3 ms·
I'm not a lawyer, but I did look at this issue about a year ago for a feature I was considering for our own startup. You can most certainly be sued, defending w
by gyardley 16y ago
I'm not a lawyer, but I did look at this issue about a year ago for a feature I was considering for our own startup. You can most certainly be sued, defending will be pricey, and you may lose the lawsuit - although case law in America isn't completely settled. The key case against is probably eBay vs. Bidder's Edge.
Having a single point of failure like this certainly won't help your fundraising efforts. If you're going to take the legal risk, why not bootstrap? That way you can put the money in your pocket as you go along and if the site does get shut down, at least you've extracted the profits along the way.
- josefresco 16y agoI concur. Make something cool and figure out if there's a market especially when you are 'disrupting' an existing model and possible existing in someone else's ecosystem (ex Ebay). That way you don't lose much but have lots to gain if you create something people want. Corporations can be bought and lawyers leashed if there's money in it for both sides.