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Craigslist Forced To Reveal a Seller's Identity
mi writes "The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts has won a judgment compelling Craigslist to reveal the identity of 'Daniel,' who tried to sell two tickets to the Oscar ceremony recently. The plaintiff's argument against such sales is scary and can be taken very far very quickly: 'If you don't know who's inside the theater, it's very difficult to provide security.' Craigslist's handling of the case may be even scarier, however — instead of fighting tooth-and-nail for the user's privacy, as we expect Google, Yahoo, and AOL, and even credit-card issuers to do, Craigslist simply did not show up in court and lost by default."
Its hollywood, what could possibly go wro.... ohhhh
I got two oscar tickets. Anyone want em? Asking $600 OBO.
Legal representation
Roughly half my comments are never submitted. You may be reading the better half...
they didn't post the hearing notice under rants and raves.
Maybe Craig was too busy responding to bots and picture collectors. Real results takes all day!
Craigslist. Not only do you get a great deal on tickets, you get a great deal on a date to go with you!
If they want to know who is in the theater during the ceremony (for 'security' reasons... dun dun dun!), why do they even have physical tickets? Why not just a list of who can get in? Do the invitees REALLY have to show a ticket to get in? "Sorry, Mr. Cruise. No ticket, no entry!"
Does Daniel have any rights in this matter, or is this strictly between AMPA and craigslist?
Craigslist has to be about the seediest place to do business on the internet. Nothing about their service screams 'high quality,' much less 'we care.'
Normally I would completely agree that privacy must be protected wherever and whenever possible. Both my heart and my head tells me that privacy is an essential right.
Having said that, could craigslist use a little bit of "cleanup" from the scam artists, vice decoy hookers (keep the real ones!), and other bad elements that are hiding behind the anonimity of CL as an essential part of their scam?
I realize that the key word there is "bad"-- who is to judge what is 'bad' or 'good' except the other party in the transaction?
I just wonder if CL purposefully ignored the court date in hopes of such a cleanup, or if they were simply too busy smoking some dope and selling some old furniture (both are fine hobbies to have) to remember to go downtown.
davejenkins.com |
Hash slashdot ever stood up when threatened with a lawsuit? Co$ lawyers complain -> comments deleted. Microsoft lawyers complain -> comments deleted. Maybe the goatse lawyers need to complain :-)
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Craigslist is one of the worst sites online. I would never post there, nor expect the owner of it to protect my privacy.
When it comes to Craigslist then it's a case of buyer, and seller, beware.
The site originally started out as a good idea but rapidly became spammed up with dodgy sellers, fake ads and boring rants.
While there are still a few nuggets of gold in among the trash (best of rants and raves is always worth a look) it's increasingly becoming irrelevant.
I'm not surprised they didn't bother to show, since they take such a lax attitude that getting into a battle to protect user anonymity would just be too much effort.
Its funny that security would be an issue, when the majority of people don't really care anymore. Yes, there is a small portion of the population that wants to attend. And most of that population gets to attend...
The people who can't attend the oscars and WANT to, probably don't have the IQ to understand that they aren't a big deal. And the people who can attend, don't realize that the rest of teh world is mocking them.
Craigslist might be seedy, but then again, everyone needs a dark alley to buy their fake gucci bags and knock-off soccer shirts. Ebay just doesn't cut it anymore...
There goes my prostitution business.
http://twitter.com/OLDTELEGRAM
CL been around for years and makes me wonder if the servers are still running in some garage somewhere?
You think by now they would mature the site with better policies and practices but lately it's being used for alot of illegal activities and scams due to lack of police control.
I don't take CL seriously anymore, I just browse through some stuff just for kicks.
Here's an idea: Check people's ID at the door if you want to know who's in the theater.
The summons probably got *flagged for removal*
Just because Craigslist didn't show up in court doesn't mean that the judgement is worth even $0.02. Granted, it's not the smartest thing you could do, not showing up in court when you're sued, but it doesn't mean that Craigslist couldn't still appeal the decision, right?
More like CL didn't care. They didn't care enough to show up to court, so they didn't care enough to fight about it.
The sad thing is, I'm not really surprised. They have warnings in their real estate section of housing wanted/for sale that states that if you post something like "Only Mexican People Can Buy/Live-in My House" you will get fined - so they must be down with sharing your info when asked for it.
Ave Molech Setting
"...invitees to the Academy Awards show are explicitly told they cannot sell or give their tickets away."
