5 ms·

Funny how there are two sides of a story. Azer's representation of his message 'hahah, you’re actually being a dick. so, fuck you. don’t e-mail me back.' as 'My

by Guyag 11y ago

Funny how there are two sides of a story. Azer's representation of his message 'hahah, you’re actually being a dick. so, fuck you. don’t e-mail me back.' as 'My answer was “no”' is disingenuous.

jdbernard 11y ago
Yeah, I don't know. Azer was very rude, and yes, the Kik guy was very polite. However, if you strip away the tone of the messages, it pretty much boils down to this: "We want this name. Will you sell it to us?" "No" "We are going to take this name by force if we have to. Will you sell it to us?" "No" "What would it take for you to sell it to us?" "30,000" "NPM, give us this name or we bring in lawyers and use legal force."
- scotty79 11y ago
  > the Kik guy was very polite I don't see how saying "our trademark lawyers are going to be banging on your door and taking down your accounts and stuff like that " and using word "dick" in second message can be considered very polite.
- Bootvis 11y ago
  IANAL but I believe they should use legal force for them to not lose their trademark. Sure, kik could have taken a slower approach but that's an important detail.
  - jdbernard 11y ago
    Yeah, I get it, there is a much larger context here wrt. trademark laws, etc. Still from azer's point of view he is absolutely correct. He's being screwed over by business interests and receiving no protection from npm. Surely there are other solutions that resolve the legal requirement for kik to defend their trademark without requiring that particular repository name to be surrendered. So yeah, it's a bigger problem than just npm. All the more reason for azer to decide to leave npm. Obviously there is nothing in place to prevent this kind of abuse in the future so why continue to participate?
  - andlarry 11y ago
    In my experience lawyers are very conservative about this. I can believe that's the advice they're getting, but it's obviously not the full story. According to the eff[0] (article starts with some discussion irrelevant to this case). "The circumstances under which a company could actually lose a trademark—such as abandonment and genericide—are quite limited. Genericide occurs when a trademark becomes the standard term for a type of good (‘zipper’ and ‘escalator’ being two famous examples). This is very rare and would not be a problem for Canonical unless people start saying “Ubuntu” simply to mean “operating system.” Courts also set a very high bar to show abandonment (usually years of total non-use). Importantly, failure to enforce a mark against every potential infringer does not show abandonment. [0] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/11/trademark-law-does-not-require-companies-tirelessly-censor-internet https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/11/trademark-law-does-not...
  - itsdrewmiller 11y ago
    They don't need to use legal force - they could just license the name to him.
    - metaphorm 11y ago
      why would they do that? their concern was that a user might be confused over the names. they were interested in exclusive rights to the name, not in getting paid a token amount so someone else could use it.
      - scotty79 11y ago
        To avoid strong-arming open source developer and avoiding the PR fallout? With great lawyer power comes great responsibility to your PR.
- Guyag 11y ago
  I'm no lawyer, but if Kik's assertion of 'because you have to enforce trademarks or you lose them' is true then I understand their actions - that's just the world we live in. It was decent of the Kik guys to try and amicably sort it out before calling in the lawyers given the situation, though admittedly it's also cheaper for them this way. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect confusion between Kik's product and Azer's node module - the names are identical. NPM's stance is kind of covered by their policy[0], point 3. [0] https://www.npmjs.com/policies/disputes#description https://www.npmjs.com/policies/disputes#description
  - jdbernard 11y ago
    > that's just the world we live in. All the more reason for azer to opt-out. There is no reasonable recourse within the existing system.
  - ubernostrum 11y ago
    I'm no lawyer, but if Kik's assertion of 'because you have to enforce trademarks or you lose them' is true then I understand their actions - that's just the world we live in. To which I say: https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/4bnrn4/a_discussion_about_the_breaking_of_the_internet/d1aw3d7 https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/4bnrn4/a_discu...
  - brazzledazzle 11y ago
    How is not attempting to negotiate the price a decent move? If you want to negotiate and someone asks for a price that you believe is unreasonable isn't it normal to counter that offer?
  - KingMob 11y ago
    Using polite language to threaten only seems amicable. And believing you have to make threats because of the law doesn't mean you're not an asshole.
- outworlder 11y ago
  You have your lossy compression turned up way too high. "We want this name. Will you sell it to us?" "No. I'll actually release something else with that name" [implied by 'I'm actually building a project etc] "If you do release a project by that name, then our lawyers will have no choice but to enforce the trademark" The rest of the exchange I can sort of agree with, but when you are actually negotiating, you don't usually call people names. That usually is grounds for terminating the negotiation, which happened.
  - scotty79 11y ago
    > "No. I'll actually release something else with that name" [implied by 'I'm actually building a project etc] It think you got it wrong. He's just saying that his using that name for the project he is currently building. It's already released. It's on npm. Maybe lawyer mistakenly inferred future tense like you did but there was none.

