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I think you can safely ignore this cease and desist. Just change the name and add a disclaimer so your users know that by using your extension they are violatin

I think you can safely ignore this cease and desist. Just change the name and add a disclaimer so your users know that by using your extension they are violating their acceptable use policy. This is no different than any user writing a Tampermonkey script to modify any website they want to modify. Even further, this is no different than a user opening the Dev Tools console and modifying things there.

pvg 8y ago
You won't be able to tell your lawyer "this is no different than paying you with real money" and hand over a stack of monopoly banknotes. Legal advice by analogy is unlikely to be all that useful.
- chadash 8y ago
  Analogies are used all the time in legal decisions. You'll find them regularly in supreme court opinions, for example. Anytime something that has never been seen is litigated, it's likely that analogies will be made to figure out the law [1]. I think the real lesson is "don't take legal advice from internet forums of non-lawyers", or at least take it with a grain of salt. Not all analogies are equally good and only a qualified lawyer is gonna know which analogies will fly in court. [1] Here's a fun analogy in a tort law case cited at https://cyber.harvard.edu/bridge/Analogy/analogy3.htm https://cyber.harvard.edu/bridge/Analogy/analogy3.htm: In Adams v. New Jersey Steamboat Co., a steamboat passenger sued the owner after the theft of valuables from the rented cabin; neither passenger nor owner had been negligent. The passenger claimed the owner nonetheless was strictly responsible, regardless of any failure or compliance with care, in light of prior case ruling that innkeepers were strictly liable for the theft of boarders' valuables. The owner argued against strict liability and pointed to precedents rejecting liability claims by passengers on open-berth sleeping trains. For purposes of liability for theft from a passenger, should the steamboat owner be viewed as more like the innkeeper or more like the train owner? The court reasoned that "A steamer carrying passengers upon the water, and furnishing them with rooms and entertainment, is, for all practical purposes, a floating inn, and hence the duties which the proprietors owe to the passengers in their charge ought to be the same." The court noted that both innkeepers and steamboat operators are entrusted with high levels of confidence in the face of temptations by many to endanger guests. Given this parallel relationship to guests, innkeepers and steamboat operators should bear the same kinds of duties to guests.
  - pvg 8y ago
    Yes, that's what I meant. Sure, a court can make an analogy but hey, they're a court. Random stranger on the internet is unlikely to provide you with a useful legal analogy. If anything, this seems like an intersection of topic and venue (legal stuff, forums for technically-minded people) that generates giant billowing clouds of useless analogies.
- hangonhn 8y ago
  Analogies are used a lot in law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fact_pattern https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fact_pattern
g3rv4 8y ago
this was a bunch of Tampermonkey scripts... but I don't want to ignore their cease and desist. I... just don't do it. changing the name is not an issue... however, if I have to take it down, that's moot.
- shawn 8y ago
  It's our right as developers to modify and upgrade the tools we use. It's important to ensure that this remains true both today and in the future. I wanted to give you a moral boost, in case you were looking for a reason to take a stand. But if you don't want to, that's entirely valid.
  - overcast 8y ago
    Ok Stallman, now back to reality where people do own software, they do have legal restrictions on its use, and it's not a human right to circumvent it.
    - eertami 8y ago
      Yeah and I also own the machine that's rendering the HTML and executing the Javascript. Nobody has any legal right to prevent me modifying my browser and changing how it interprets said javascript.
      - overcast 8y ago
        They do when you want to redistribute it with their name, which is the whole point of this discussion.
        shawn 8y ago
        The heart of their complaint was not the name. It was the fact that the extension injects code into their site.
        8y ago
tptacek 8y ago
He should talk to a lawyer, especially if he accepted a binding agreement by using Slack that forbids any of the research he did to figure out how to get his integrations to work.
- scoom 8y ago
  A binding agreement? Why would he sign one of those?
  - tptacek 8y ago
    You don't have to literally sign something to be bound by an agreement.
    - onli 8y ago
      In many jurisdictions you can't be bound by an agreement if not explicitly agreeing. It most likely boils down to where Gervasio lives. In my country for example I'd be certain Slack would have no standing at all with this. Though even in the US Slack would have to pull an Oracle to win this (which, well, is the risk that they might). Good reminder though in which moral category of enterprises Slack has to be sorted in. It does not matter, he does not want to fight this.
      - benatkin 8y ago
        It might be more than just a EULA. Often to sign up for an API key, you have to go through a bit more explicit agreement to a ToS than there is in a standard funnel. There's also a bit more of an expectation that people will actually read them (and are competent to understand them).