What does "explicitly told" mean? It doesn't sound like a binding contract. Why don't they issue tickets that say non-transferable right on them and require id at the door?
"If you don't know who's inside the theater, it's very difficult to provide security," Quinto said.
If you're too stupid to keep a list of the people you've invited, with their ticket numbers, then providing security will indeed be difficult.
Typical Hollywood idiocy.
If they're worried about who's in the theater, then it seems like they'd be more interested in the identity of those *buying* the tickets, no? Do they have prohibitions against giving the tickets away if you get them legitimately? Can I donate them to a charity auction, and do they send the Oscar Gestapo to the auction to fingerprint and photograph the winners at the charity auction?
If not, then why is Craigslist such a security threat?
[b.belong('us') for b in bases if b.owner() == 'you']
"De-fault! Woohoo! The two sweetest words in the English language!"
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." -Albert Einstein
http://www.craigslist.org/about/privacy.html
And look at the terms of use, particularly item 2.
Was Craigslist expected to not reveal the seller?
to obfuscate your real identity for these sites? Do not, I repeat, do NOT give your real names!
What?
do you even know what mongering is?
I can't say Craigslist has nearly the money Google, AOL, etc has to afford lawyers.
This is certainly a crappy decision, but what could they have done being a relatively ad free company? I'm sure whatever revenue they do have go to salaries and server maintenance; I'd be surprised if they were very profitable at all - that's not the point of Craigslist. The rich guys won.
If you can read this... 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100111 01100101 01100101 01101011
I don't blame the academy for wanting tighter security, and they have a valid reason for WANTING to know the identity, but security at the Oscars isn't Craigslist's responsibility, and they're not ENTITLED to that identity.
Forcing Craig's to stop the auction and prevent the sale? Reasonable. I would think that the extent of their liability would be to remove the auction of (what are presumably) non-transferrable tickets. Had they actually shown up in court, they could have had a good shot at protecting the sellers identity.
There's potential here for an unfortunate precedent.
The plaintiff's argument against such sales is scary and can be taken very far very quickly: 'If you don't know who's inside the theater, it's very difficult to provide security.'
I don't know how that's scary. Isn't that exactly what the airlines do? If I have a ticket to LA, can I turn around and sell it on Craig's List? Maybe, but I bet there are fees involved and it's not easy to do.
I think default judgement is the stupidest idea for a legal system ever, sure it probably saves a bunch of money but the amount of hassle it appears to cause. /fix legal system plz.
Here's a handy tip I've come up with to determine, in a business vs. business lawsuit, who will win: Who has the most money to spend on lawyers?
If CL had attempted to fight the suit, with its meager resources, it would have lost. Then, the case may have stood as a precedent to future such cases.
CL was smart, not only for its own limited resources, but also for the larger communities that it and others serve, to not attempt to fight this suit. Let someone with deep pockets stand in and try to win a case that can stand.
(IANAL)
of a corporation dragging you into court on bullshit pretenses
given that thought, not showing up to court is really the only course of action you can take
of course, there are also those who want to see someone else fight their battles. this is the only reason in which you yourself who do not respect the legal status quo can expect someone else to respect the legal status quo for you
and to some extent, this is a valid attitude: if that someone else fighting for you is big and powerful while you are small and weak
but as others have noted, craigslist really is just craig and a few dudes in san francisco. they may have the exposure of a large corporation, btu they aren't a large corporation. as such, they are in the boat with you and me: someone else needs to fight this battle, or craigslist, due to the legal environment of our modern times, needs to give in to reality and turn into a corporate turd pile and fund a bunch of corporate lawyer whores in order to retain its integrity in the face of such legal bullshit
i dunno, i'm torn. i say fuck the courts on the issue of corporate chicanery, ignore them. but then they win by default in terms of enforceable rulings. such that you have to fund the legions of corporate lawyer whores
or kill them all. hard to say
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
'If you don't know who's inside the theater, it's very difficult to provide security.'
Seems like a stupid statement at face value. But suing Craigslist for the identity of the seller won't even achieve the stated goal. If the seller sold the tickets, then he/she is not inside the theater, and thus they won't need security customized for his/her particular super-powers.
I am not a crackpot.
You:But all I want to do is to see the movie.
Clerk:Sorry Sir but we have to know who is in the theater. It is afterall for your own protection.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
I think cls pretty open about the fact you have to tell people who you really are when you sell something. You get flagged if they figure out your not being honest about who you are, but at the same time its silly you can't sell an oscar ticket.
and let me tell you, it's been a boon to get used gear cheaply, and locally. TY CL!
