Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How to deal with receiving a cease-and-desist letter from Big Tech

12challenges.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 209 posts

Re: How to deal with receiving a cease-and-desist letter from Big Tech

#131

Post by ncallaway »

KieranMac wrote: post #84
ncallaway wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d start by asking people around you if they know an attorney. Recommendations from people you know will almost always be more valuable than a Google search. If you don’t know anyone that would be in the area of law that you’re looking for, ask for _any_ attorney recommendations, then ask those attorneys for recommendations for people in the area of law you need. If you absolutely cannot find a lawyer through people…

The problem with this advice is that this is a very niche area of law. Unless the people you know have had prior experiences with data-access/web-scraping legal issues, a generalist recommendation is very unlikely to be helpful here.

> If you don’t know anyone that would be in the area of law that you’re looking for, ask for _any_ attorney recommendations, then ask those attorneys for recommendations for people in the area of law you need.

Attorneys know attorneys. I’d still recommend starting with your network, then asking those attorneys who they would recommend for the services you need. Or ask them if they know anyone that might be able to refer you.

Re: How to deal with receiving a cease-and-desist letter from Big Tech

#132

Post by mthoms »

KieranMac wrote: post #69

As an attorney who has experience responding to Meta’s “anti-scraping team,” I think there might be more opportunities for amicable resolutions than you might expect (depending on the specifics of what you’re doing, of course). Meta is not oblivious to the fact that they’re under significant social and regulatory scrutiny. They sometimes play nice if you’re willing to accommodate certain considerations. Either way, m…

Is there existing case law around browser extensions that only alter the presentation of a web page on the client machine? You know, things like adblockers or extensions that alter a specific site?

Re: How to deal with receiving a cease-and-desist letter from Big Tech

#133

Post by EdwardDiego »

hnthrowaway0328 wrote: post #49
stephenhuey wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before we sold our fintech SaaS startup in 2015, we received a C&D from Dealogic and I thought, wow, we've made it into the big leagues! My adrenaline wore off pretty quickly though, because after our attorney sent them a defiant letter warning their London law firm to not mess with a Texas LLC, we never heard from them again. We were flying below the radar, so we just surmised some Dealogic customer had showed a Dea…

Never heard about Dealogic so I just Googled -- the title of the click says: > Dealogic: A trusted partner to top financial firms worldwide Oh well, I probably don't need to dig deeper to know what it does then.

It's sounds like the EPIC pitch in the EHR sector.

EPIC - because everyone else is using it, and boy it sure is hard for our large company to share data with a competitor's product, be a shame if a patient suffered because of it.

But at least it's only in one market, which meant the Feds could step in. https://www.healthit.gov/topic/information-blocking

Re: How to deal with receiving a cease-and-desist letter from Big Tech

#134

Post by ntqvm »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #116
dheera wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's weird to me that big tech hasn't thought about offering a financial reward with C&D's. "We will pay you $10000 if you C&D" seems like pennies to them, much less than the cost of legal fees, a nice amount of cash for a personal project that hasn't monetized yet. Or a job "We will give you a job offer to work on X if you C&D your own work on X" also seems like a great strategy. If someone has already demonstrated…

> Or a job. "We will give you a job offer to work on X if you C&D your own work on X I'm honestly surprised this doesn't happen more in the gaming industry with companies buying big name mods and hiring the mod writers. I know a lot of mod writers would probably be opposed because they actually just want to make free stuff, but some would probably launch careers off of it.

This exact situation happened with Roblox - they shut down then hired the biggest cheat developers for their game. Kinda funny.

Re: How to deal with receiving a cease-and-desist letter from Big Tech

#135

Post by [deleted] »

denton-scratch wrote: post #125
codingdave wrote: post #37

One thing to be aware of is that letters are not guarantees that they will follow up or take you to court. Especially if they have a weak case - it is just as likely to be a bluff, hoping you'll just stop because they are big and you are small. Ask an attorney to know for sure, but if they have no case and are just being bullies, don't cave in.

> don't cave in That's dangerous advice, if you have anything to lose, and the C&D isn't obviously complete nonsense. Your adversary's lawyer may have causes of action that he chooses not to disclose just now.

[deleted]

Re: How to deal with receiving a cease-and-desist letter from Big Tech

#136

Post by KieranMac »

SoftTalker wrote: post #130
wharvle wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always feel like there's a whole rule-book of "how to Do Life" that I didn't get, for this easing-into-the-upper-middle-class and/or doing-serious-business-stuff shit, that other people just know , because of who their families are and who they grew up hanging out with. I gather the version of that I did get was the middle-class version—which some others didn't get and have a similar "wait, that's just normal ?" re…

Yep I'm with you, I am absolutely loathe to hire anyone to do something I could do myself. I've done major home repairs, painting, flooring, kitchen and bath remodels, I do almost all my own auto repairs and maintenance, I do my own laundry, I clean my own house, I cut my own grass. I have neighbors who just pay for someone to do all that without a second thought.

There are certain tasks that you would never do yourself, such as surgery. And there are certain tasks like changing your oil where anyone with patience and diligence can do it themselves. It's just a question of whether you want to spend the time to learn it and do it.

Responding to a C&D letter from a Fortune 50 company, I would posit, is more like performing surgery than changing your oil. The cost of being wrong is rather high.

Re: How to deal with receiving a cease-and-desist letter from Big Tech

#137

Post by hodgesrm »

phendrenad2 wrote: post #103
hodgesrm wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

How do you know?

Signed a legal document in support of an open source initiative against patents that had a section that was confusing and hard to understand. I remember thinking it was probably no big deal and anyway the document was for a good cause.

A couple years later that section had legal consequences almost derailed a major transaction involving our company. We could have avoided the whole thing by checking with our lawyer first. Moral of the story: never sign any legal document you don't understand.

Re: How to deal with receiving a cease-and-desist letter from Big Tech

#138

Post by [deleted] »

User23 wrote: post #35
mvkel wrote: post #12

Cease and desist letters are cold emails. It can scary to receive one, but once you unwind what the accusing party has to gain from it, you realize it has as much teeth as a tweet.

They can perhaps be used to establish willful infringement if it ever does go to court.

[deleted]

Re: How to deal with receiving a cease-and-desist letter from Big Tech

#139

Post by rxvium »

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #36

It's sad that most people are less "legally literate" than they are "scientifically literate", when the former affects them more often throughout life. Schools should teach kids how to not get screwed over with the law. Tenants' rights in particular is very important and almost nobody I know understands them, or how brazenly landlords/management companies will rip you off if you let them.

Yes and no. I think it's important to make everyone aware of their basic rights, but also make it known that they are NOT legal experts by any means, and that it's a extremely complicated field.

There's a reason why it takes several years of education and testing to become an attorney.

Re: How to deal with receiving a cease-and-desist letter from Big Tech

#140

Post by bluefirebrand »

ntqvm wrote: post #134
bluefirebrand wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Or a job. "We will give you a job offer to work on X if you C&D your own work on X I'm honestly surprised this doesn't happen more in the gaming industry with companies buying big name mods and hiring the mod writers. I know a lot of mod writers would probably be opposed because they actually just want to make free stuff, but some would probably launch careers off of it.

This exact situation happened with Roblox - they shut down then hired the biggest cheat developers for their game. Kinda funny.

Yeah, there are examples of it happening here and there. That's part of why I'm surprised it doesn't happen more. It seems like an easy avenue to hire talented and passionate people who want to work on your thing.
Post reply on HN