SO SO stupid (both sides). The original threatening email seems pretty silly. The response, by adopting that tone, making it public, etc., is a big "I DARE YOU" to the lawsuit-happy moron.
The problem is, it's challenging to know just how rich or insane this person is, and they just publicly started bumping chests with him like a drunken teenager. Other than feeling smug, why is it a smart move to make this personal/emotional? Respectfully indicate that you disagree and request that further communication come from a lawyer.
Also, by saying "We don't have a company, we're just a bunch of guys", you've said, "We don't have a corporate veil-- you can sue us DIRECTLY as individuals." Way to expose the jugular.
I think there's a time and a place for public dissemination of emails like this. To take an example, TechCrunch does it all the time - sometimes I think it goes too far (every single internal email AOL sends out), sometimes I think it's appropriate (eg the "snark" email from Moviefone http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/15/snarketing/).
In this case, where there is virtually zero chance of legal proceedings actually resulting, and the protagonist is simply venting / bullying / baiting the recipient, I think publishing an email publicly is a decisive statement that you think they're silly, ridiculous, and should go away (it's also a good read and nice publicity). From a legal perspective, you don't really lose much, if any, ground.
Also, for what it's worth, even if this guy is considering the "corporate veil" (that's a big if), and even if he has a shred of a cause of action (even bigger if) then knowing he's going after individuals is even less appealing that going after a nascent company (much harder to extract money and legal fees from a 22 year old student).
I searched the letter, and can't find the word "patent" anywhere. Unless there is a patent involved, then the wannabe plaintif is relying on "Trade Secrets" (NDA), rather than patents to protect his turf, I'm pretty sure you can politely tell him to fuck off. (IANAL, this is not legal advice).
I've heard that under certain circumstances, you can write a threatening letters, just to rattle the competition. Best get a lawyer to do it, as it sounds slightly credible, and they can make sure you don't actually do anything illegal, but you can often just quote legislation and "request" people back off ... it's just a request, right? The FBI did this to wikipedia, whose legal team sent a hilarious reply.
It's an extremely bad idea if you have a patent they are infringing on (as direct threats will force them to counter-sue, or settle immediately, or face extra damages), but for most things you can talk as much legal smack-down as you want.
Actually, in Australia and NZ (not sure on the situation in the US and elsewhere), empty threats to sue to enforce intellectual property rights are illegal (I am an Australian law graduate, not practising, this is not legal advice).
It's sad that folks like this seem to think that threatening to sue at the drop of a hat is a perfectly acceptable business tactic. It's especially sad in a case like this when the intellectual 'property' (it's so ephemeral in this situation that quotes are needed) concerned involves an idea that almost everyone who has thought about location-based services has had. (No offence to Andrew and the team, they seem to have actually executed it and executed it well).
We had more fun than fear, and actually blogged about it. Even playing off with the title: SecretementVotre wants to screw up SecretPoke.
Ideas are a dime a dozen, execution is everything. At any given time, 10+ people around the globe are thinking about the same revolutionizing ideas... The only difference between France and the US is that you cannot "protect" an idea in France... so nothing happened.
>The only difference between France and the US is that you cannot "protect" an idea in France... so nothing happened.
What do you mean by this?
Patents are available in nearly every country and equally for anyone in most jurisdictions; they protect [against others implementations of] your ideas.
What gets me on stuff like this is that for every one person who executes successfully and make something great there are hundreds of people waiting around to suckle off of that success.
+1 for "dumb people say dumb things". Unless you realize this when participating in internet citizenry you'll likely fall into the trap of saying equally dumb things.
If I posted all the vague legal threats I've gotten over the Internet over the years I could come close to filling up the front page of HN. Only one ever came to any sort of legal action - a case was filed and then dropped a few months later without further comment.
The appropriate response when dealing with folks that both don't have a lawyer and don't seem to have a case is to tell them to serve you and forget about it. They'll be forced to seek counsel, who will most likely explain to them the error of their ways. It's the kind of thing that doesn't work well when coming from you, for obvious social reasons.
"People have to realise that an idea is worth nothing. A good idea with great execution has value, but without this execution, it’s worthless. Getting an estimate for execution of an idea in 2009 does not grant you ownership of it."
The whole idea of good or bad depends entirely upon the concept of value. Saying a 'good' idea is 'worthless' (ie. no value) is a contradiction in terms.
I wonder how many people who say ideas are worth nothing would be willing to publish every business idea of theirs as soon as they conceive it, before they get a chance to be the first to execute it?
And German cities probably aren't the best place to launch such a venture. I'm not sure about Bonn and Stuttgart, but the rest definitely have good public transit. Your potential audience is seriously limited compared to, say, a city like LA.
Gah, why do i never seem to hear about these events... -1 for living in Palmerston North i guess. Is there some website or newsletter where these events get published and promoted?
Hopefully the childish behavior on both sides doesn't reflect poorly on Kiwis as a whole -_-
Interesting. Sounds like he doesn't have a patent, no one at the other firm has ever had any contact with him, the idea is so obvious there are many companies with similar apps, and it's a conflict that crosses international borders and would cost an absolute fortune to pursue legally.
I'm a little leery of this: People have to realise that an idea is worth nothing.
An idea is worth nothing in the sense that an idea can't make money by itself. There are still such things as better and worse ideas, and "your idea is worthless, so it's not stealing for me to use your idea" (a la http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2235218) feels like a pretty slimy use of the phrase.
"You aren't the only one who can have good ideas, and you don't own an idea just because you had it first" seems like a much less judgmental way to say this.