Oh, and the hookers are funny to browse when your bored (not that I'd every pay 1 red cent for sex)
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.
I'm thinking they were more worried {pissed off} about who was selling their free tickets. 'Security' being the code word for 'whom should we exclude next year, because we don't like scalpers.'
You know .. similar to what the NFL did a year or so ago with the tickets they give players.
--Ne auderis delere orbem rigidum meum, non erravi pernicose!
I'm surprised it even got to court. Though I guess they allowed it to go forth, such that they can abide by their own policy.
TFA does not say that craigslist turned over the guy's identity, just that they figured out who it was. Granted, AP articles sometimes read like they were written by a high-school journalism student, translated into Bantu, then back into English, but the omission seems glaring. Other TFAs on the same topic also do not actually say that craigslist turned the name over.
There is nothing wrong with power sellers selling their power.
Craigslist doesn't manage auctions.
'If you don't know who's inside the theater, it's very difficult to provide security.'
Then require people to show ID. Try to do security like the rest of the world. If you can sell tickets and not know who is at the Oscars, then what stops some one from tying up ticket holder and taking their tickets to the Oscars?
I'm simply do not understand what legal right one private organization has to enforce its policy on a completely unrelated organization?
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
This strikes me as the classic fallacy for suing online service providers, to challenge the messenger for the messages that they deliver. Craigslist is about as fast and lose as sites seem to come, and all that's needed is a legitimate email address to post ~ which costs about five cents and ten minutes to set up. The service has absolutely no guarantees of poster accuracy, honesty, or legitimacy ~ honestly, about on par with a web board. Keeping eBay and Amazon on their toes is valid, in my book, solely for the fact that their sites enable transactions, but beyond that, it's buyer beware.
This lawsuit makes about as much sense as bringing the FTC in to a flea market. You can't impose any sorts of regulations without completely warping the existing system, in which case it's no longer a flea market.
Security has nothing to do with it. They just want to control who has access to the ceremony. "Knowing" who is there really has little to do with whether a place is secure, especially when there is no checks on who has access other than being "in the know" or "in the cool crowd."
How would craigslist know the seller's name? I sell stuff on there, and I have never put my name. And even if I did, Craigslist still would not know WHO I SOLD THEM TO. So this is just stupid all around. And besides, this isnt any different than if I were selling them on the street, the Oscar peeps wouldnt know the name of the buyer, they would never even know the sale happened. Bottom line is, its not about "security". They were suing other people for selling tickets back in March, and they are looking for more people to sue.
It sounds like Craigslist didn't want to give up the name outright, but they didn't want to enough to spend money to defend it in court either. Sort of like waiting until you get a subpoena before giving it up and then it's "Oh well, nothing I could do--don't sue me."
I wonder if the person in question knew about the lawsuit and, if so, could have sent his own representative.
A bigger question I have with these increasing attacks on privacy: How long before we start getting fake ids to protect our privacy from companies who seem all too will to give us up. For example, I found out my credit card now offers a different CC# to use on line so you have some layer of protection between your actual number, identity, etc. Not sure on how well that works, except that it should stop someone who has the number from using at large. I suppose it's a bit like PayPal. Although that still wouldn't help you if the company contacted Visa, MC, etc. and were able to get your ID through them. It would have to be like an off-shore PayPal that could verify a purchase or whatever needed verification, but kept your ID safe from even the ISPs.
How long before we need more layers of protection--where companies (and governments) can't just shut us down on a whim because we said something bad about them or sue us. Even if the individual is correct, very few people can afford to be sued by some company.
If you've never been modded as "flamebait" or "troll," you've never tried to argue a minority viewpoint here!
I completely agree with parent.
What impresses me the most is, how come they don't have uber-special-un-counterfittable tickets (they could borrow the design from the Homerpalooza Simpsons episode maybe) if knowing the identity of the attendants is so important?
For an event this size and with such resources, I don't think it would be over the top to use passport-like tickets, with picture and everything.
I think RembrandtX is right about this. They just want to know who's not getting tickets the next year.
Slashdot. Unreadable news to annoy nerds. - wonkey_monkey
How is this Craiglist's fault? "Daniel" was doing something he was barred from doing. Shouldn't people be more upset that Daniel is doing this instead of being upset at Craigslist for investing massive amounts of money to protect someone else's dubious behavior?
