Here are a couple of legal questions (not taking sides, just honest questions):
Does the data belong to Craigslist or to those posting on Craigslist?
If so, is this in their TOS? I don't remember ever clicking a checkbox that says "we own your listing" whenever I have sold stuff on Craigslist or posted jobs/gigs. Maybe real estate is different.
Why would I want to give Craigslist ownership of my listing? If I were posting a property for rent I would probably want other services to pick-up the listing.
Similarly, why do they own the Copyright on something I have written?
Again, I don't remember ever giving that away either.
Last time this was discussed, people posted excerpts from Craigslist's terms, in which the user grants Craigslist the right to (i) Use their post, (ii) defend against others copying it.
So, I haven't verified it, but the idea seems to be the user owns their post, and could post it elsewhere if they wanted - but Craigslist has the right to stop other sites copying posts direct from Craigslist.
There was a recent case where the judge ruled that a company that didn't own a copyright, but was assigned a license in order to sue infringers on the owners behalf, didn't in fact have standing to sue.
Does the data belong to Craigslist or to those posting on Craigslist?
If so, is this in their TOS? I don't remember ever clicking a checkbox that says "we own your listing" whenever I have sold stuff on Craigslist or posted jobs/gigs. Maybe real estate is different.
Why would I want to give Craigslist ownership of my listing? If I were posting a property for rent I would probably want other services to pick-up the listing.
Similarly, why do they own the Copyright on something I have written?
Again, I don't remember ever giving that away either.