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Ask HN: Doing $16k MRR. How do I deal with cease and desist?

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Re: Ask HN: Doing $16k MRR. How do I deal with cease and desist?

#11

Post by hgezim »

0xdeadbeefbabe wrote: post #10
hgezim wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’re huge. I’m sure their toilet paper rolls are make of $16k bills I used to worry that the biggest threat was them releasing an API. I’ve since learned that they won’t do that because they charge monthly fees to their customers and when a customer doesn’t use their credits, the credits don’t roll over and Midjourney pockets the cash. Pay per use is bad for their business model.

Based on your growth rate they'll have more toilet paper in the future though. It would be interesting to try to discover a way to coexist, and I wonder if everyone at Midjourney hates you with equal passion or if some are sympathetic or even see value.

I was really hoping to build out an amazing API product and when time came where they want to release one it would make more sense to acquire us. Alas.

Re: Ask HN: Doing $16k MRR. How do I deal with cease and desist?

#12

Post by philsquared_ »

A c&d is a nice way of asking you to shutdown before they sue you. Most companies will not bother unless they think they have a case against you. Your choices are shut down or stay up and hire a lawyer to defend you in the coming case against you. Even if they do not have a strong case you will end up being in court a while. Keep in mind you have a source of income now but what may happen is they sue you then release their own api and cut your revenue at the same time. It's risky to build products on other peoples businesses especially if they dont want you to. I am not just talking out my ass. I was in the same situation on one of my projects and chose to shut down when I saw others going through lawsuits. At the very least you need to speak to a lawyer and make sure you can win a case.

In this specific instance you are providing a product that interfaces with their product. Your product allowing breaking TOS is likely grounds for their lawsuit. For similar cases look up bot manufacturers in World of Warcraft vs Blizzard. They won all their cases by saying the code that is in the ram is their property.

Edit: I also wanted to add that even if you are somehow not against their tos right now they can always update their tos to not allow your type of service..

Re: Ask HN: Doing $16k MRR. How do I deal with cease and desist?

#13

Post by ahazred8ta »

hgezim wrote: post #11
0xdeadbeefbabe wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on your growth rate they'll have more toilet paper in the future though. It would be interesting to try to discover a way to coexist, and I wonder if everyone at Midjourney hates you with equal passion or if some are sympathetic or even see value.

I was really hoping to build out an amazing API product and when time came where they want to release one it would make more sense to acquire us. Alas.

Being a wise and thoughtful business owner, you already ran this concept by your own corporate attorney to get a written legal opinion before circumventing their TOS, right? ... No??

IMHO, stop calling yourself a Midjourney API of any kind and stop providing a service that uses Midjourney as a backend. You are not authorized to run Midjourney jobs using other people's account credentials; that's the TOS violation. Your lawyer will explain this to you.

Re: Ask HN: Doing $16k MRR. How do I deal with cease and desist?

#14

Post by hgezim »

philsquared_ wrote: post #12

A c&d is a nice way of asking you to shutdown before they sue you. Most companies will not bother unless they think they have a case against you. Your choices are shut down or stay up and hire a lawyer to defend you in the coming case against you. Even if they do not have a strong case you will end up being in court a while. Keep in mind you have a source of income now but what may happen is they sue you then release…

Now this is what I’m here for!

Thanks so much for taking the time to write this

Yeah if they do release an API I’m totally done. I honestly thought I’d have 3-6 months before they did but that’s not the case.

Do you see a world where I might be able to reconcile and have a positive outcome?

Re: Ask HN: Doing $16k MRR. How do I deal with cease and desist?

#15

Post by ahazred8ta »

hgezim wrote: post #7
letsSpy wrote: post #5

I don't think that you can force a private company to provide you services... wish I am wrong.

I’m not forcing them to provide me a service at all. I’m not using their service. My customers happen to also be their customers.

> I’m not using their service.

You're not scraping Mj results generated with other people's credentials? You're going to have fun convincing a judge of that.

Re: Ask HN: Doing $16k MRR. How do I deal with cease and desist?

#16

Post by hgezim »

ahazred8ta wrote: post #13
hgezim wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was really hoping to build out an amazing API product and when time came where they want to release one it would make more sense to acquire us. Alas.

Being a wise and thoughtful business owner, you already ran this concept by your own corporate attorney to get a written legal opinion before circumventing their TOS, right? ... No?? IMHO, stop calling yourself a Midjourney API of any kind and stop providing a service that uses Midjourney as a backend. You are not authorized to run Midjourney jobs using other people's account credentials; that's the TOS violation. Yo…

Yup, sure did. Just like I check with HR when I pass notes to my self on Slack where I'm the only member

Re: Ask HN: Doing $16k MRR. How do I deal with cease and desist?

#17

Post by racional »

We're not in violation of the ToS

Yes you are, by your own admission just a few lines above, and a quick glance at the ToS itself. Your "intent" doesn't matter. By using the service, you must comply with the ToS, full stop (unless it is clearly void by existing law, which as your lawyers will immediately tell you if you choose to waste money on them, it isn't in this case).

Re: Ask HN: Doing $16k MRR. How do I deal with cease and desist?

#18

Post by xenospn »

hgezim wrote: post #14
philsquared_ wrote: post #12

A c&d is a nice way of asking you to shutdown before they sue you. Most companies will not bother unless they think they have a case against you. Your choices are shut down or stay up and hire a lawyer to defend you in the coming case against you. Even if they do not have a strong case you will end up being in court a while. Keep in mind you have a source of income now but what may happen is they sue you then release…

Now this is what I’m here for! Thanks so much for taking the time to write this Yeah if they do release an API I’m totally done. I honestly thought I’d have 3-6 months before they did but that’s not the case. Do you see a world where I might be able to reconcile and have a positive outcome?

Yes. Build your own midjourney and provide api access to it.

Re: Ask HN: Doing $16k MRR. How do I deal with cease and desist?

#19

Post by toldyouso2022 »

From what I gathered from your service description it doesn't make sense to me that yu provide a service and they try to sue you If anything they should sue, aka block, the accounts of your users. It's them that are violating the tos, not you. It's weird replies on hn have been so cold towards you, if you want the internet defense force coming to your rescue I think you have to explain better why you are not violating the tos (reasonable tos). Your service is no different from youtube-dl and many other services from what I understand, right?

Also layout of your post is screwed up on mobile, I yhink it made you lost attention from mobile users which are many I guess

Re: Ask HN: Doing $16k MRR. How do I deal with cease and desist?

#20

Post by hgezim »

toldyouso2022 wrote: post #19

From what I gathered from your service description it doesn't make sense to me that yu provide a service and they try to sue you If anything they should sue, aka block, the accounts of your users. It's them that are violating the tos, not you. It's weird replies on hn have been so cold towards you, if you want the internet defense force coming to your rescue I think you have to explain better why you are not violatin…

Oh interesting. And yes YouTube-dl is a good comparison.

To be clear, I’ve had a few accounts on Midjourney used mostly for testing and demo purposes. At the moment I don’t have any Midjourney account hence TOS violation doesn’t apply.

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