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
They were probably too busy playing hacky sack.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Semi-comfortably,
It's a not too secret secret that Craig himself profits in the lower 8 digit range.
Craig didn't show up to defend someone he does know, I don't think anyone is surprised. God forbid, that someones actions actually have a consequence. They knew reselling the tickets wasn't allowed, I personally don't see why it is craiglists problem to begin with.
PPL still get wet over these self-aggrandizing shiny trophy affairs?
Like who really cares anyways?
PACIFIC MALL FTW!
"Craigslist simply did not show up in court and lost by default" Hardly call that being forced.
When it comes to Craigslist then it's a case of buyer, and seller, beware. The site originally started out as a good idea but rapidly became spammed up with dodgy sellers, fake ads and boring rants. While there are still a few nuggets of gold in among the trash (best of rants and raves is always worth a look) it's increasingly becoming irrelevant. I'm not surprised they didn't bother to show, since they take such a lax attitude that getting into a battle to protect user anonymity would just be too much effort.
Given how many posts go up on Craigslist each hour, that's a huge number of potential lawsuits. I don't think it's a realistic for Craigslist to be able to show up each time they are summoned for a frivolous lawsuit filed involving their site.
Using Tom Cruise as an example is a poor one. Of course the super celebrities get in without any hurdles. The people that are harder to keep track on is the people "behind the scenes". A lot of sound techies, video techies and crew are invited as well.
This is a membership-based club, right? If security is so important to them, they should do personalized tickets, with a photo printed on the back of each one. Guys, gimme a call, I'll get these done for you next year for $50 a pop, just get me the photos from your ID database. It's worth it for the security.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Danny told me he was going to give them to me!
It's alright, Johnny Fairplay traded me his for a bottle of Jack.
If the tickets are on sale to the Public? Then It's the public (very large and diverse group) you've invited? Everyone knows the public is a very dangerous group...Thats why many people hold Private gatherings.
If the concern is security...Don't sell to the Public.
Or am I missing something?
-DML
Can Power Rangers range their power?
No mod points, no meta-moderating/Firehose/all the other free work Slashdot wants me to do.
Um if it was such a big deal to know who was in the theatre for 'security reasons' you'd think they'd have implemented this long before... say around the time John Wilkes Booth was working the theatre circuit.
Daniel Baldwin decided that he wanted somebody with more clout to attend the Academy Awards instead of himself. That and he's got to watch the premiere of his new sci-fi movie of the week.
"There are no facts, only interpretations." --Friedrich Nietzsche.
he needs a ticket because he has an assigned seat. It's a bouncy one, so he can jump up and down gleefully on it.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
They aren't talking about security in the terrorism/national security sense. Ever been to a private night club? The bouncer outside the door that lets people in based on how they're dressed, or their social status? That's the sort of security they're looking for.
They send out tickets to the people they would like to come. These people are the people that they feel "deserve" to be there. Now, these tickets are transferrable between friends. It is reasonably assumed that anyone they invited would give their ticket to someone of a similar status, by the nature of friendships and how people give shit away. When you have someone selling the tickets, however, you have the potential for the unsightly to sneak in the back. The tickets are the bouncer at the front door, and you don't want him to be easily purchased.
So, Craigslist is in San Francisco, yes? And the court case was in Los Angelos. Sure, it's the same state, but California is big, that's a full day's drive apart (8-12 hours depending on route). So, as usual, the people suing chose a venue that's not where the supposably offending business is located.
That's the real problem here. To expect someone to have to take 3 days off to fly or drive a long distance to attend each and every spurious lawsuit just means you can do a Denial of Service Real World... file lots of lawsuits until the airfare bankrupts the given target.
A.
I've been there too. Back in the free drink period and later when I had to pay for watered downed drinks and Jon Stewart was hosting. They started charging for the booze to keep people from getting shit faced and enjoying themselves. I quit going.
There's tons of empty seats there and the Academy isn't all that particular about exactly who shows. They just like to keep the main floor mostly filled. The security is Security Theatre. Hey, it's Hollyood. It makes the stars feel secure which counts a lot more than providing actual security. Think TSA.
But the Academy are Bitch Gods so this needs to be AC because they will make life hell. I doubt this article will be followed up but try to track what happens to the poor slob who tried to sell the tickets. He's screwed. If he got the tickets from a publicist, they're screwed. Once enough heads roll, the Academy can sleep at night. In the jungle, the mighty jungle, heads will roll tonight.