        jjeaff 8y ago
        This extension doesn't use the API. It just injects some JavaScript. Just like every adblockers and password manager does.
barbegal 8y ago
A disclaimer would not work. Disclaimers might work where there is a risk that the user will violate the acceptable use policy but this cease and desist letter has effectively said that all users will violate the acceptable use policy therefore the disclaimer would be quickly dismissed by any court of law. As a slightly bad analogy imagine a disclaimer that customers of a fairground ride might experience back pain. If it was found that all previous customers had suffered back pain then the disclaimer would not be enforceable and the ride owners could be sued for negligence.
- mattigames 8y ago
  False, how a website is rendered on a device I own is not enforceable (legally speaking) by a acceptable use policy or any website policy; otherwise people would just use that to deter ad-blockers browsers extensions instead of all the shady tactics commonly used.
  - jahewson 8y ago
    That’s not the case at all. Your “ownership” of the device isn’t that important in the grand scheme of things. If you’ve signed an agreement with Slack not to modify their product, then you don’t get to modify their product. Blocking ads is not quite the same thing as modifying a product - but I don’t see any obvious reason why an EULA which forbids ad-blocking wouldn’t be enforceable. Though it would be deeply unpopular.
    - mattigames 8y ago
      You are not modifying slack (their product), when you request a website all they are sending you its a bunch of characters, including characters inside CSS or JS files, rendering those its up to your machine, you are not legally binded to render those in a specific way, otherwise screen readers would all be completely illegal, all threads of not modifying your local render of a website always end poorly by the people doing such threats, examples: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2r3uok/we_developed_a_chrome_plugin_that_overlays_lower/ https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2r3uok/we_developed_a... https://www.quora.com/Is-AdBlock-legal-If-not-specifically-why-not-Have-cases-been-brought-against-Adblock-If-so-in-which-jurisdictions-and-have-there-been-important-judgements https://www.quora.com/Is-AdBlock-legal-If-not-specifically-w...
kodablah 8y ago
> I think you can safely ignore this cease and desist Will you cover his legal costs for choosing this decision? Right matters less than resources if it's expensive to even be right. You can state your case here on HN without repercussion, not so when being sued (it costs to even state your case reasonably due to hazards of self-defense and it costs dearly if you lose).
- jjeaff 8y ago
  There isn't even a threat to sue yet. I'd at least wait until they escalate and post everything publicly as we go.
  - kodablah 8y ago
    It's implied. Unwillingness to abide by a request from a company's legal team, especially after acknowledging receipt, can be used against you in court. Court cases about web scraping and other site ToS violations have referenced received stop requests when considering willful violation.
  - __blockcipher__ 8y ago
    Are you serious? Did you miss the obvious subtext? >Please respond to this message to acknowledge that you have received it. If you can resolve the matters specified above in the next seven days, that would be excellent. If you anticipate that it will take longer, please let us know. I’ve cc’d our Legal alias so that in the event that I am unable to respond, one of our product counsels will be able to provide any necessary assistance. tl;dr: respond and desist or they will escalate to the next step. Legal action is heavily implied, and it's outright foolish for you to read that and somehow think there's no threat to sue, whether implicit or not
    - diminoten 8y ago
      I guess the person you're replying to's point was to take it to the next step. Let them initiate legal proceedings (and pay lawyers) to do something. Maybe it's foolish, maybe it's not, but this email cost Slack the salary of the person for the time it took him/her to write it. At least make them also pay for an hour or two of legal fees to have this taken down.
paulie_a 8y ago
To be fair cease and desist orders can generally be thrown directly in the trash. I can't even count the number of them I have received. They look scary but basically will not be followed up with. You might as well just respond with "fuck off"
gnicholas 8y ago
I think where the dev gets into trouble here is that he must have a Slack account in order to have built this. That means that he himself has agreed to the T&Cs at some point. If he could have built this without having an account, then he would have a better chance of being able to avoid liability. In that case, there would be no "contractual privity" between Slack and the dev, and Slack would have to go after him for inducing breach of contract or some such thing.
gear54rus 8y ago
What he needs is to host it anonymously or give it to someone else to host. Corporate vultures can't get you if they can't find you.
djsumdog 8y ago
Reminds me of when Facebook sent an order to Unfriendfinder: https://penguindreams.org/blog/discoverying-friend-list-changes-on-facebook-with-python/ https://penguindreams.org/blog/discoverying-friend-list-chan...

