First, editorailized headlines are not allowed by site rules. (EDIT: The headline is now changed. It previously read, "Change your IP, go to jail" or something like that.)
Anyway, Craigslist told 3taps in a legal notice: "Don't abuse our website." 3taps did anyway. IANAL but this appears clear from the second and third quoted paragraphs (and Orin Kerr, a noted expert on these things, seems to agree):
The banned user has to follow only one, clear rule: do not access the website. The notice issue becomes limited to how clearly the website owner communicates the banning. Here, Craigslist affirmatively communicated its decision to revoke 3Taps’ access through its cease-and-desist letter and IP blocking efforts...
You might as well say, "Enter a building, go to jail"... if the door is a side entrance to a privately owned public space (such as a shop) which has banned you from their property. That is how the judge sees it.
I personally have some sympathy for 3taps and I expect most of HN does also. The open Internet is not like any old public space. But the ruling doesn't threaten to ambiguously target people who just change an IP to get around an ordinary IP ban.
Anyway, Craigslist told 3taps in a legal notice: "Don't abuse our website." 3taps did anyway. IANAL but this appears clear from the second and third quoted paragraphs (and Orin Kerr, a noted expert on these things, seems to agree):
The banned user has to follow only one, clear rule: do not access the website. The notice issue becomes limited to how clearly the website owner communicates the banning. Here, Craigslist affirmatively communicated its decision to revoke 3Taps’ access through its cease-and-desist letter and IP blocking efforts...
You might as well say, "Enter a building, go to jail"... if the door is a side entrance to a privately owned public space (such as a shop) which has banned you from their property. That is how the judge sees it.
I personally have some sympathy for 3taps and I expect most of HN does also. The open Internet is not like any old public space. But the ruling doesn't threaten to ambiguously target people who just change an IP to get around an ordinary IP ban.