I'm not a US citizen or a lawyer but is the separation of implementation and exploration really required by the copyright laws (ignoring patent issues)?
I can understand that exploration/implementation division as a preemptive "don't sue us" move, but do US copyright really provide that such strong protection that someone who has looked at a decompilation can't be writing an independent implementation? It seems to me the writing an implementation with a different structure or in another language ought to be different enough for copyright reasons.
True this guys methods are questionable, as well as his objective.
But if his claims are true than both and AriBnB was faking user recommendations to gain users than they should get criticized for it. Even more so if they systematically violate Craiglist ToS.
In Europe some of those things are paid through taxes and some are not. To make a reasonable comparison you need to know what's included each system and how the fees are arranged.
I can understand that exploration/implementation division as a preemptive "don't sue us" move, but do US copyright really provide that such strong protection that someone who has looked at a decompilation can't be writing an independent implementation? It seems to me the writing an implementation with a different structure or in another language ought to be different enough for copyright reasons.