pvg 8y ago

You won't be able to tell your lawyer "this is no different than paying you with real money" and hand over a stack of monopoly banknotes. Legal advice by analogy is unlikely to be all that useful.

chadash 8y ago
Analogies are used all the time in legal decisions. You'll find them regularly in supreme court opinions, for example. Anytime something that has never been seen is litigated, it's likely that analogies will be made to figure out the law [1]. I think the real lesson is "don't take legal advice from internet forums of non-lawyers", or at least take it with a grain of salt. Not all analogies are equally good and only a qualified lawyer is gonna know which analogies will fly in court. [1] Here's a fun analogy in a tort law case cited at https://cyber.harvard.edu/bridge/Analogy/analogy3.htm https://cyber.harvard.edu/bridge/Analogy/analogy3.htm: In Adams v. New Jersey Steamboat Co., a steamboat passenger sued the owner after the theft of valuables from the rented cabin; neither passenger nor owner had been negligent. The passenger claimed the owner nonetheless was strictly responsible, regardless of any failure or compliance with care, in light of prior case ruling that innkeepers were strictly liable for the theft of boarders' valuables. The owner argued against strict liability and pointed to precedents rejecting liability claims by passengers on open-berth sleeping trains. For purposes of liability for theft from a passenger, should the steamboat owner be viewed as more like the innkeeper or more like the train owner? The court reasoned that "A steamer carrying passengers upon the water, and furnishing them with rooms and entertainment, is, for all practical purposes, a floating inn, and hence the duties which the proprietors owe to the passengers in their charge ought to be the same." The court noted that both innkeepers and steamboat operators are entrusted with high levels of confidence in the face of temptations by many to endanger guests. Given this parallel relationship to guests, innkeepers and steamboat operators should bear the same kinds of duties to guests.
- pvg 8y ago
  Yes, that's what I meant. Sure, a court can make an analogy but hey, they're a court. Random stranger on the internet is unlikely to provide you with a useful legal analogy. If anything, this seems like an intersection of topic and venue (legal stuff, forums for technically-minded people) that generates giant billowing clouds of useless analogies.
hangonhn 8y ago
Analogies are used a lot in law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fact_pattern https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fact_pattern

g3rv4 8y ago

this was a bunch of Tampermonkey scripts... but I don't want to ignore their cease and desist. I... just don't do it. changing the name is not an issue... however, if I have to take it down, that's moot.

shawn 8y ago
It's our right as developers to modify and upgrade the tools we use. It's important to ensure that this remains true both today and in the future. I wanted to give you a moral boost, in case you were looking for a reason to take a stand. But if you don't want to, that's entirely valid.
- overcast 8y ago
  Ok Stallman, now back to reality where people do own software, they do have legal restrictions on its use, and it's not a human right to circumvent it.
  - eertami 8y ago
    Yeah and I also own the machine that's rendering the HTML and executing the Javascript. Nobody has any legal right to prevent me modifying my browser and changing how it interprets said javascript.
    - overcast 8y ago
      They do when you want to redistribute it with their name, which is the whole point of this discussion.
      - shawn 8y ago
        The heart of their complaint was not the name. It was the fact that the extension injects code into their site.
        8y ago

tptacek 8y ago

He should talk to a lawyer, especially if he accepted a binding agreement by using Slack that forbids any of the research he did to figure out how to get his integrations to work.

scoom 8y ago
A binding agreement? Why would he sign one of those?
- tptacek 8y ago
  You don't have to literally sign something to be bound by an agreement.
  - onli 8y ago
    In many jurisdictions you can't be bound by an agreement if not explicitly agreeing. It most likely boils down to where Gervasio lives. In my country for example I'd be certain Slack would have no standing at all with this. Though even in the US Slack would have to pull an Oracle to win this (which, well, is the risk that they might). Good reminder though in which moral category of enterprises Slack has to be sorted in. It does not matter, he does not want to fight this.
    - benatkin 8y ago
      It might be more than just a EULA. Often to sign up for an API key, you have to go through a bit more explicit agreement to a ToS than there is in a standard funnel. There's also a bit more of an expectation that people will actually read them (and are competent to understand them).
      - jjeaff 8y ago
        This extension doesn't use the API. It just injects some JavaScript. Just like every adblockers and password manager does.

