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

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

#141

Post by gnicholas »

jacquesm wrote: post #124
gnicholas wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for clarifying! I'm still confused as to why a vendor would check on a customer or care if they're infringing. I sell a SaaS reading product and don't care what my customers are using it to read, or whether their own websites our products contain any infringing content.

> I sell a SaaS reading product and don't care what my customers are using it to read, or whether their own websites our products contain any infringing content. What they are using your product for might very well turn into 'aiding and abetting', make sure your TOS is up to snuff and that you have it checked over by a lawyer to verify that if your customers do something illegal with your service you don't end up bei…

I'm not sure I follow (and I'm a lawyer). If someone uses my chrome extension to research how to rob a bank, and then they go do it, what is the legal theory that puts me at risk? Is Google at risk because they're using chrome? Or the computer manufacturer?

Napster is one end of the spectrum, but I'm not sure how anything short of that is a legal risk. Are there cases or legal theories I'm unaware of?

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

#143

Post by rat9988 »

seibelj wrote: post #54

So they built a new product to a competitor's API spec? There is nothing wrong with that, the API itself is a plug - you need to implement the backend to compete. It is super lame and dumb to have ripped off their doc, but the API format itself is not an issue to me. If I were going to implement a competitor to Google Maps, it would make sense to copy the Maps API so people can migrate seamlessly. That is the nature…

Api design is part of the value.

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

#144

Post by jacquesm »

gota wrote: post #130
jacquesm wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Otonomo management will have an even worse day when they realize that they are not indemnified just because someone works for them. They will likely have to kiss a substantial portion of that money goodbye as compensation in whatever settlement will be reached. Their lawyers will not be able to win this one from what I've read and seen so far so the best they will be able to achieve is to settle before it gets to cou…

It would be (morbidly? Sadochistically? I lack the term) interesting to watch how many people jump ship in a situation like this.

Once upon a time a group called 'CitizenX' copied the Camarades.com website and software and gave us the proverbial finger because 'they were in the US and we were in Europe and what were we going to do about it?'.

Turns out not everybody working there agreed with the tactic and the day they raised money I got a very nicely worded anonymous email with the name of the investor. The ink on the press release was still wet when I mailed the VC for their legal contact because we were still well within the statue of limitations and now they could actually pay up.

The only message I got back was 'we will not be investing'.

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

#145

Post by phkahler »

seibelj wrote: post #54

So they built a new product to a competitor's API spec? There is nothing wrong with that, the API itself is a plug - you need to implement the backend to compete. It is super lame and dumb to have ripped off their doc, but the API format itself is not an issue to me. If I were going to implement a competitor to Google Maps, it would make sense to copy the Maps API so people can migrate seamlessly. That is the nature…

I agree with you completely, but Oracle vs Google is still going through the courts on this exact issue - copyright on APIs. I've seen product roll-outs delayed because that case isn't settled yet. For VCs to jump in knowing that's what this was seems risky, but maybe they factored that in.

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

#146

Post by danielvinson »

dawnerd wrote: post #94
tijs wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The documentation only has a screenshot of the brands supported. Would be nice to just be able to lookup my car brand and make support in the docs instead of having to make an Auth flow first...

Yeah... I went to their homepage and still had no idea what cars they supported, what features the car needed, etc. From my understanding though they're just a wrapper API around the car manufactures existing apis?

> From my understanding though they're just a wrapper API around the car manufactures existing apis?

Yep, think EasyPost for car functions

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

#147

Post by dangus »

amingilani wrote: post #99
dangus wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 "clea…

The screenshots in the article don't show a direct copy. They show copied tokens only.

Direct copied text in Request Access Token section

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

#148

Post by jacquesm »

leesalminen wrote: post #135
jacquesm wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We do technical due diligence, because at the VCs this specialty is usually not present.

I’ve been through a technical due diligence for an acquisition and the process was severely lacking. In total it took ~8 hours (compared to ~80 for financial diligence). It felt like a once-over smoke test to eek out any major red flags. I almost wish you had done my technical diligence, Jacques. I spent a week preparing for it and was very proud of what I’d built.

We get that a lot actually. We do quite a few 'B' and later rounds (43 deals last year!) and apparently we're the hardest exam to pass for, but the people we work with are generally really happy that they finally get to show off all their hard work to people who really appreciate what they've done.

It's five of us for a week with a super intensive interview on the Wednesday and it is always the highlight of the week for me. What is also neat is that most of these turn into very long term relationships post deal, not necessarily financial ones, just that the interview day makes the whole thing a two-way street where the tech team will occasionally reach out when they are stumped on some problem or need outsider perspective.

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

#149

Post by ohaideredevs »

This almost scares me away from even trying to start a business - I have no idea how to compete if someone with more money tries to steal it. It seems the solutions are: 1. Do some accelerator to get connections and money. 2. Just do it and hope you don't get stomped.

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

#150

Post by phkahler »

injidup wrote: post #142

When Google clones the java API's the tone here is that API's are not protected and Oracle are evil gold diggers. Now an Israeli startup copies API's from another startup and the tone here is completely the opposite. What's up?

The tone of the post is that way. The comments here suggest quite the opposite.
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