Fucking Sue Me (2011) • Hacker News Board

Re: Fucking Sue Me (2011)

#71

Post by niuzeta » Wed, Sep 11, 2013, 2:47 PM UTC

pearjuice wrote: post #56

jasonkester wrote: post #39

There's a simple reason why this works for small businesses: nobody sues a guy with no money. So if you're a sole proprietor scraping by and you piss off a giant company with lawyers enough that they want to file a lawsuit against you, well, what's the upside for them if they win? Tens of thousands of dollars in expenses on their side, and roughly zero dollars in recovered costs from the business they destroyed or th…

Someone with 500k and a few employed certainly has money. This story was sheer luck and is only showing off that.

> "I'm not sure what the lesson is here."

At least the author's frank about it.

Re: Fucking Sue Me (2011)

#72

Post by benihana » Wed, Sep 11, 2013, 2:47 PM UTC

wavefunction wrote: post #19

jacobparker wrote: post #9

Relevant Hark! A Vagrant: http://www.harkavagrant.com/index.php?id=206

I downvoted your post because it only contained a link to a web comic. If you had provided some of your own opinions on the blog post or why the comic was relevant to the blog post, I would have refrained. I like to explain my downvotes when the downvoted post is not an obvious troll.

I downvoted you for being so thick that you can't figure out how the comic was relevant to the discussion and also because you took the time to explain your downvote, like it actually matters.

Re: Fucking Sue Me (2011)

#73

Post by ddeck » Wed, Sep 11, 2013, 2:47 PM UTC

jasonkester wrote: post #39

There's a simple reason why this works for small businesses: nobody sues a guy with no money. So if you're a sole proprietor scraping by and you piss off a giant company with lawyers enough that they want to file a lawsuit against you, well, what's the upside for them if they win? Tens of thousands of dollars in expenses on their side, and roughly zero dollars in recovered costs from the business they destroyed or th…

Generally true, but often the motivation is not revenge or recouping financial loss; it's deterrence.

Examples that come to mind are the MPAA/RIAA suing individuals for copyright infringement and developers for distributing P2P software, Sony suing individuals for modifying game consoles, and although not a civil suit, Goldman Sachs having Sergey Aleynikov criminally charged.

All quite depressing examples unfortunately.

Re: Fucking Sue Me (2011)

#74

Post by r00fus » Wed, Sep 11, 2013, 2:47 PM UTC

ksmiley wrote: post #64

yackob03 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They will also be less likely to attract future contractors.

Playing the devil's advocate here: if contractors self-select themselves out of being hired because they're not sure they can get the job done, then all the better! The remaining applicant pool will be stronger on average.

No the applicant pool will be more bullish. In many cases that might mean weaker (i.e., unable to estimate work effort properly).

Re: Fucking Sue Me (2011)

#75

Post by niuzeta » Wed, Sep 11, 2013, 2:49 PM UTC

ksmiley wrote: post #64

yackob03 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They will also be less likely to attract future contractors.

Playing the devil's advocate here: if contractors self-select themselves out of being hired because they're not sure they can get the job done, then all the better! The remaining applicant pool will be stronger on average.

seconded. I wouldn't even have to quote Machiavelli to say that it's important to show your future contractors(or your peers) what you are capable of, to force them to think twice before arranging anything with you.

Will it reduce the number of incoming contractors? Probably. Will the contractors who'll still chime in be more likely reliable, after considering what they're agreeing with? Very likely.

Re: Fucking Sue Me (2011)

#76

Post by DanBC » Wed, Sep 11, 2013, 2:51 PM UTC

jonnathanson wrote: post #55

JonFish85 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$50k to pick a company name sounds pretty low for most companies. Names are important. Granted I reject the idea that you need to pay some high-falutin' corporation to name it ("Agilent", anyone?), but $50k to do some background searches, patent searches, general lawyer review? Doesn't seem too bad to me.

To clarify: this was $50k prior to the trademark filing process.

If it means that trademark filing goes ahead smoothly without the trademark being contested I guess some people would see that as useful spend of money.

Re: Fucking Sue Me (2011)

#77

Post by EarthLaunch » Wed, Sep 11, 2013, 2:51 PM UTC

benihana wrote: post #70

pearjuice wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone with 500k and a few employed certainly has money. This story was sheer luck and is only showing off that.

I don't think you fully appreciate how expensive it is to go to court.

He knows more about court expenses, than you know about what he knows. Just say "It's expensive to go to court", or better, just don't comment.

Re: Fucking Sue Me (2011)

#78

Post by fr0sty » Wed, Sep 11, 2013, 2:51 PM UTC

pearjuice wrote: post #56

jasonkester wrote: post #39

There's a simple reason why this works for small businesses: nobody sues a guy with no money. So if you're a sole proprietor scraping by and you piss off a giant company with lawyers enough that they want to file a lawsuit against you, well, what's the upside for them if they win? Tens of thousands of dollars in expenses on their side, and roughly zero dollars in recovered costs from the business they destroyed or th…

Someone with 500k and a few employed certainly has money. This story was sheer luck and is only showing off that.

According to the linked story at the time he said "so sue me" he had made ~$32k gross revenue and had no employees.

He made his $400k and hired the employee much later.

Re: Fucking Sue Me (2011)

#79

Post by ganeumann » Wed, Sep 11, 2013, 2:53 PM UTC

jnbiche wrote: post #66

jballanc wrote: post #57

The lesson, or at least the lesson I've learned from dealing with lawyers at companies big and small, is that lawyering is a practice in making sure nothing can possibly go wrong. In a way, lawyers are the QA team for the legal world. They know that the shit hitting the fan can potentially be very expensive, so they will go to extreme lengths to prevent any possibility of that happening. But just like you cannot rely…

>The job of an engineer is to take the cost of materials, the budget, the expected longevity of the bridge, the project schedule, the prevailing environmental and geological conditions of the siting, etc. and balance all of these different variable against each other to arrive at a solution I'm not a lawyer, but I would assume that a good lawyer adopts an analogous process: they take the value of the contract, the pr…

With lawyers, if everything goes perfectly then they just did their job. If anything goes wrong they're entirely blamed for it. Since they are paid by the hour, there is an explicit incentive to spend as much time as possible to make sure everything goes perfectly.

Typical agency problem. It's up to the client to tell the lawyers when they are done.

Now, the very very best lawyers, the ones who have a waiting list of clients, would prefer to spend less time on each contract. They want it done right and done fast so they can move on to the next thing. They fall outside this dynamic. But in any given field of corporate law there are only a handful of these. If you are at a startup, you are not using these lawyers (and don't need to). You need to be able to recognize the point at which your lawyer's comments pass the reasonable risk/reward tradeoff and ask them to put their pencils down and stop work.

Re: Fucking Sue Me (2011)

#80

Post by vitalique » Wed, Sep 11, 2013, 2:53 PM UTC

wavefunction wrote: post #19

jacobparker wrote: post #9

Relevant Hark! A Vagrant: http://www.harkavagrant.com/index.php?id=206

I downvoted your post because it only contained a link to a web comic. If you had provided some of your own opinions on the blog post or why the comic was relevant to the blog post, I would have refrained. I like to explain my downvotes when the downvoted post is not an obvious troll.

Do you also like to deliberately explain (at least to yourself) your upvotes and all the cases when you didn't make your mind or mindfully decided not to upvote or downvote? Not trolling you, I just have really hard time trying to give my vote either way, and usually just move on to next comment or submission.