barbegal 8y ago

A disclaimer would not work. Disclaimers might work where there is a risk that the user will violate the acceptable use policy but this cease and desist letter has effectively said that all users will violate the acceptable use policy therefore the disclaimer would be quickly dismissed by any court of law. As a slightly bad analogy imagine a disclaimer that customers of a fairground ride might experience back pain. If it was found that all previous customers had suffered back pain then the disclaimer would not be enforceable and the ride owners could be sued for negligence.

mattigames 8y ago
False, how a website is rendered on a device I own is not enforceable (legally speaking) by a acceptable use policy or any website policy; otherwise people would just use that to deter ad-blockers browsers extensions instead of all the shady tactics commonly used.
- jahewson 8y ago
  That’s not the case at all. Your “ownership” of the device isn’t that important in the grand scheme of things. If you’ve signed an agreement with Slack not to modify their product, then you don’t get to modify their product. Blocking ads is not quite the same thing as modifying a product - but I don’t see any obvious reason why an EULA which forbids ad-blocking wouldn’t be enforceable. Though it would be deeply unpopular.
  - mattigames 8y ago
    You are not modifying slack (their product), when you request a website all they are sending you its a bunch of characters, including characters inside CSS or JS files, rendering those its up to your machine, you are not legally binded to render those in a specific way, otherwise screen readers would all be completely illegal, all threads of not modifying your local render of a website always end poorly by the people doing such threats, examples: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2r3uok/we_developed_a_chrome_plugin_that_overlays_lower/ https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2r3uok/we_developed_a... https://www.quora.com/Is-AdBlock-legal-If-not-specifically-why-not-Have-cases-been-brought-against-Adblock-If-so-in-which-jurisdictions-and-have-there-been-important-judgements https://www.quora.com/Is-AdBlock-legal-If-not-specifically-w...

kodablah 8y ago

> I think you can safely ignore this cease and desist Will you cover his legal costs for choosing this decision? Right matters less than resources if it's expensive to even be right. You can state your case here on HN without repercussion, not so when being sued (it costs to even state your case reasonably due to hazards of self-defense and it costs dearly if you lose).

jjeaff 8y ago
There isn't even a threat to sue yet. I'd at least wait until they escalate and post everything publicly as we go.
- kodablah 8y ago
  It's implied. Unwillingness to abide by a request from a company's legal team, especially after acknowledging receipt, can be used against you in court. Court cases about web scraping and other site ToS violations have referenced received stop requests when considering willful violation.
- __blockcipher__ 8y ago
  Are you serious? Did you miss the obvious subtext? >Please respond to this message to acknowledge that you have received it. If you can resolve the matters specified above in the next seven days, that would be excellent. If you anticipate that it will take longer, please let us know. I’ve cc’d our Legal alias so that in the event that I am unable to respond, one of our product counsels will be able to provide any necessary assistance. tl;dr: respond and desist or they will escalate to the next step. Legal action is heavily implied, and it's outright foolish for you to read that and somehow think there's no threat to sue, whether implicit or not
  - diminoten 8y ago
    I guess the person you're replying to's point was to take it to the next step. Let them initiate legal proceedings (and pay lawyers) to do something. Maybe it's foolish, maybe it's not, but this email cost Slack the salary of the person for the time it took him/her to write it. At least make them also pay for an hour or two of legal fees to have this taken down.

paulie_a 8y ago

To be fair cease and desist orders can generally be thrown directly in the trash. I can't even count the number of them I have received. They look scary but basically will not be followed up with. You might as well just respond with "fuck off"

gnicholas 8y ago

I think where the dev gets into trouble here is that he must have a Slack account in order to have built this. That means that he himself has agreed to the T&Cs at some point. If he could have built this without having an account, then he would have a better chance of being able to avoid liability. In that case, there would be no "contractual privity" between Slack and the dev, and Slack would have to go after him for inducing breach of contract or some such thing.

gear54rus 8y ago

What he needs is to host it anonymously or give it to someone else to host. Corporate vultures can't get you if they can't find you.

djsumdog 8y ago

Reminds me of when Facebook sent an order to Unfriendfinder: https://penguindreams.org/blog/discoverying-friend-list-changes-on-facebook-with-python/ https://penguindreams.org/blog/discoverying-friend-list-chan...