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> 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 expe

> 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.
    - BeefySwain 8y ago
      And in the process be potentially banned from the platform. This could cost OP his job, considering he built this utility to make Slack bearable to use in his place of employment.
      - jjeaff 8y ago
        How exactly would they ban you? It's not like Slack verifies your identity upon signup. A new email would be sufficient.
gumby 8y ago
Oh come on, I chose not to read every word and view every image on a web page -- it's my attention, not theirs. I choose not to download large images or ads -- it's my browser, they are sending me the bits. And if I choose to run my own code in my browser why not?? Who's computer is it, after all?
- kodablah 8y ago
  > And if I choose to run my own code in my browser why not?? Who's computer is it, after all? In your moralistic mind or in the courts? Because idealists are not immune to laws they don't like any more than the rest of us. This arm chair idealism is getting ridiculous.
  - gumby 8y ago
    There is no law that bans me from running whatever code I want on my machines (except perhaps some sort of DDOS software). No law compiles me to download some link on the net. No law bans me from drawing a mustache onto a photo in a newspaper I buy. In the 90s the music industry tried to claim that the buffering data while playing music was making a copy of their data for which they should be paid or which they did not authorize. A few technically ignorant judges initially sided with this argument but it was eventually laughed away. Your calling this "armchair idealism" makes me think you might be suffering from a legal system Stockholm syndrome.
    - kodablah 8y ago
      It's not about what the law allows, it's about the cost to defend yourself. And yes, there are cases such as in web scraping where that has been ruled against the law (running whatever code you want on your machine...not about DOSing or distributing, just running). There have been other cases where simply accessing ToS-disallowed parts of a site has been ruled illegal too, whether we like it or not. That the OP is being asked to risk his livelihood and money defending himself for others ideals in light of these past rulings is armchair idealism. I made it clear in my original statement that it's not exactly about who's right, it's about the cost of being right, especially in non-obvious situations.

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.
  - BeefySwain 8y ago
    And in the process be potentially banned from the platform. This could cost OP his job, considering he built this utility to make Slack bearable to use in his place of employment.
    - jjeaff 8y ago
      How exactly would they ban you? It's not like Slack verifies your identity upon signup. A new email would be sufficient.

gumby 8y ago

Oh come on, I chose not to read every word and view every image on a web page -- it's my attention, not theirs. I choose not to download large images or ads -- it's my browser, they are sending me the bits. And if I choose to run my own code in my browser why not?? Who's computer is it, after all?

kodablah 8y ago
> And if I choose to run my own code in my browser why not?? Who's computer is it, after all? In your moralistic mind or in the courts? Because idealists are not immune to laws they don't like any more than the rest of us. This arm chair idealism is getting ridiculous.
- gumby 8y ago
  There is no law that bans me from running whatever code I want on my machines (except perhaps some sort of DDOS software). No law compiles me to download some link on the net. No law bans me from drawing a mustache onto a photo in a newspaper I buy. In the 90s the music industry tried to claim that the buffering data while playing music was making a copy of their data for which they should be paid or which they did not authorize. A few technically ignorant judges initially sided with this argument but it was eventually laughed away. Your calling this "armchair idealism" makes me think you might be suffering from a legal system Stockholm syndrome.
  - kodablah 8y ago
    It's not about what the law allows, it's about the cost to defend yourself. And yes, there are cases such as in web scraping where that has been ruled against the law (running whatever code you want on your machine...not about DOSing or distributing, just running). There have been other cases where simply accessing ToS-disallowed parts of a site has been ruled illegal too, whether we like it or not. That the OP is being asked to risk his livelihood and money defending himself for others ideals in light of these past rulings is armchair idealism. I made it clear in my original statement that it's not exactly about who's right, it's about the cost of being right, especially in non-obvious situations.