MailChimp threatens legal action against an open source side project • Hacker News Board

Re: MailChimp threatens legal action against an open source side project

#21

Post by coverband » Tue, Jul 23, 2013, 2:00 AM UTC

jrochkind1 wrote: post #3

Regardless of who is in the right, their letter was more professional and polite than this OP response. The author is mistaken to think this is a pushy or aggressive letter, compared to an actual pushy or aggressive legal letter. PS: In the U.S. (if not the rest of the English speaking world?), if you want to use an honorific for a woman but don't know which she uses, always use "Ms.", never ever "Miss." "Miss" impli…

Absolutely... This was the nicest lawyer's letter that I have ever seen, making sure not to slight the recipient, explaining their reasoning in clear terms and trying to be fair all around. If I ever need their type of services, I'll be choosing MailChimp.

Re: MailChimp threatens legal action against an open source side project

#22

Post by narrowingorbits » Tue, Jul 23, 2013, 2:01 AM UTC

OP is on flaky legal ground reproducing and distributing other's designs without permission as it is; but then to suggest that MailChimp is in the wrong, simply for, in a very polite, even friendly, letter, acknowledging their brand and their legitimate copyright, and asking OP to play fair...wow.

Also, he wanted someone from MailChimp's design or development team to reach out to him? Really? Maybe they're busy, you know, designing and developing things! This is not a design or development issue. They have legal council to worry about copyright and brand dilution issues.

Re: MailChimp threatens legal action against an open source side project

#23

Post by inselkampf » Tue, Jul 23, 2013, 2:01 AM UTC

lukechesser wrote: post #16

jrochkind1 wrote: post #3

Regardless of who is in the right, their letter was more professional and polite than this OP response. The author is mistaken to think this is a pushy or aggressive letter, compared to an actual pushy or aggressive legal letter. PS: In the U.S. (if not the rest of the English speaking world?), if you want to use an honorific for a woman but don't know which she uses, always use "Ms.", never ever "Miss." "Miss" impli…

Arguing on HN is probably a moot point, but I'll try anyways. Don't get me wrong, I'm aware they could have gone about this in a much more aggressive way. But to go through their lawyers right away was a much more aggressive response than what I would have expected from MailChimp. I guess that's the totally correct legal response, but why not just send me a quick message?

Once its come to their attention, no manager/director is going to go to one of their dev's or designers and say "Hey, go ask person x to take that down...".

If this situation escalated it could look sloppy on their part if they didn't handle it properly with the correct resources from the beginning.

There is no reason why this issue at hand can't be handled in a professional manner - in this case by an actual lawyer.

I've received a number of C&D and this to me is by far the most level-headed and polite that I've seen in a long time.

Just because you didn't expect a response form a lawyer doesn't mean its "aggressive" by default.

Re: MailChimp threatens legal action against an open source side project

#24

Post by lukechesser » Tue, Jul 23, 2013, 2:01 AM UTC

nwh wrote: post #4

The letter from MailChimp seems completely fair. Publishing PSDs of someone else's website—regardless of who made the PSD—is a dick move. Doubly so given that the authors resources contain the original companies branding and image resources ripped right from the original pages.

Legally, I completely agree, they're allowed to. But by that same token, hundreds of PSDs are posted on Dribbble every day. As Allan, the designer for Designer News and Layervault, said when I asked him if he wanted me to take the resources down, he said 'Why? It's wonderful'. Same thing from Heroku. I'm not saying that MailChimp isn't allowed to have the resources taken down. I never presented them as anything other than a learning resource — something that is extremely common in design.

Re: MailChimp threatens legal action against an open source side project

#25

Post by subpixel » Tue, Jul 23, 2013, 2:05 AM UTC

lukechesser wrote: post #24

nwh wrote: post #4

The letter from MailChimp seems completely fair. Publishing PSDs of someone else's website—regardless of who made the PSD—is a dick move. Doubly so given that the authors resources contain the original companies branding and image resources ripped right from the original pages.

