Do not enter your real name anywhere and you will sleep way better.
Or imitate you live in Russia or other shielded country.
How to deal with receiving a cease-and-desist letter from Big Tech
71–80 of 209 posts
Re: How to deal with receiving a cease-and-desist letter from Big Tech
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm going to avoid the snarky "hire an attorney" answer but once you get past that necessary first step I do have a few tips: * get comfortable reading legal documents, this will allow you to have more intelligent conversations with your attorney * don't let your attorney make your business decisions, one of their jobs is to point out risks, one of your jobs (owner/ceo/leadership) is to figure out how to mitigate ris…
Okay, since you failed to avoid the snarky "hire an attorney" thing, I'm going to ask: how much would it reasonably cost to hire an attorney for advice on this? Assuming the contacting lawyer is on shaky ground. No "it depends" please, a ballpark. Maybe it's cheaper to have one on retainer. How much per month, if like a normal citizen your only daily legal risks are random megacorporations threatening you? Should eve…
> Should everyone in the US have a lawyer on call?
I had a coworker at a previous job who often talked about "her family's attorney." I'm like, families have attorneys? I don't think I've talked to a lawyer once in my life.
Re: How to deal with receiving a cease-and-desist letter from Big Tech
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even acknowledging receipt gives them a lot of power. Remember that they probably have a list of hundreds or thousands of C&D's to send, and if you don't respond they would probably need to file a john doe lawsuit to get your identity from your ISP, and it's unlikely that all that effort is worth it to them.
It would be funny if legal teams at huge companies have OKRs and evaluations. “You hit your target of 250 C&Ds this quarter great work”. Justifying your paycheck is scarier when thinking about the legal dept.
Do you know they don't? Otherwise I would assume they have dumb incentives like that. In my previous company the legal team measured the number of "takedowns" of countefeit merch etc. as a key number. I assume this helped to hurt their effort to prevent counterfeit in the first place.
Re: How to deal with receiving a cease-and-desist letter from Big Tech
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
Okay, since you failed to avoid the snarky "hire an attorney" thing, I'm going to ask: how much would it reasonably cost to hire an attorney for advice on this? Assuming the contacting lawyer is on shaky ground. No "it depends" please, a ballpark. Maybe it's cheaper to have one on retainer. How much per month, if like a normal citizen your only daily legal risks are random megacorporations threatening you? Should eve…
> Should everyone in the US have a lawyer on call? I had a coworker at a previous job who often talked about "her family's attorney." I'm like, families have attorneys? I don't think I've talked to a lawyer once in my life.
I would guess later in life when your insurance agent or tax prep person find out you didn't fill out a will yet and introduces you or encourages you to have an attorney write one with you. Now your family has an attorney! That or going through a family estate.
Re: How to deal with receiving a cease-and-desist letter from Big Tech
#75> Make sure nothing critical in your life relies on using the platform. It shouldn’t be your primary means of contacting any important people in your life,
I don't do anything that could even be perceived as antagonistic towards Facebook. But I imagine it's something I could do. I don't have a Facebook account so I don't care if I get banned. But I do use WhatsApp. I could live just fine without it. but would/could a ban include a ban from Whatsapp? I guess I naively assume they don't know enough from my WhatsApp usage to link it to my identity. But of course a phone number is as close unique identity as they come.
Re: How to deal with receiving a cease-and-desist letter from Big Tech
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's the proper course of action if you don't have an attorney?
I'm going to avoid the snarky "hire an attorney" answer but once you get past that necessary first step I do have a few tips: * get comfortable reading legal documents, this will allow you to have more intelligent conversations with your attorney * don't let your attorney make your business decisions, one of their jobs is to point out risks, one of your jobs (owner/ceo/leadership) is to figure out how to mitigate ris…
> * get comfortable reading legal documents, this will allow you to have more
intelligent conversations with your attorney
Another tip. Hire an attorney who will teach you how to do this effectively. A simple rule of thumb is to consult with an attorney when you don't understand something. A good attorney will walk you through the issue, explain the possible ramifications, and (most importantly!) show you the standard response(s). Next time you can do it yourself. Also, you'll ask more focused questions the next time a novel issue pops up on that topic. That also saves money.
In summary, think of your attorney as a mentor not a robot to provide legal advice.
Re: How to deal with receiving a cease-and-desist letter from Big Tech
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
They're usually more boring than you might realize. For example, if your new business's trademark is similar to an established company's.
Yes. Most of the C&Ds I've received have been mundane. My favorite one was over a set of game rules that I wrote that were very vaguely similar to a board game that was on the market. That one was so ridiculous that I didn't consult my attorney at all about it. I just told the company to sue me. I never heard from them again.
Mine was where a customer who had signed a contract with ${company} to make and distribute an app, sent a C&D to stop distributing the app.
Not even sure how that happened. New lawyer? Lost paperwork?
Re: How to deal with receiving a cease-and-desist letter from Big Tech
#78Given the acknowledgement that cease-and-desist letters from Big Tech may be for the purpose of bullying, false, and fully unenforceable, I'm disappointed that the possibility of referring the sender to 'Arkell v. Pressdram' [0] didn't even get mentioned. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_Eye#Libel_cases
Love it - will add a section with more innovative approaches like this e.g. was just chatting with a fellow cease-and-desist receiver, Mohammed Shah, who finds comfort in using a different misspelling for the name of the lawyer harassing him, every time he replies Great for morale
Private Eye also does this, and not only in legal correspondence.
> The magazine often deliberately misspells the names of certain organisations, such as "Crapita" for the outsourcing company Capita, "Carter-Fuck" for the law firm Carter-Ruck, and "The Grauniad" for The Guardian (the latter a reference to the newspaper's frequent typos in its days as The Manchester Guardian). Certain individuals may be referred to by another name, for example, Piers Morgan as "Piers Moron", Richard Branson as "Beardie", Rupert Murdoch as the "Dirty Digger", and Queen Elizabeth II and King Charles III as "Brenda" and "Brian", respectively.[0]
Re: How to deal with receiving a cease-and-desist letter from Big Tech
#79I remember 15 years ago or so someone wrote a pluging for me-tunes that was downloading the lyrics of your mp3 by scraping internet. It was brillant (now standard in placetify). Afew months later he receive a C&D from the fruit people. How sad the big tech can get away with this.
Re: How to deal with receiving a cease-and-desist letter from Big Tech
#80The premise of this article is that you somehow have to respond to it which is nuts. If the letter is ridiculous (e.g. citing terms of service you did not sign) then you're better off to ignore it and not waste money on legal fees. Also everyone who suggests getting a lawyer has probably not had to hire one in the past. With very few exceptions they will tell you it "depends" and maybe give you a few legal terms you…
If you have not received a C&D before then the reason to consult with an attorney is to evaluate the risk. A lot of legal trouble arises from assuming you understand something when you actually don't. (Ask me how I know.)