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

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

#81

Post by Culonavirus »

coldpie wrote: post #72
rendaw wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, since you failed to avoid the snarky "hire an attorney" thing, I'm going to ask: how much would it reasonably cost to hire an attorney for advice on this? Assuming the contacting lawyer is on shaky ground. No "it depends" please, a ballpark. Maybe it's cheaper to have one on retainer. How much per month, if like a normal citizen your only daily legal risks are random megacorporations threatening you? Should eve…

> Should everyone in the US have a lawyer on call? I had a coworker at a previous job who often talked about "her family's attorney." I'm like, families have attorneys? I don't think I've talked to a lawyer once in my life.

A coworker's wife's friend is an attorney. So he's "his family's attorney" now, because of course he is. My landlord is a dentist, so he's my dentist now, because of course he is... That's how it mostly works... I guess :P

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

#82

Post by hodgesrm »

JohnFen wrote: post #17

This is a great writeup. I am not a lawyer, but I've received several C&Ds for various things over the decades. The first one scared me to death. The second and subsequent ones did not, because I understood what they were: just the company saying "I don't like what you're doing". When I receive a C&D, the first thing I do is talk to my attorney and go over what the C&D is complaining about. If I think I'm doing somet…

> I am not a lawyer, but I've received several C&Ds for various things over the decades. The first one scared me to death.

The first time I got a letter for a trademark issue it seemed completely hostile and threatening. My lawyer said, basically, that it was no big deal and that they were in fact being pretty nice. We answered back and everything was resolved amicably. It actually turned out well because it made me realize we had not been paying enough attention and were unthinkingly referencing other brands instead of our own.

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

#84

Post by KieranMac »

ncallaway wrote: post #56
mysterydip wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate that. As someone with a hobby making software, I can see the need for hiring at some point but I don't even know where to start. Do you just look up one online and call and say "I got a nasty letter, will you be my attorney"? Is there some kind of ongoing subscription cost to keep being "my attorney" or just pay per hour when you have an issue?

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.

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

#85

Post by michpoch »

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…

Would you be willing to share some stories regarding particularly FB reacting to someone scraping their data? Are they very stingy? Would they bother with someone non-US based?

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

#86

Post by michaelbuckbee »

bigfatfrock wrote: post #32
JohnFen wrote: post #17

This is a great writeup. I am not a lawyer, but I've received several C&Ds for various things over the decades. The first one scared me to death. The second and subsequent ones did not, because I understood what they were: just the company saying "I don't like what you're doing". When I receive a C&D, the first thing I do is talk to my attorney and go over what the C&D is complaining about. If I think I'm doing somet…

Multiple C&Ds?! You make me realize I might not be living the adventure I should be.

Over the years, I've collected quite a few C&Ds from various projects:

- Google for creating a mention tracker I was distributing as a mac dashboard widget

- Netflix for creating a DVD barcode to Netflix queue ios app (they were trying to to antagonize their retail partners too much at the time apparently)

- Microsoft for abusing some of their early text to speech DLL's for a really crappy RSS to Audio "podcast" app (they were meant for server side telephony apps)

- LinkedIn + Salesforce for linking their data with a Chrome extension

- Hubspot for mentioning their Inbound conference and saying that my software worked with theirs

Thinking back now these are all quite old, I don't know if the companies have become more lenient or I've become more cautious.

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

#87

Post by tzs »

User23 wrote: post #31

> *Apparently there are some legal systems, particularly in Europe, where the costs of taking Big Tech to court are lower. You’d have to ask your lawyer about that. The time and willpower aspects may be similar though. I’m not a lawyer, let alone a European lawyer, but I’ve heard that the drain-their-bankroll-with-spurious-motions technique that’s beloved by shithead corporations and their attorneys when they have no…

> Odds of the US adopting that system?

In general, not without a major change in the US attitude toward how businesses should be regulated and how individual rights protected to be more like Europe. I'll elaborate in a bit.

In specific areas of law the prevailing party can win attorney fees, but offhand I can't recall any areas where it is mandatory. It's up to the court to decide. Whether that is easy or hard depends on the area of law.

For example in patent law the statue says attorney fees can be awarded in exceptional cases, whereas in copyright law the statute just says it is at the discretion of the court.

The problem with making loser pays apply in general in US civil suits is that the US often relies on civil suits brought by individuals to enforce rights and regulations that in Europe would be enforced by a government agency.

Loser pays could discourage individuals from bringing such suits against larger more wealthy entities because a case is almost never completely open and shut.

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

#88

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel »

rendaw wrote: post #67
gwright wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to avoid the snarky "hire an attorney" answer but once you get past that necessary first step I do have a few tips: * get comfortable reading legal documents, this will allow you to have more intelligent conversations with your attorney * don't let your attorney make your business decisions, one of their jobs is to point out risks, one of your jobs (owner/ceo/leadership) is to figure out how to mitigate ris…

Okay, since you failed to avoid the snarky "hire an attorney" thing, I'm going to ask: how much would it reasonably cost to hire an attorney for advice on this? Assuming the contacting lawyer is on shaky ground. No "it depends" please, a ballpark. Maybe it's cheaper to have one on retainer. How much per month, if like a normal citizen your only daily legal risks are random megacorporations threatening you? Should eve…

I think in most Western countries, "low triple digits" is a good ballpark estimate for "advice" - i.e. a "holy shit this is like a month's worth of living cost" amount if you're a poor student, or completely negligible if you work in a highly paying job.

You might even get an initial consult for free. You may also be entitled to a free consultation via an insurance, including collective insurances or assistance programs offered through your employer or associations that you're a member of.

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

#89

Post by KieranMac »

michpoch wrote: post #85
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…

Would you be willing to share some stories regarding particularly FB reacting to someone scraping their data? Are they very stingy? Would they bother with someone non-US based?

I can't share client-specific stories because that's protected by AC privilege. But I think the recipients of these letters sometimes have more potential to negotiate than they realize.

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

#90

Post by woodruffw »

There are sound reasons why this can't be the case, but it sure would be nice if anti-SLAPP laws[1] were also able to cover these kinds of petty intimidation maneuvers by huge corporations.

(It would probably be impossible to weave a statute that prevents this kind of bullying while also enabling legitimate uses of C&D letters. So this is entirely fantasy.)

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_lawsuit_against_publ...

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