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Otonomo, with nearly $55M in funding, is cloning our product

smartcar.com

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Re: Otonomo, with nearly $55M in funding, is cloning our product

#21

Post by lifeisstillgood »

This may be a silver lining - a competitor has shown that the work you have done, exactly the work you have done is worth 55 million in VC funding.

There are enough people on here who can point you in the right direction, or arrange introductions.

Spend at least one of those millions on PR and lawyers to ensure it's clear who has the moral high ground, and who should be hired if a company has to choose between you - I mean if they are prepared to breach copyright so blatantly here, who knows what other problems they have in their repos - enterprises can be very conservatice on unknown legal risks like that

Summary: They are vulnerable - Get 'em

Re: Otonomo, with nearly $55M in funding, is cloning our product

#22

Post by dangus »

ForHackernews wrote: post #7

I thought we all decided APIs shouldn't/couldn't be copyrighted because that was evil when Oracle and Microsoft tried to do it? I guess literally copy-pasting the docs is a flagrant violation, but it seems like that's the least of their problems. Presumably BigCorp will now get a cleanroom team to re-document the re-implemented API.

I don't know that "we" decided that at all, and I don't think that "we" were ever naive enough to assume that it's okay to copy Oracle or Microsoft's documentation or code just because they're big and "we" don't like them.

This appears to be a lawyer's dream case and I wouldn't be surprised that, if this case makes it to court, discovery finds some actual stolen code. If this company ever poached employees they'd better be very, very careful.

IBM "bluewashes" their terminology and vocabulary for this same reason. They can easily catch someone else using IBM-specific language, and they'll often call very common things by unique and very different names compared to other companies. This can also help cover for any perceived issues with employees bringing over ideas from their previous company.

Re: Otonomo, with nearly $55M in funding, is cloning our product

#25

Post by ryanisnan »

devoply wrote: post #11
save_ferris wrote: post #9

There are zero material consequences for a well-funded startup to pull shenanigans like this. Why should we be surprised this is happening?

Yes except if you are a well funded startup and look like amateurs that copy things verbatim that does not bode well for your reputation going forward. Someone needs to get fired for copying shit verbatim.

A small number of developers are going to see this, unfortunately, and the ding to their reputation will be marginal.

I don't know what legal recourse smartcar has, but I would think it is time to seek that advice.

Re: Otonomo, with nearly $55M in funding, is cloning our product

#27

Post by bob33212 »

I expected this to be a " I had the idea first" post. But it is actually a copyright infringement post AND makes the offending company look like a bunch of hacks.

If they don't have the engineering chops to build an API how are going to handle the ops of it.

Re: Otonomo, with nearly $55M in funding, is cloning our product

#28

Post by dangus »

amingilani wrote: post #20
ForHackernews wrote: post #7

I thought we all decided APIs shouldn't/couldn't be copyrighted because that was evil when Oracle and Microsoft tried to do it? I guess literally copy-pasting the docs is a flagrant violation, but it seems like that's the least of their problems. Presumably BigCorp will now get a cleanroom team to re-document the re-implemented API.

Came to say just this. They say "illegally cloning our product", but I see nothing illegal so far and I'd love to be corrected. I doubt it is so, but even if those tokens pass the threshold of originality[0], does a few blobs of superficial text justify a lawsuit? Things would be dramatically different if they'd copied source code, but so far, it's just documentation. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threshold_of_o…

Directly copying a document is simple copyright infringement. Just because it's documentation doesn't mean everyone has a free license to copy and redistribute it.

Whether or not any violations occurred in copying code probably depends on whether any employees with company secrets were poached and involved in development. That's a very big, well known no-no amongst tech companies. It's why Compaq had a complete "clean room" to reverse engineer the IBM PC.

Re: Otonomo, with nearly $55M in funding, is cloning our product

#29

Post by brootstrap »

didibus wrote: post #16
ForHackernews wrote: post #7

I thought we all decided APIs shouldn't/couldn't be copyrighted because that was evil when Oracle and Microsoft tried to do it? I guess literally copy-pasting the docs is a flagrant violation, but it seems like that's the least of their problems. Presumably BigCorp will now get a cleanroom team to re-document the re-implemented API.

Ya, I find it even more interesting that they copied the Smartcars API. In theory, if you copy an API, you also copy its semantics. The docs for it are supposed to be interchangeable. Its touchy. For example, wouldn't most people rely and use the Java doc even for Android? Now obviously, redistributing a copyrighted doc on their own website without permission is something else. Cause I'm guessing docs are copyrightab…

Good opinions here. I worked at very early stage startup, and our huge competitors with 1 billion worth of funding were stealing our shit from day 1. Thankfully, we didnt spec out a nice API and all that shit because we were in startup mode. That makes it a bit harder to copy things our stuff because it was a huge pile of undocumented software and data.

I think that is just life in tech now. You put out a 'feature' in your app that is new and cool. Two weeks later the same feature shows up in your competitors app.

In our case, always better to be ahead of the curve. You've got a small team with 20 folks who are putting pressure on the 100 person teams at these giant companies.

Re: Otonomo, with nearly $55M in funding, is cloning our product

#30

Post by kirillzubovsky »

devoply wrote: post #11
save_ferris wrote: post #9

There are zero material consequences for a well-funded startup to pull shenanigans like this. Why should we be surprised this is happening?

Yes except if you are a well funded startup and look like amateurs that copy things verbatim that does not bode well for your reputation going forward. Someone needs to get fired for copying shit verbatim.

Unfortunately for the little guy it's the winner take all market. If the well-funded company wins at the end, no one would even remember the other one existed. Is it ethical? Depends on your ethical stands. Happens all the time.
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