invalid - and it would be - then they're committing copyright infringement, and CL has an explicit license to go after those.

The copyright is still with the post author; Craigslist is not asking for it to be transferred. The author still has the ability to license the content to the other sites. In doing so, they breach the agreement with Craigslist saying their license was exclusive. So it's simple breach of contract between the listing author and CL; the other site has done no wrong and is not a party to the breach.

IOW: This text gives Craigslist some ammo to go after a site they can prove got the listing from copying Craigslist, but not sites the listing author also posted to.

Probably not the best advice from a legal or ethical standpoint.

To be fair, consumer organisations here in Holland once took 25 EULA's to a judge.

Less than 1% of what was stated would ever be held up in a dutch court. Things like the concept that a company can just define their liabilty themselves. Or how they have the right to share personal data with 3rd parties. The laws can not overwritten with contracts, esspecially ones without signatures.

In essence, and this was quite funny to realize. There is no EULA that would reduce liability, or increase rights of the seller. An EULA can really only be used against the company.

Im not sure about the situation in the US. But the same should be true to some extend. EULA are fake legal documents lawyers sell as if they have any value.

Its a complete scam.

> Im not sure about the situation in the US. But the same > should be true to some extend.

My understanding is that it's not true to much of any extent in the US. The contract will generally win. It'll depend on the jurisdiction and the case, but it's certainly not the case that all EULAs are per se invalid. Nor is it the case that "the laws cannot be overwritten with contracts." Overwriting the legal default rules is what contracts do.

Only if those legal "default" rules, are specified as "default"

A good example is rape. It does not make sex illegal, it just makes consent a requirement. There is no analogue for murder, so event consent would not allow murder.

Thats the extend of such liscences: they can ask consent for things that require consent. But most of them are filled with stuff that either does not require consent, or where consent is irrelevent.

But when i hear about the type of frivolent lawsuits, i do believe at least liability is defined very differently. Here companies are not liable for misuse by idiots. If an average person understands you can not microwave your cat, then there is no liability when an idiot does that. On the other hand, companies can not distance themselves from being liable for harm due to defects.

Either case, legal terms are not very relevant either way. Because they do not constitute a proper effort of informing. That last part is very relevant. Implicit terms can not define the context, only try to formalize it.

This is not an EULA.

You are right. Although it comes down to the same thing. They are all just synonyms for contracts. ( a liscene is just a type of contract )

And this could very well be a good example of the 1% that would actually be uphold.

If they had your signature, that is. Getting exclusive content liscence without explicit permission? They cant even prove it was you that submitted the content in the first place.

Imagine a store having a sign that they own your bag, whenever you enter. Come on, this will not hold up in court.

Compare certain opensoure companies that require contributions to assign copyright to them. They all demand a real piece of paper, with a real signature.

When a user posts, they are representing that the content is theirs. If the real owner of the content posts somewhere else, that CL would have a claim against the fraudulent poster, not the actual creator. Either way, these contracts do hold up in court.