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Filed: WP Engine Inc. v Automattic Inc. and Matthew Charles Mullenweg [pdf]

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Re: Filed: WP Engine Inc. v Automattic Inc. and Matthew Charles Mullenweg [pdf]

#531

Post by DannyBee »

duskwuff wrote: post #146
DannyBee wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Err, no. That statutory exemption was created to resolve one court case and one worry: 1. A holding that you can commit infringement simply by loading a program into memory even for maintenance purposes. This was MAI v. Peak, one of the earliest real court cases on software copyright infringement. It was unfortunately followed by lots of courts. 2. A worry that creating tape backups/etc of computers, and copies of so…

WRT #2, note that the relevant section of 17 USC §117 was written in 1980 - at the time, most software was distributed on media like floppy discs or tape which could easily be accidentally overwritten or damaged by faulty equipment. Creating personal backups of purchased software was already standard practice for many users; I think it's this sort of usage that the law was primarily meant to protect. Later applicatio…

Oh, yes, you are right. I misread the dates. I knew it was not because of a case, that the worry was around archival copies of software, and that (to this day) nobody had actually ever been sued over making a backup (as far as anyone knows). I should have dug a little deeper back into the history.

Re: Filed: WP Engine Inc. v Automattic Inc. and Matthew Charles Mullenweg [pdf]

#532

Post by mandibles »

notamy wrote: post #109
photomatt wrote: post #57

Howdy, Matthew Charles Mullenweg from the lawsuit here. One thing I'm surprised they disclosed is on page 35 that Heather Brunner at WP Engine was interviewing for a job at Automattic. That's why we were spending so much time together 1:1 without her team there in the meetings I posted here: https://automattic.com/2024/10/01/wpe-terms/ They lied that it was to run WordPress.com, though, she wanted to be the Executive…

I am stunned that you're still posting publicly and aggressively about all of this. How have your lawyers okayed any of this?

Now we're all part of the discovery :tada:

Re: Filed: WP Engine Inc. v Automattic Inc. and Matthew Charles Mullenweg [pdf]

#533

Post by DannyBee »

jcranmer wrote: post #238
DannyBee wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of these, the ones that are interesting are basically 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 10. The CFAA claim here is actually basically an extortion claim (plus other throwaway general claims) framed in CFAA terms. See 18 U.S.C. § 1030(a)(7) This is actually somewhat uncommon to see :) However, it seems likely to be dismissed (without prejudice) or need to be amended since it looks like it doesn't plead the claim properly. "(g)Any person…

A speculation I've heard is that the CFAA is meant to try to get some preliminary injunctive relief.

Yeah, but they won't because they haven't fully pleaded the claim :)

Re: Filed: WP Engine Inc. v Automattic Inc. and Matthew Charles Mullenweg [pdf]

#534

Post by 55555 »

photomatt wrote: post #57

Howdy, Matthew Charles Mullenweg from the lawsuit here. One thing I'm surprised they disclosed is on page 35 that Heather Brunner at WP Engine was interviewing for a job at Automattic. That's why we were spending so much time together 1:1 without her team there in the meetings I posted here: https://automattic.com/2024/10/01/wpe-terms/ They lied that it was to run WordPress.com, though, she wanted to be the Executive…

Hey Matt. This has no relevance to anything but is a fun story I wanted to share. 15-20 years ago I discovered a "UX bug" on default Wordpress installs, which was that all you needed to impersonate someone in a Wordpress comment section was know their email address. I used your guessable email address while writing a comment on the official Wordpress.org blog and it pulled your gravatar etc. Sorry. I was a child at the time. lol

Re: Filed: WP Engine Inc. v Automattic Inc. and Matthew Charles Mullenweg [pdf]

#535

Post by DannyBee »

caseysoftware wrote: post #259
DannyBee wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. The best case scenario here is that Rachel (or one of her associates more likely) takes every single sentence Matt has written here, or anywhere else, tonight, and cross-checks it against every other sentence or fact he's claimed before. Or that his company has claimed. or the foundation has claimed. or .... Then at the deposition, they will then ask a lot of hard, uncomfortable questions about every single in…

Does similar apply to some of the Automattic employees who have been talking everywhere? Is there a point where it could switch from "a bunch of people running their mouths" to "a coordinated harassment campaign against WP Engine and its customers"?

Yes.

Most lawyers in cases like this are not assholes (surprisingly), so they generally won't spend time/energy deposing people who can't produce useful evidence, even if they could.

