Court Says That Travel Company Can't Tell Others How Much Southwest Flights Cost

Furnished content.


A few months back, we wrote about Southwest Airlines' ridiculously antagonistic legal strategy against aggregators that would scrape information on flights and prices from Southwest.com and help people find flights and prices. The case we covered was the one against Skiplagged, but it was related to a separate case against Kiwi.com. Skiplagged had argued that it didn't violate Southwest's terms of service since it wasn't scraping info from Southwest... but rather had scraped it from a different site, Kiwi.com, which in turn had scraped it from Southwest.com.Just the fact that we're arguing over whether or not it's legal to scrape data from publicly available websites should alert you to the fact that these lawsuits are nonsense. Factual data -- such as flight routes and prices -- are not protected by any intellectual property and if you put them out there, people can (and should!) copy them and spread them elsewhere. But, unfortunately, the court ruled against Kiwi.com last fall, granting Southwest an injunction saying that Kiwi can't scrape its site for data any more. Realizing it was in trouble, it appears that Kiwi caved in and settled the lawsuit agreeing to no longer collect data on Southwest flights.Given that, the court has now made the preliminary injunction a permanent injunction barring Kiwi and any of its employees from ever scraping data off of Southwest's site. The court takes for granted that Southwest can just say in their terms of service that you can't copy data from their website and that's a valid contract. That seems dangerously empowering for terms of service. Can I add to Techdirt's terms of service that by reading this site you agree to place any copyright-covered works you create into the public domain?

Southwest's Terms & Conditions are a valid and enforceable contract, and Kiwi.comaccepted those Terms & Conditions when it used the Southwest Website with knowledge of theTerms & Conditions;Kiwi.com breached the Terms & Conditions when it, among other things, harvestedand scraped data from the Southwest Website, published Southwest's flight and fare schedules onKiwi.com, used the Southwest Website for Kiwi.com's own commercial purposes, and brokeredand sold Southwest flights without permission;Kiwi.com's violations of the Terms & Conditions have caused Southwest to sufferirreparable harm, including lost traffic on its website, customer service burdens, operationaldisruptions, and reputational damage; andAfter considering the balance of harms, the threatened injury to Southwest if theinjunction was denied outweighed the harm to Kiwi.com because, among other things, Kiwi.com'sunauthorized sales of Southwest flights poses a significant disruption to its customer operations,and the public interest would be served if an injunction is granted because there is an expectationthat parties to contracts will honor their contractual obligations.

IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that Kiwi.com, Inc. and Kiwi.com s.r.o., as well as theirofficers, agents, servants, employees, and attorneys and all other persons acting who are in activeconcert or participation with them, are permanently prohibited, restrained, and enjoinedpermanently from: (1) harvesting, extracting, or scraping information from the Southwest website,www.southwest.com, or its proprietary servers, including Southwest's flight and fare information;(2) publishing Southwest flight or fare information on the kiwi.com website, through its mobileapplications or elsewhere; (3) otherwise accessing and using Southwest's website and data for anycommercial purpose; (4) selling Southwest flights; and (5) committing any other acts in violationof Southwest's Terms & Conditions

0 comments, click here to add the first

Court To Cops Who Caught Pokemon Rather Than Robbery Suspects: That's A (Justified) Firin'

Furnished content.

I saw Snorlax today
Near the stealing…

It was a “busy” Saturday in the Southwest Division— there were more calls than police cars available to respond and there had been a homicide earlier in the day. While en route to the homicide scene, Captain Davenport heard a radio call for “a 211 [robbery] in progress” with multiple suspects at the Macy’s in the Crenshaw Mall. When the call came in, the Captain could see the Macy’s from where he was stopped, and to his right he noticed a police car tucked back in an alley just feet away. He was not able to identify the unit, and when the unit did not respond to the radio call, the Captain assumed it might be a traffic unit or a unit from a different division using a different radio frequency. Consequently, Captain Davenport decided he would respond to the call and notified communications he was going “Code 6 on the call”—i.e., responding to the location of the robbery. At around the same time, the Captain saw the police car start to back up down the alley, then negotiate a left-hand turn to leave the area.

