Yeah, I went back and forth on it quite a lot. That said, the law protects this sort of thing (facts can't be copyrighted, and that's all PadMapper is showing from CL), and it seems like a pretty large net loss for the world if this isn't continued. But I'm obviously biased.
Facts can't be copyrighted. But how is an advertisement a "fact"? Can I create a website of all the Coca-cola advertisements over the years, and call them facts?
Ads aren't facts. You're still intentionally copying the CL website without the right to do that. Good luck to you.
Edited: Not trying to start a "copyright isn't theft" debate.
No, but if you created a website that showed what prices stores were selling coke for, Coke couldn't do anything. The facts of an ad are not copyrightable.
If you went and did the work to get those prices (called or visited all of the stores in a city, for instance), then you'd be correct. But if you're scraping someone else's website in an automated fashion, and that's provably true, you're entering into the copyrightability of databases.
There's a material difference - collecting data yourself versus copying someone else's collection of data.
As another example, can I go to Amazon.com (without using their API), scrape all the product names and prices off their web site and map the dates and times they change? I would think not. Those too are facts, but you're basically just copying someone else's database.
Can I scrape stock data off of Yahoo finance without having to pay the license fee associated with getting historical stock data?
> As another example, can I go to Amazon.com (without using their API), scrape all the product names and prices off their web site and map the dates and times they change? I would think not. Those too are facts, but you're basically just copying someone else's database.
Sure. There are plenty of services that do this, it's quite handy. Here's the one I use: http://camelcamelcamel.com/
> Can I scrape stock data off of Yahoo finance without having to pay the license fee associated with getting historical stock data?
Sure. They even provide a CSV format to make it easier for you!
Craigslist's #1 asset is their gigantic amount of classifieds. There's really nothing else going for them.
Any service competing with Craigslist that uses those classifieds might not be stealing them, but its certainly in Craigslist's best interest to keep their most valuable asset safe.
A unique database of facts absolutely can be copyrighted. The Billboard charts and SoundScan are a great example, upheld in court. More here: http://www.bitlaw.com/copyright/database.html