As a result, you would generally stick to people who have relevant evidence, are capable of legally binding the company (often director or above) or speaking for it (various others), etc.

But - if you need to prove a coordinated campaign, and can't get evidence of it otherwise (emails, chats, etc), sometimes you just got to depose a lot of people.

Usually the path of least resistance is taken, however, and electronic evidence is often sufficient enough these days to not end up having to depose lots of employees. Judges (magistrate and otherwise) also are pretty careful in ensuring you aren't being malicious (IE just trying to harass employees)

Re: Filed: WP Engine Inc. v Automattic Inc. and Matthew Charles Mullenweg [pdf]

#536

Post by [deleted] »

wise_young_man wrote: post #322
photomatt wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes this is part of their smear campaign, just like their last C&D. They're cherry-picking stuff to try and make me look bad, while not addressing the core issue of their trademark violations. They want me to stop telling their customers about their bad behavior.

How can you use the trademark defense after over a decade of non enforcement? They and others in the space are highly likely covered under fair use.

[deleted]

Re: Filed: WP Engine Inc. v Automattic Inc. and Matthew Charles Mullenweg [pdf]

#537

Post by kemayo »

mort96 wrote: post #461
kemayo wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what Matt's saying is that they absolutely had the GPL rights to fork and modify the code... but those rights don't include the right to use the trademark. So if they wanted to be able to market themselves as offering WooCommerce(TM), they had to agree to the license, in which they'd have to promise not to use the aforementioned GPL rights. I am nowhere near knowing enough about trademark law to say whether t…

But that's not what the legal document says? "Cease and desist from using the trademark" is a different sentence from "cease and decist from forking and modifying code"

I'm not defending his position, or talking about whatever's in the legal documents, I'm just trying to explain the distinction Matt seems to be drawing between the trademark license (and attached terms) and the software license in this thread.

(Personally, I think it's a fairly bullshit distinction that's completely against the spirit of the GPL. It's probably legally allowed, though.)

Re: Filed: WP Engine Inc. v Automattic Inc. and Matthew Charles Mullenweg [pdf]

#538

Post by camgunz »

ceejayoz wrote: post #530
camgunz wrote: post #526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure but which is it: Mullenweg behaves like a mafia boss extracting concessions from anyone trying to build a business on WordPress, or he's unfairly singling out WP Engine? I'm not 100% in the tank for Mullenweg, there's some inconsistencies I find troubling. But WordPress is an incredible, open project. Mullenweg's built an admirable community and business. There are so, so many WordPress hosting sites, and they'r…

> Sure but which is it: Mullenweg behaves like a mafia boss extracting concessions from anyone trying to build a business on WordPress, or he's unfairly singling out WP Engine? Success with the latter potentially encourages the former.

All these WP Engine threads are full of people alleging--either directly or through insinuation like you're doing here--of Mullenweg extorting other WordPress hosts. I've seen no evidence of this though; do you have any?

Re: Filed: WP Engine Inc. v Automattic Inc. and Matthew Charles Mullenweg [pdf]

#539

Post by qingcharles »

re-thc wrote: post #471
netsharc wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sonewhere I saw the great comment regarding Matt: "It's like someone wrote Elon Musk in PHP"...

Even Elon knows when to stop.

No, I don't think he does.

Re: Filed: WP Engine Inc. v Automattic Inc. and Matthew Charles Mullenweg [pdf]

#540

Post by chuckadams »

safety1st wrote: post #357
mike_d wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> make 1.5 million enemies in the WordPress community in one weekend by shutting down their ability to update plugins with zero warning AWS and Digital Ocean run local Ubuntu download servers and do not depend on Canonical to run their business. WPEngine is a hosted service and could make very simple changes to download updates from their own servers.

Sure, but to do that they'd need to know they are about to be cut off, something which they were given zero warning about. Had they known they 100% would have ensured that customers didn't lose service. Matt chose to surprise them. It's a very nuanced thing. The world could be very different today. There would have been very little pushback against Matt's crusade if he'd just thought about making sure service to user…

Even without dragging the wordpress.org infrastructure into the mess, MM's blackmail campaign wouldn't have played well with the community. But it would have blown over as just more #wpdrama, whereas this ... I think we're likely to see the WordPress trademark invalidated. Even if it isn't, this case winning means every last WP host can just line up and cite it, making the trademark as good as generic anyway.
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