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Comment by cwp | Hacker News Reader

Padmapper doesn't steal IP.

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.

Are you referring to stealing in terms of ethics, or theft in terms of the legal system? Ethics are subjective, so I don't really want to go down that road. In terms of US law, however, the Supreme Court case Dowling v. United States found that "interference with copyright does not easily equate with theft, conversion, or fraud." (src: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_infringement#Theft )

Padmapper doesn't infringe copyrights either.

edit: Ok, I won't be so cryptic. Padmapper doesn't copy the posts on Craigslist, they link to them. That's not a semantic quibble. All search engines do so. If I blogged that I was renting my apartment and linked to the Craigslist post describing it, I would be doing exactly what Padmapper is doing.

I think there is a significant difference between copying data, and just giving pointers to CL's data.

However,

If I blogged that I was renting my apartment and linked to the Craigslist post describing it, I would be doing exactly what Padmapper is doing.

This doesn't line up in a few ways. Padmapper is a third-party, not the original poster. There is also a distinction between doing it as a one-off and doing it in an automated fashion.

Padmapper needs to make it trivial for people to "upload" their listings from CL to PM. It could be a single bookmarklet.

Now, suppose that Alice tells Padmapper about Bob's apartment for rent on CL. That's getting even weirder, but PM might be okay if they follow DMCA safe harbour procedures.

If linking without permission is problematic, Hacker News is in real trouble. So is just about every blog and news site on the web.

Right. I've already agreed that there is a significant difference between displaying copies of CL listings and just having pointers to them.

It doesn't seem, however, that the link is the crux of CL's complaint. Rather it's the fact that PM has copied CL's data in order to generate a mapping of physical locations to CL listings.

You can't copyright data, only its expression. That a certain apartment is available for rent is a fact. The text that appears on the CL website is one expression of that fact. The map that appears on Padmapper is another expression of the same fact.

Does craigslist actually own the copyrights to user generate text and images?

Of course. From their TOS: "You automatically grant and assign to CL, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant and assign to CL, a perpetual, irrevocable, unlimited, fully paid, fully sub-licensable (through multiple tiers), worldwide license to copy, perform, display, distribute, prepare derivative works from (including, without limitation, incorporating into other works) and otherwise use any content that you post."

Having a broad license is not the same as owning the copyright (especially a non-exclusive license).

That just means that the users of Craiglist grant them an unlimited license. The users still own the copyright, though.

Where does Padmapper's license to the listing data originate? When do the posters of listings grant Padmapper a license of any kind?

You don't need a license to link to something.

The listing data that is presented and rendered on Padmapper's site isn't linked (e.g. the price & # of bedrooms). That is, I don't have to click a link to go to the original site to view the content.

Padmapper does link to images, but Padmapper would be useless if it didn't also re-publish the content jacked from Craigslist.

I'm not a lawyer. Perhaps you are, and you are certain that the facts of the complaint will be grounds for summary dismissal. My limited legal knowledge leads me to believe this will not happen, which would mean that Padmapper is going to bleed money, time, and energy until the case is resolved.

That was my main point; it's fairly useless for non-attorneys to argue legal cases on HN (my apologies if you're a lawyer and I'm just wasting your time).

No, you're right. I'm not a lawyer either, and Padmapper is definitely in a tough position. I'm mostly arguing against the characterization of Padmapper as "stealing content." Most people here seem to think that Padmapper is in the wrong and it's only a question of whether they can get away with it.

AFAICT, Padmapper is doing something very much in line with what journalists and search engines have traditionally done. That point of view may not prevail in court, but I think it's completely defensible on ethical grounds.

"Find which dictionary phrases it the way I like" is a pretty silly game, especially when they're so vague about the definitions they use anyway.

Because it's copyright infringement, that's what it is, no one disagrees on that. Using "steal" tries to load copyright violations with a specific meaning, and that is not agreed on. It frames the debate, and people take issue with that as it creates a more emotional and less objective discussion.

Also: http://lesswrong.com/lw/nz/arguing_by_definition/

Nope, not copyright infringement either.

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.

I hear people say "They stole my idea!" or if they hear a familiar melody, "They stole that from The Doors!"

So the dictionary agrees with the common use of steal in the realm of intellectual property. It's really the proponents of copyright violation who have redefined stealing to exclude copyrighted digital media.

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.

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.

s/stealing IP/behaving in a manner that may be or may not be stealing IP but probably looks enough like stealing IP to a judge to pass legal muster and require an expensive legal defense/g

The point is that simply defending against the lawsuit could kill Padmapper. Lots of time, money, and energy go into lawsuits. Conveniently, those are three things startups don't typically have in excess. The outcome doesn't matter for Padmapper if Padmapper dies during the defense.

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