by Guyag 11y ago

jdbernard 11y ago

Yeah, I don't know. Azer was very rude, and yes, the Kik guy was very polite. However, if you strip away the tone of the messages, it pretty much boils down to this: "We want this name. Will you sell it to us?" "No" "We are going to take this name by force if we have to. Will you sell it to us?" "No" "What would it take for you to sell it to us?" "30,000" "NPM, give us this name or we bring in lawyers and use legal force."

scotty79 11y ago
> the Kik guy was very polite I don't see how saying "our trademark lawyers are going to be banging on your door and taking down your accounts and stuff like that " and using word "dick" in second message can be considered very polite.
Bootvis 11y ago
IANAL but I believe they should use legal force for them to not lose their trademark. Sure, kik could have taken a slower approach but that's an important detail.
- jdbernard 11y ago
  Yeah, I get it, there is a much larger context here wrt. trademark laws, etc. Still from azer's point of view he is absolutely correct. He's being screwed over by business interests and receiving no protection from npm. Surely there are other solutions that resolve the legal requirement for kik to defend their trademark without requiring that particular repository name to be surrendered. So yeah, it's a bigger problem than just npm. All the more reason for azer to decide to leave npm. Obviously there is nothing in place to prevent this kind of abuse in the future so why continue to participate?
- andlarry 11y ago
  In my experience lawyers are very conservative about this. I can believe that's the advice they're getting, but it's obviously not the full story. According to the eff[0] (article starts with some discussion irrelevant to this case). "The circumstances under which a company could actually lose a trademark—such as abandonment and genericide—are quite limited. Genericide occurs when a trademark becomes the standard term for a type of good (‘zipper’ and ‘escalator’ being two famous examples). This is very rare and would not be a problem for Canonical unless people start saying “Ubuntu” simply to mean “operating system.” Courts also set a very high bar to show abandonment (usually years of total non-use). Importantly, failure to enforce a mark against every potential infringer does not show abandonment. [0] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/11/trademark-law-does-not-require-companies-tirelessly-censor-internet https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/11/trademark-law-does-not...
- itsdrewmiller 11y ago
  They don't need to use legal force - they could just license the name to him.
  - metaphorm 11y ago
    why would they do that? their concern was that a user might be confused over the names. they were interested in exclusive rights to the name, not in getting paid a token amount so someone else could use it.
    - scotty79 11y ago
      To avoid strong-arming open source developer and avoiding the PR fallout? With great lawyer power comes great responsibility to your PR.
Guyag 11y ago
I'm no lawyer, but if Kik's assertion of 'because you have to enforce trademarks or you lose them' is true then I understand their actions - that's just the world we live in. It was decent of the Kik guys to try and amicably sort it out before calling in the lawyers given the situation, though admittedly it's also cheaper for them this way. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect confusion between Kik's product and Azer's node module - the names are identical. NPM's stance is kind of covered by their policy[0], point 3. [0] https://www.npmjs.com/policies/disputes#description https://www.npmjs.com/policies/disputes#description
- jdbernard 11y ago
  > that's just the world we live in. All the more reason for azer to opt-out. There is no reasonable recourse within the existing system.
- ubernostrum 11y ago
  I'm no lawyer, but if Kik's assertion of 'because you have to enforce trademarks or you lose them' is true then I understand their actions - that's just the world we live in. To which I say: https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/4bnrn4/a_discussion_about_the_breaking_of_the_internet/d1aw3d7 https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/4bnrn4/a_discu...
- brazzledazzle 11y ago
  How is not attempting to negotiate the price a decent move? If you want to negotiate and someone asks for a price that you believe is unreasonable isn't it normal to counter that offer?
- KingMob 11y ago
  Using polite language to threaten only seems amicable. And believing you have to make threats because of the law doesn't mean you're not an asshole.
outworlder 11y ago
You have your lossy compression turned up way too high. "We want this name. Will you sell it to us?" "No. I'll actually release something else with that name" [implied by 'I'm actually building a project etc] "If you do release a project by that name, then our lawyers will have no choice but to enforce the trademark" The rest of the exchange I can sort of agree with, but when you are actually negotiating, you don't usually call people names. That usually is grounds for terminating the negotiation, which happened.
- scotty79 11y ago
  > "No. I'll actually release something else with that name" [implied by 'I'm actually building a project etc] It think you got it wrong. He's just saying that his using that name for the project he is currently building. It's already released. It's on npm. Maybe lawyer mistakenly inferred future tense like you did but there was none.