This is a bit knee-jerk, no? I highly doubt you waive the right to repost your listing ANYWHERE; rather, this is legalese allowing them to sue anyone using their listings without consent.
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.