This isn't boilerplate legalese.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
EDIT: Okay, let me be less flippant. I ask about you being a lawyer because we don't know how Craigslist will enforce this policy. Everyone is assuming the worst -- CL will not let you post anywhere else! -- when, in practice, such a policy is probably not enforceable in court.
You have a well-reasoned comment, sure, but someone can't really speak to the enforceability of this without practicing law.
This is clearly directed to services like Padmapper - which, by the way, I strongly support and wish Craigslist would leave TF alone.
Of course you can just slap the same lawyer silliness on your form and claim that you have also been given exclusive licence by your users and counter sue craigslist. I'm not sure if court is required to resolve the matter if you both have identical claims. Not sure if who got their "exclusive" licence first matters anything in such case.
No one is forcing anyone to use Craigslist. You are free not to post and free to not agree to those terms. Why should a publisher (which is what CL is) grant non exclusive rights? It's a business. If you don't like the terms, you aren't forced to sign the contract. You can always post a newspaper ad, or start your own site. Just because CL has the user base doesn't mean that they are preventing competitors from entering the market any more than Stephen King's publisher is stopping other writers from writing and publishing novels. Stephen King is well known and sells lots of books, but that's not a monopoly, it's a competitive advantage.
Should all companies be forced to give up their competitive advantage to make it easier for competition? Of course not. Competitors need to create their own advantage. It's like suggesting that FB has a monopoly on social simply because they have the most users. You can start your own. Facebook (and CL) aren't preventing users from visiting your site, nor are they preventing sellers from writing a different post for a different site. They're claiming rights to the specific ad posting. It's exactly like the publishing industry.
This anger seems to stem directly from Padmapper blatantly stealing CL data and acting as if it was perfectly fine. I'm no fan of CL, but they have the right to do whatever they want with their data, just as users have the right to not use CL. Don't like the terms, don't do business with them.
The Padmapper guys could take on CL and likely succeed I they had any clue about business development. Instead they spend their time trying to game CL instead of building their own business. If they started hyper locally and focused on a small area or neighborhood, they could easily dominate in that neighborhood with just the cost of some kinkos flyers (assuming they have a great product.) they need only contact landlords in their area, offer to post their ads for free and then flyer the neighborhood advertising 'Park Slope Apartments for Rent' or whatever neighborhood they choose. They'll start to build users. Then they add another neighborhood until eventually they reach critical mass in a specific city. CL took years to get where they were. It takes hard work and getting out from behind the computer screen from time to time. In the rental listings market, the code and UX is easy, the hard work is getting out there and building the business.
I din't get why CL has any obligation to help a competitor short circuit CL's 10+ years of hard work. Do some hard work yourself -- CL is beatable. Look at MySpace: millions of engaged users suffering through a horrid UX, yet they fell to some geographically marketed site called Facebook. You want to build a better CL -- learn from Zuck and Co how they beat MySpace. It's a hell of a lot more than just code.
I don't know the answer to this question, but I would be annoyed if the network were allowed to lock me in like this. Other networks should be annoyed too.
Should all companies be forced to give up their competitive advantage to make it easier for competition?
Depends on the competitive advantage. Fast code? Theirs. Marketing know-how? Theirs. Monopolistic or illegal practices? Can't keep. Sorry. I definitely disagree with the "companies can do whatever they want" crowd and side with the "you have a business here you play by our rules" crowd.
Still, CL isn't a public good. Don't like them, turn the channel.
I see your point but I don't think the difference between TV ads and classified ads is as big as you think it is. In both cases the ad content provider is paying the medium to display the ad. For a TV show, the provider is being paid, and therefore subject to the terms of sale (some shows do show on more than one network, for instance, but not until they are "old" episodes).
In the US there are even some TV stations that spend a major chunk of their time showing commercials ("infomercials"). In these cases content is not a differentiator.
There are also print-based classified-ad (magazines) (Auto-Trader, for example) that don't restrict re-using your ad.
Standard Oil only had 64% market share when it was broken up.
Edit (since I can't reply): We aren't expecting a FB breakup for the same reason we don't expect a CL breakup; the US Justice department has been taking a hands-off approach. Given their expertise and the possibility of doing damage, that might be the right approach, but that doesn't mean the monopolies don't exists and aren't doing damage. (Remember, I'm not arguing for a CL breakup, just for the fact that the monopoly exists and must be discussed.) Frankly, I would support a FB breakup, especially if it could lead to an open social-media protocol for federations.
There are plenty of CL competitors. It's just that nobody uses them.
I'll put it this way: do you really think CL has 80% market share because no one can build a better competitor? The site UI is crap.