There is nothing wrong with power sellers selling their power.
What about Peter Sellers? What is he allowed to do?
For all we know the moon may be as conscious as a poet or a realtor, and extremely weary of its monotonous round. - HLM
So they're using the court system to figure out who to punish for doing something entirely legal?
I could see it if Daniel was under contract for the tickets, but if they just give him tickets with no stipulations, why should they get to enjoy the power of the courts and tax payer funding?
Wouldn't it have been cheaper just to buy the tickets off the guy, and as soon as you find out who is selling them, negate those tickets, then, as the buyer, refuse to pay for the now worthless tickets?
Woh, no money, no lawyers, and the seller gets screwed out of his tickets for trying to sell them. Done.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Instead of "fighting tooth-and-nail for the user's privacy, as we expect Google, YAHOO, and AOL" to do??? You're kidding, right? There are a few pro-democracy activists in China that you should read about.
You know what this means? Nothing!!! A default judgment can't stand as precedent! I can sue you for breaking my leg by means of voodoo and win if you don't show up. That doesn't mean that that judgment becomes law. Of course a plaintiff will try out crazy legal theories to win a case. If the defendant doesn't respond, what is the court supposed to do? As others on this post have noted, this guy was breaking the rules of Craigslist, so Craigslist had no reason to defend him. It's a NON-ISSUE. I am so sick of slashdot mods putting up these alarmist stories, often without a misleading title, just to scare people about how we are losing our constitutional rights and blah blah. We might be losing rights, but let's focus on what's really happening rather than crap like this.
Talk about a reason to sue Craigslist. They should be under some obligation to protect your privacy and clearly breeched that duty.
And you'll win too, since they won't show up!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I suppose everyone just missed the Craigslist post to find the appropriate legal representation.
This signature has The Force
Interesting link within the link regarding revenues of Craigslist.
If you can read this... 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100111 01100101 01100101 01101011
But only in specific markets, and also for some apartments. This is the official list of Posting Fees.
Come on guys, this has to be flawed.
Every multi-million dollar business in the world can scrounge up $2000 in loose change in the vending machines (to use a figure of speech) to pay a leser known lawyer who needs work to block out three days of his time.
All the counsel had to do is get past the first couple of sessions, and the facts of this case are simple.
The lawyer would hear the initial charge, file a couple motions, get through another couple of early duties, then call a management meeting to assess.
That would buy enough time to do a call to arms if the entertainment counsel started pulling fast ones.
Anything at all is better than not showing up.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
You started out right that privacy is important, and increasingly under attack because that's fun for people in power.
However, setting a privacy precedent that "Party A can request the identity of any member of X Organization" is not about cleaning up craigslist.
There are any number of ways to reformulate the action is cleanup is the sole goal.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
So does this set a a legal precedent in the states? In my view this is a default judgement and therefore sets no precedent. Is that correct?
I'll see your hokum and raise you a boondoggle.
If Craigslist really just doesn't care enough about their user's anonymity to even show up in court to protect it, how is it that this even went to court at all? That is, why didn't Craigslist just hand over the necessary information in the first place when it was asked for?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Craig might not "monetize" his site to hell to squeeze billions out of it, but he certainly does squeeze millions out of it: their net profits are upwards of $100 million. This is certainly enough to pay a lawyer to show up to court a few times without even making a dent in the balance sheet.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
The court filing was probably done down in Southern California and Craigs List is based out of San Francisco with like what, 30 employees at most? Not like they make much money as it is... Probably would have been cost prohibitive for them to send someone down to L.A.
They might dress tastefully, thus scarring any number of celebrities for life!
Here's a thought. Maybe Craigslist intentionally didn't show, because lawyers cost money and they knew that dragging this out in a courtroom would cost them thousands with a fairly large likelihood that they'd lose anyway.
This way, when the lawyers come to collect the data, they can just hand over the gmail.com address and say "that's all the information we have", and the Academy still has to subpoena Google to get the guy's real identity (maybe).
Sounds like a good legal strategy to me: make Google's lawyers pay for it.
Erm, maybe they were too busy with a marathon drum circle. Or maybe, they had an Ultimate Tournament to go to....dude! Stupid hippies. It's easy to protest, but too hard for them to go through the legal effort or expense to defend their rights.
You are way off base on how much a cheap lawyer costs. Even a newly qualified lawyer in a really small firm, East Coast, will be charged out at $2000-3000 per day, not for three days of work.