Craigslist Forced To Reveal a Seller's Identity 314
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."
Why do the even HAVE tickets? (Score:5, Insightful)
What did you expect? (Score:5, Insightful)
Craigslist (Score:1, Insightful)
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.
Re:Why do the even HAVE tickets? (Score:2, Insightful)
The tickets are for guests and for people like the writers who most people wouldn't recognize on sight. In any case, if they were worried about who was in the theater they could simply check the ticket to the invite list and to a photo ID. This sounds like a lousy public relations excuse for performing a shakedown. While Daniel shouldn't have sold or have planned to sell his ticket, it isn't as if he is going to suddenly let in Osama bin Laden who will commit a terrorist attack there. They do have metal detectors and a large security force after all. I think they are more worried about maintaining the integrity of the elite from commoners and fanboys.
Re:What did you expect? (Score:5, Insightful)
Things this does not include:
Ads.
Huge profits.
Legal division.
Do we really want Craig to have to start putting ads everywhere so he can protect users that do stupid stuff? I don't.
Re:Why do the even HAVE tickets? (Score:5, Insightful)
morons or liars? (Score:2, Insightful)
"...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... (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
Re:craigslist could use some cleanup? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:craigslist could use some cleanup? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Craigslist (Score:5, Insightful)
Possibly, or they realized that they'd lose the case and chose to not bother wasting money on it.
While the reason is bunk, the people running the event do have the right to keep people out if they want to. People who are invited don't have the right to sell.
I'm not really sure how it's in the best interest of people that use Craig's list to have them wasting money defending such clear cut cases in court.
I mean seriously, you don't really have to be an attorney to recognize that a private event run by a private organization that stipulates as a condition for receiving an invite that the tickets are non-transferable would have the legal right to deny entrance to those people.
The suit here is so that they can figure out who it is and avoid giving the person tickets in the future.
I'm not really sure what part of that is actually shady. (Excepting of course the explanation of why it's necessary to make the tickets non-transferable)
That isn't really the point... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
It's probably a good thing they didn't show up. (Score:2, Insightful)
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)
Re:That isn't really the point... (Score:5, Insightful)
There's potential here for an unfortunate precedent.
IANAL, but I think a judgement without representation from the accused isn't very good precedent (if at all) and is easily overturned.
"Papers Please" (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Silly (Score:4, Insightful)
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 is an excuse (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Have you seen the CL privacy page? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:That isn't really the point... (Score:5, Insightful)
But I believe it's pretty standard. In a case of "your word against his", if his is silent, yours wins. I was told that you should always fight a ticket if you think that the officer won't show up (but more and more officers are being required to show up, so I think this is less true now)....it's basically the same thing. If Craigslist didn't care enough to show up, they didn't care enough about the outcome. Of course, there's also something to be said if notification was not properly handled.
Layne
So... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What did you expect? (Score:3, Insightful)
Craigslist has to be about the seediest place to do business on the internet.
I suspect you haven't been around "the internet" very much. You're honestly trying to say craigslist is as seedy as illegal drug sellers, offshore quasi-legal casino's, websites selling pirated software, malware/adware "free" software sites, or any number of other seedy places I haven't listed?
Craiglist is certainly no-frills, but it's not really that seedy. It's no more seedy than the local free newspaper. I've bought and sold many things on craiglist, and the vast majority of it was from fine upstanding people.
Re:The perfect place to buy tickets is... (Score:5, Insightful)
The real question is why the MPAA spent the money on lawyers and court costs when the could have just bought the tickets!
This is bad? (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Re:That isn't really the point... (Score:3, Insightful)
But wait, are you saying that if a cop doesn't show up to fight a ticket and you win by default, that judgement can be used as a precedent in a future case? I find that hard to beleive.
Re:What did you expect? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Hai Guise (Score:3, Insightful)
At least it's not like Digg, where nobody reads anything!
Re:That isn't really the point... (Score:3, Insightful)
Because when the results of the decision are presented to them in the form of a subpoena, they will cave and release the info. In other words, they are sticking to their principles just enough to have bad stuff happen, but not enough to actually prompt any change for the better.
Re:Why do the even HAVE tickets? (Score:2, Insightful)
Not quite good enough.
http://wondermark.com/d/416.html [wondermark.com]
They don't have the time or money to fight it (Score:1, Insightful)
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.
Re:What did you expect? (Score:4, Insightful)
They should have shown up, they took a chance for good PR and turned it into really bad PR.
Whether the Academy had any right to that information has no bearing on this, they should have shown up to court and fought. Now anybody who wants their data will just file a suit.
Re:Why do the even HAVE tickets? (Score:3, Insightful)
Who's coming to the party? (Score:2, Insightful)
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
Re:Craigslist (Score:3, Insightful)
They would need to claim the right under criminal law, or possibly trademark/copyright law. They can't claim it under the criminal since they aren't the State.
If I gave a copy of my keys to a friend, and it later appeared on craigslist, would I have the right to the name of the seller? The property wasn't stolen, and I have no particular rights attached to that key. AFAIK my only recourse would be to change the locks.
Re:"Papers Please" (Score:2, Insightful)
Apples and oranges. There's a vast difference between a private party such as the Academy Awards and a public venue like a movie theater. Movie theater managers in particular have the perfect right to refuse to sell a ticket to anyone (with the usual caveats about racial, religious or disability discrimination) if they want to. There's nothing Nazi-like about that - its an established right that any business owner has. All those signs that read "We have the right to refuse admission to anyone" aren't lying.
Nobody here, not even Craigslist, is acting like Hitler or the Nazis so please refrain from the completely non-insightful (fuck you right up your ass with the fat end of an ungreased wine bottle, you moronic brain-dead moderators) "papers please" rhetoric. It really hurts your credibility.
Re:Does Daniel have any rights in this matter? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:That isn't really the point... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:That isn't really the point... (Score:5, Insightful)
Explain to me why Craigslist would want or bother to pay for the legal defense of someone selling something they have no right to sell?
Perhaps if this had been an actual privacy issue, Craigs might feel inclined to step up.
Consider that the Academy has an established precedent of defending its legal rights. Ever wonder why you can rarely buy an Oscar on eBay?
Also, where does Craigs make any promise of privacy to it's users? The randomized emails they offer posters are just one step above the security provide by lock on your front door. If someone wants to get in there, they're not going through the lock, they're going through the decorative glass window.
It's not that sort of security... (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Re:Why do the even HAVE tickets? (Score:5, Insightful)
Besides this, has anything illegal actually happened?
They say 'our tickets can not be resold'. That's not a law, that's not a court order, that's not anything other than a company whining about someone doing something they don't like with a piece of paper they gave away or sold themselves.
This isn't even software with a stupid license agreement. It's a physical ticket.
Going further, one has to assume the 'seller' really does have the ticket and really will make a sale. Why do you think they wait on drug busts until AFTER an undercover has completed the purchase? Even if the sale were somehow illegal, it hasn't actually happened.
All this in addition to their insane claims about 'security'. If it was so important they WOULD be checking ID.
Re:nothing to be scared of (Score:1, Insightful)
The terrorists would have been smart enough to sell their Oscar tickets using an anonymized craigslist email address pointing at a throwaway webmail account they signed up for using Tor from their neighbor's open access point...
Re:Why do the even HAVE tickets? (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh, i'm sure they're deathly afraid of someone showing up and not being perfectly civil or clapping on queue. Understandable, but then it's their job to control who they let in. Lawsuits to find out who's trading slips of paper around are another example of the abuse our legal system allows.
The better question - is CL going to just ignore the judgement like they did the subpoena?