Funny thing is this sort of application was my first idea for iOS as soon as v 2.0 was released. It seems a natural use case for a location aware device. I just knew I didn't have the resources to properly execute it.
I wonder if that was his actual response to the email. While I think it's a great tone of voice for a blog (I loved it), I think there is a way to mitigate that situation and have you come out even better than you were before. Encourage them to build out their products and do it better than you. They will either fail to deliver and you've eliminated a competitor, or you can use his struggles to compete as ideas to generate if he happens to think of neat features you could implement as well. Never try to close doors you couldn't learn from by keeping open and exploring.
While the C&D likely had no merit, the snarky and insulting response was just as unnecessary. There was a mature and professional way to blow the guy's email off.
Making this public makes Taxi Surfer look worse than the guy threatening to sue them.
[+] [-] webwright|15 years ago|reply
The problem is, it's challenging to know just how rich or insane this person is, and they just publicly started bumping chests with him like a drunken teenager. Other than feeling smug, why is it a smart move to make this personal/emotional? Respectfully indicate that you disagree and request that further communication come from a lawyer.
Also, by saying "We don't have a company, we're just a bunch of guys", you've said, "We don't have a corporate veil-- you can sue us DIRECTLY as individuals." Way to expose the jugular.
[+] [-] gavinballard|15 years ago|reply
In this case, where there is virtually zero chance of legal proceedings actually resulting, and the protagonist is simply venting / bullying / baiting the recipient, I think publishing an email publicly is a decisive statement that you think they're silly, ridiculous, and should go away (it's also a good read and nice publicity). From a legal perspective, you don't really lose much, if any, ground.
Also, for what it's worth, even if this guy is considering the "corporate veil" (that's a big if), and even if he has a shred of a cause of action (even bigger if) then knowing he's going after individuals is even less appealing that going after a nascent company (much harder to extract money and legal fees from a 22 year old student).
[+] [-] wisty|15 years ago|reply
I've heard that under certain circumstances, you can write a threatening letters, just to rattle the competition. Best get a lawyer to do it, as it sounds slightly credible, and they can make sure you don't actually do anything illegal, but you can often just quote legislation and "request" people back off ... it's just a request, right? The FBI did this to wikipedia, whose legal team sent a hilarious reply.
It's an extremely bad idea if you have a patent they are infringing on (as direct threats will force them to counter-sue, or settle immediately, or face extra damages), but for most things you can talk as much legal smack-down as you want.
[+] [-] gavinballard|15 years ago|reply
It's sad that folks like this seem to think that threatening to sue at the drop of a hat is a perfectly acceptable business tactic. It's especially sad in a case like this when the intellectual 'property' (it's so ephemeral in this situation that quotes are needed) concerned involves an idea that almost everyone who has thought about location-based services has had. (No offence to Andrew and the team, they seem to have actually executed it and executed it well).
[+] [-] lolizbak|15 years ago|reply
3 days after launch, we received a cease and desist letter from SecretementVotre (secretly yours, in french) asking us to basically close the service : http://www.businessinsider.com/secretpoke-secretementvotre-2...
We had more fun than fear, and actually blogged about it. Even playing off with the title: SecretementVotre wants to screw up SecretPoke.
Ideas are a dime a dozen, execution is everything. At any given time, 10+ people around the globe are thinking about the same revolutionizing ideas... The only difference between France and the US is that you cannot "protect" an idea in France... so nothing happened.
[+] [-] pbhjpbhj|15 years ago|reply
What do you mean by this?
Patents are available in nearly every country and equally for anyone in most jurisdictions; they protect [against others implementations of] your ideas.
Did I miscomprehend you?
[+] [-] d_r|15 years ago|reply
http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/11/jdate-slaps-zoosk-okcupid-a...
[+] [-] ericHosick|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chopsueyar|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|15 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] cperciva|15 years ago|reply
Just file it in the loony bin and move on.
[+] [-] aChrisSmith|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] trotsky|15 years ago|reply
The appropriate response when dealing with folks that both don't have a lawyer and don't seem to have a case is to tell them to serve you and forget about it. They'll be forced to seek counsel, who will most likely explain to them the error of their ways. It's the kind of thing that doesn't work well when coming from you, for obvious social reasons.
https://xkcd.com/386/
[+] [-] dasil003|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alexjawad|15 years ago|reply
Bang on target!!
[+] [-] Tycho|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tzs|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] theput|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pge|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] moeffju|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TillE|15 years ago|reply
And German cities probably aren't the best place to launch such a venture. I'm not sure about Bonn and Stuttgart, but the rest definitely have good public transit. Your potential audience is seriously limited compared to, say, a city like LA.
[+] [-] barrydahlberg|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] genbattle|15 years ago|reply
Hopefully the childish behavior on both sides doesn't reflect poorly on Kiwis as a whole -_-
[+] [-] bugsy|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Cushman|15 years ago|reply
An idea is worth nothing in the sense that an idea can't make money by itself. There are still such things as better and worse ideas, and "your idea is worthless, so it's not stealing for me to use your idea" (a la http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2235218) feels like a pretty slimy use of the phrase.
"You aren't the only one who can have good ideas, and you don't own an idea just because you had it first" seems like a much less judgmental way to say this.
[+] [-] S_A_P|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] acconrad|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] personalcompute|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tenfef|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ssharp|15 years ago|reply
Making this public makes Taxi Surfer look worse than the guy threatening to sue them.
[+] [-] unknown|15 years ago|reply
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