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Never take your former employer's code away with you, folks. It's like leaving a deliberate trail of blood in the water: the sharks will follow it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If they have the resources to bleed you in litigation, would they not have the resources to care little about bad PR?
Depends on the company. PR is a proportional thing. If the CEO of a company is caught on video killing kittens that can kill 50% of a $100,000,000 company or 50% of $1,000,000 company. Public relations / branding is proportional in that way. Money on the other hand is slightly more constant, so in the two cases above it might be a 2 million dollar hit to each. A possible gamble to the 100 million dollar company but n…
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Earlier quoted context omitted.
One of the best ways to discourage bad behavior is to shine a light on it, which is why we're publishing our story. The risk here isn't that your former employer actually has a right to your company under the scenarios you listed. It's that if they have the resources, they can bleed you in litigation before your case is ever adjudicated. It's like a form of patent trolling, they're using the process to achieve an end…
If they have the resources to bleed you in litigation, would they not have the resources to care little about bad PR?
I don't think the last line in particular does Shred any favors. ("Turn this offer down, and you will reveal yourselves as anti-innovation bullies, using your wealth to harass a young startup with litigation just because you can.") They might be, but they might also have good reason not to agree that a code audit is an unambiguous, standalone, infallible process. This is setting up a, "When did you stop beating your dog?" kind of question.
Business Insider makes an interesting claim about the boss's public statements on litigation... http://uk.businessinsider.com/smule-ceo-shred-video-lawsuit-...
Wow, if an employer said that to me, I'd start sending out CVs/resumes that night. Last thing you want as an employee is to worry that your employer is going to sue you at some point down the line if you leave... I'd go work for some other large company initially, so that if I ever did want to start a startup I am somewhat insulated from that insanity.
I am sad to say I was a Smule customer, having downloaded and played Magic Piano. I also purchased quite a few songs inside the app. It is/was a great app. Not anymore. I've deleted Magic Piano and I'll never again be downloading, purchasing or contributing to in any way Smule or Jeff Smith's companies or products.
I'm glad shit like this is rare enough (in silicon valley, at least) to be worthy of a post.
Rookie mistake Mark. Clean break, and go do your thing.
Good luck but you need to understand where you made your mistake before launching this whole David vs Goliath story.
But pick apart Shred's note, and really it's an emotional appeal based on two ideas:
1. That the sole test of stealing ideas is source code that has been copied verbatim.
2. That the only possible secrets of Smule are features implemented in released products.
These are pretty weak legs to stand on. They're actually preposterous.
Lawyers will tell you that it's really hard to prove theft in court without a smoking gun like "stolen source code", and the chances are, if they've stolen ideas in other ways, they will probably get away with it.
Almost certainly, Shred's lawyers are playing a key strategy role in this PR campaign.
So my advice is to be wary of emotional appeals from either side of litigation. We don't know what happened, and we learn less than we think from these notes.
ps. Yes I read the remarks in Business Insider too. I'm not advocating that Smule is the innocent party here. Most likely this is some bullshit pissing contest with 0 innocent parties.