The DICVS recording disclosed that, immediately after Captain Davenport’s Code 6 broadcast, Officer Lozano asked Officer Mitchell if they were Code 6 on the Crenshaw Corridor or on the corner near the mall where they were parked. Mitchell responded they were “[a]t the corner” and noted the broadcast radio call was “Davenport.” Lozano then instructed Mitchell to put them Code 6 “at the corridor,” adding (after some laughter) regarding Captain Davenport, “I don’t want to be his help.” Petitioners’ unit then moved backwards through the alley and turned away from the mall, as Captain Davenport had observed.For the next several minutes the DICVS captured continued radio traffic regarding the robbery and pursuit of multiple suspects. After communications made a second attempt to contact petitioners, Officer Lozano asked if they should “ask [communications] if there’s a message.” Officer Mitchell replied, “It’s up to you. Whatever you think. I don’t want them to think we’re not paying attention to the radio.” Lozano responded, “Aw, screw it.” Petitioners made no attempt to respond over the radio when their unit was called.

After carefully listening to the DICVS recording a number of times, Detective McClanahan also became concerned that petitioners were playing “the Pokémon Go video game” while on duty the day of the robbery. The recording showed that, at approximately 6:09 p.m. (just five minutes after Officer Lozano said “screw it” to checking in with communications about the robbery call), Officer Mitchell alerted Lozano that “Snorlax” “just popped up” at “46th and Leimert.” After noting that “Leimert doesn’t go all the way to 46th,” Lozano responded, “Oh, you [know] what I can do? I’ll [go] down 11th and swing up on Crenshaw. I know that way I can get to it.” Mitchell suggested a different route, then told Lozano, “We got four minutes.”

For approximately the next 20 minutes, the DICVS captured petitioners discussing Pokémon as they drove to different locations where the virtual creatures apparently appeared on their mobile phones. On their way to the Snorlax location, Officer Mitchell alerted Officer Lozano that “a Togetic just popped up,” noting it was “[o]n Crenshaw, just South of 50th.” After Mitchell apparently caught the Snorlax— exclaiming, “Got ‘em”—petitioners agreed to “[g]o get the Togetic” and drove off.When their car stopped again, the DICVS recorded Mitchell saying, “Don’t run away. Don’t run away,” while Lozano described how he “buried it and ultra-balled” the Togetic before announcing, “Got him.” Mitchell advised he was “[s]till trying to catch it,” adding, “Holy crap, man. This thing is fighting the crap out of me.” Eventually Mitchell exclaimed, “Holy Crap. Finally,” apparently in reference to capturing the Togetic, and he remarked, “The[] guys are going to be so jealous.” Petitioners then agreed to return to the 7-Eleven (where Sergeant Gomez later met them) to end their watch. On the way, Mitchell remarked, “I got you a new Pokémon today, dude.”

According to evidence admitted at the board of rights hearing, “Snorlax” is a Pokémon creature known as “the Sleeping Pokémon.”

Petitioners… denied playing Pokémon Go while on duty. They claimed they were monitoring a “Pokémon tracker” application on their phone, but not playing the game itself. As for “catching” Pokémon, Officer Lozano insisted this referred to “capturing [an] image” of the Pokémon on the tracking application to share with friends, while Officer Mitchell said his statements about “fighting” the Togetic referred to “relaying that information to the groups on my app,” adding that, “in order to take the picture, occasionally, the creature will fight.” Lozano said they were not engaged in a game; rather, it was a “social media event.” Mitchell said he did not consider the application a game because it was not “advertised as a game.” Petitioners admitted leaving their foot beat area in search of Snorlax, but they insisted they did so “both” as part of an “extra patrol” and to “chase this mythical creature.”

The judgment is affirmed. The City and the Chief of Police are entitled to costs, if any.

0 comments, click here to add the first