In a ruling handed down Monday in San Francisco, US District Judge Charles Breyer refused the request of PadMapper, 3 Taps and other defendants to throw out a laundry list of claims by Craigslist, which is accusing the defendants of hacking, copyright infringement and more.

In the view of Craigslist, the newer companies are plundering data which it has collected and compiled at great effort. The defendants, meanwhile, say Craigslist is monopolizing data that belongs to users while offering an ugly, out-dated service. The lawsuit broke out last summer.

In a key part of Tuesday’s highly-technical decision, the judge examined whether Craigslist’s terms of service meant that users had given the site permission to use their ads as the basis for copyright lawsuits. The judge said Craigslist didn’t obtain such permission, except for a short period in the summer of 2012 when the site changed its terms of service — before backing down in the face of a popular backlash.

What this means is that Craigslist can rely on users’ ads to go forward with its copyright lawsuit, but only those ads written between July 16 and August 8, 2012. The judge also said said that Craigslist may have its own copyright over the way it has compiled the ads, though it will still have to prove that this compilation is an “original” artistic work.

The hacking portion of the decision, which is based on the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and a similar law in California, is also nuanced. The judge wrote that the companies’ attempts to access Craigslist data after receiving cease-and-desist letters might be “unauthorized access” under the laws, but implicitly suggested that the laws are out of date.

The judge also gave Craigslist a minor victory by agreeing to shelve counter-claims from Padmapper and 3Taps over the monopoly issue. The defendants won their own minor victory when the judge threw out Craigslist’s conspiracy claims.

So what does all this mean? Monday’s decision is very preliminary and was about what can stay in the case — the real action will start at the summary judgment stage, likely later this year, where each side can try to win on a matter of law.

In the bigger picture, the case is important because it is helping to set the rules over the degree to which companies can treat data controlled by other firms as a public good.

This is just a short summary of a complex decision. If you want to get further into the weeds, here is a marked-up copy of the ruling itself:

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In a claim filed Monday in San Francisco federal court, 3Taps accuses Craigslist of operating as an “unchallenged monopolist” to pull in $100 million to $300 million per year. 3Taps asks the court to declare that Craigslist is violating Section 2 of the Sherman Act, a law that forbids companies from abusing dominant market power.

In particular, 3Taps claims that Craigslist is perpetuating a monopoly through four types of acts: sending sham cease and desist letters against potential competitors; making overly broad copyright claims; imposing improper license terms on users; and “ghosting” (making posts with links to competitors invisibile to other users.

The monopoly allegations are the latest turn in a legal dust-up that began this summer when Craigslist filed a copyright complaint against 3Taps and popular apartment hunting site, PadMapper.

• See also:  Craigslist sues apartment search site PadMapper over listings

The debate turns on who owns the classified ads on Craigslist at a time when up-and-coming companies are creating tools that can show the information in new, visually attractive formats. PadMapper, for instance, lets house hunters see listings superimposed on maps of a neighborhood. Meanwhile, some critics complain that Craigslist’s design and interface is stagnant and stuck in the 1990s.

For its part, Craigslist has suggested that these companies are free-riding on infrastructure that it developed.

The new court filing by 3Taps (embedded below) is fairly dramatic for this type of document and appears geared to further a media strategy aimed at swinging public opinion against Craigslist. But the company’s CEO Greg Kidd also appears to be playing for the win in court by hiring the white shoe law firm Skadden Arps. Here are some selected portions from the complaint (highlights are mine) :

Just as Google, Bing, Ask, or any other general search engine facilitate efficient searches, 3taps enables user-authored ads on craigslist (or any similar public advertising sites) to be efficiently searched. 3taps’ technology provides a previously unrealized public benefit, by enhancing the accessibility of the classified ads of potential sellers by potential buyers.  [...]

Court records show that PadMapper received an extension of time to file a defense to Craigslist’s copyright claim against it. For more background on the case, see Craigslist, 3taps & the court battle for the soul of public data by ReadWriteWeb.

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As reported by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Craigslist is no longer requiring users to give it permission to bring lawsuits against other sites that reproduce users’ ads.

The once-popular Craigslist has come under withering criticism by Silicon Valley in recent weeks for its decision to sue apartment site PadMapper and to threaten other sites that are using its listings. The critics complain that upstart sites like PadMapper offer useful new services and user-friendly designs while Craigslist’s own design is out-dated and unwieldy.

Craigslist’s decision to give up its exclusive license demands may be a tactical move rather than a change of heart. As we’ve explained before, its exclusive license claims appeared to be unenforceable in the first place.

Meanwhile, Craigslist has given no indication that it will stop its campaign against rivals or backtrack on its decision to remove its listings from search engines. At the same time, the “moderation” section of its terms of service are now jammed with terms that appear aimed at other sites:

CL has the right .. to regulate content … including but not limited to automated and manual screening, blocking, filtering, exclusion from index pages, exclusion from search results, requiring the use of an application programming interface (API), requiring the use of a bulk posting interface, authorization, verification, and the deletion and/or termination of content, accounts and/or all or any use or access)

(Image by Andy Dean photography via Shutterstock)

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Last month, it sued popular site PadMapper for using information from Craigslist to plot apartments on a map. Weeks later, Craigslist changed its terms of service to say that users gave it the right to use their ads for copyright lawsuits (See: Craigslist’s Big Bluff).

As noted by The Verge, the company has now followed up these acts of churlishness by telling search engines like Google and Bing to stop indexing Craigslist results. This effectively turns the taps off the data taps for sites like PadMapper and, at the same time, makes Craigslist’s own listings harder to find.

It’s hard to see who wins in this scenario. Internet users will be deprived of user-friendly sites as Craigslist tries to draw them back into its tortuous 1990′s time warp. And while Craigslist might reclaim some traffic in the short term, it’s likely to alienate users and developers who are increasingly regarding it as an unattractive bully.

(Image by Lentolo via Shutterstock)

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