Legally, I completely agree, they're allowed to. But by that same token, hundreds of PSDs are posted on Dribbble every day. As Allan, the designer for Designer News and Layervault, said when I asked him if he wanted me to take the resources down, he said 'Why? It's wonderful'. Same thing from Heroku. I'm not saying that MailChimp isn't allowed to have the resources taken down. I never presented them as anything other…

I don't think posting PSDs is a dick move - they're just gussied-up screengrabs as far as I can see. Obviously you can't sell them or misattribute them, etc.

But you need to decide whether you're asking permission or getting offended. I don't think you can have it both ways.

edit: you do misattribute them (e.g. "Facebook Timeline UI by Luke Chesser" https://github.com/lukechesser/Popular-UIs/ )

Re: MailChimp threatens legal action against an open source side project

#26

Post by topherjaynes » Tue, Jul 23, 2013, 2:06 AM UTC

What a great paragraph: clean, logical and completely valid.

"Further, while your intentions appear good, those who download the UI file may not act so altruistically. For example, a nefarious downloader may use the file to set up a fake website to lure unsuspecting users to log in or to try to trade off their own service or product as part of our brand (5). We’ve seen both of these situations happen before, so they aren’t just products of our paranoid imagination."

Re: MailChimp threatens legal action against an open source side project

#27

Post by mintplant » Tue, Jul 23, 2013, 2:08 AM UTC

    Had someone from the MailChimp design or
    development team reached out and asked me
    to take the resource down, I totally would
    have understood.

This is what happened, and yet here we are. You did something they weren't comfortable with. They sent you a friendly, personal letter asking you to please not do that. You responded with an irate blog post and ran to HN for support. Why should anyone be sympathetic?

Re: MailChimp threatens legal action against an open source side project

#28

Post by Karunamon » Tue, Jul 23, 2013, 2:09 AM UTC

rhizome wrote: post #19

citricsquid wrote: post #13

Had someone from the MailChimp design or development team reached out and asked me to take the resource down, I totally would have understood. I greatly admire their work and respect their talents immensely. It's like they teach this in asshole 101. You can tell someone is being unreasonable every time this argument arises, "I'm not upset about the bigger picture, I'm upset about meaningless-detail x!".

It's a tone argument, which is toward the bottom of PG's hierarchy of disagreement, not to mention many other places (e.g. random google hit http://lucereta.wordpress.com/2011/06/30/tone-argument-as-lo... ).

First off, this isn't a debate. Secondly, this completely ignores the use of tone in communication.

People get defensive when it appears they're being attacked. The "if you'd have asked nicely" response is, in my experience, the best response to give to a random being an asshole. Either they'll double down (confirming your suspicions), or they'll realize they came across wrong and rephrase.

Re: MailChimp threatens legal action against an open source side project

#29

Post by nwh » Tue, Jul 23, 2013, 2:10 AM UTC

lukechesser wrote: post #24

nwh wrote: post #4

The letter from MailChimp seems completely fair. Publishing PSDs of someone else's website—regardless of who made the PSD—is a dick move. Doubly so given that the authors resources contain the original companies branding and image resources ripped right from the original pages.

Legally, I completely agree, they're allowed to. But by that same token, hundreds of PSDs are posted on Dribbble every day. As Allan, the designer for Designer News and Layervault, said when I asked him if he wanted me to take the resources down, he said 'Why? It's wonderful'. Same thing from Heroku. I'm not saying that MailChimp isn't allowed to have the resources taken down. I never presented them as anything other…

Every day tens of thousands of pirate TV episodes are posted to Usenet, but that doesn't make it legal.

There's nothing in your little agreements—or lack of one with MailChimp—giving you the right to parade around as if they have harmed you.

Re: MailChimp threatens legal action against an open source side project

#30

Post by etchalon » Tue, Jul 23, 2013, 2:11 AM UTC

I agree with just about everyone here so far.

What the OP has done is take someone else's work, duplicate it, and post it online for free without their consent. Then get all bothered when the company did what companies do, ask their lawyer to sort it out.

And the lawyer sorted it out in the nicest possible goddamn way I've ever seen a lawyer sort something like this out.

That others were OK with it doesn't really matter. That's up to each team, each company, and one saying "OK" doesn't automatically make every other company obligated to say OK.

All that matters is the OP took someone else's hard work, copied it, and posted it online without consent.