5 Comments

1. Michael Dundas says:

   June 17, 2008 at 1:40 pm

   MLS
   Just another example of companies that do not understand the power of the Internet and want to keep control of their customers. Personally, they should thank them and offer to purchase their software but instead they threaten legal action.

   Unfortunately, legal action requires money and that means the one with the most money usually wins by default — same old story. This is the bigger problem in our Country and others — if only we could fix that.
2. Ken says:

   June 17, 2008 at 1:41 pm

   Victoria REB too
   I had the same thing happen from the Victoria Real Estate Board two years ago. Similarly, I had a Google Maps mash-up with RSS feeds and lots of things the board should have had years ago too. Unfortunately they don’t want competition.

   Read their legal letter to me here: [ link ]
3. Ken says:

   June 17, 2008 at 1:47 pm

   Better link to my takedown notice
   Here is a better link to the takedown notice I received. The other link will probably get overloaded. [ link ]

   Ken
4. Sal says:

   June 17, 2008 at 7:07 pm

   Yeah, a huge shame. Great site which I don’t doubt helped MLS in the end. It’s sad when something that innovates or greatly improves a product or service gets crushed, by legal threats.
5. Frankie says:

   June 18, 2008 at 12:41 am

   Legal Case?
   It would be an interesting legal case, given that things like telephone directories are considered to _not_ be copyrightable, since they are a listing of facts without any real degree of creativity.

   I believe the relevant legal court rulings (in Canada anyway), are located here: [ link ]

   So I’d imagine that merely plotting the addresses which are available on a map, and perhaps their prices, might be fine, but pictures and descriptions may not be fair game.

   Perhaps someone could make a greasemonkey script to convert REALTOR’S UPPER-CASE LISTING DESCRIPTIONS INTO READABLE ENGLISH?