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Otonomo, with nearly $55M in funding, is cloning our product
- mro_master 7y agoContact Delphi.
- joetribiani 7y agoJust read through the blog post. it's absolutely nuts.
- joetribiani 7y agoI found more pages on their website https://imgur.com/a/35wax6T https://imgur.com/a/35wax6T Also their stats dashboard isn't secured: https://dashboard.otonomo.io/dashboard https://dashboard.otonomo.io/dashboard you can see public data here
- kthejoker2 7y agoGiven the title of the Dashboard page is "CES Showcase" I'm confident that's just an HTML mockup.
- itsbilal 7y agoWow, this is as blatant as it gets.
- jbverschoor 7y agoRocket does the exact same thing. Almost pixel perfect clones
- javiermares 7y agoWho is Rocket? Could you give us a link, please?
- jacquesm 7y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_Internet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_Internet https://www.rocket-internet.com/ https://www.rocket-internet.com/
- brodo 7y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_Internet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_Internet They did a 1:1 facebook clone for example.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- jkaykin 7y agoI feel like this happens often in tech but most offenders do a better job covering it up. This is pretty blatant.
- sjroot 7y agoLooks like the link is down. Is there a mirror?
- Stratoscope 7y agoWayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20190422150111/https://smartcar.com/blog/how-otonomo-is-cloning-our-product/ https://web.archive.org/web/20190422150111/https://smartcar.... (And a reminder to donate to archive.org if you can!)
- ignoranceprior 7y agoArchive.fo: https://archive.fo/4l7Wl https://archive.fo/4l7Wl
- ForHackernews 7y agoI thought we all decided APIs shouldn't/couldn't be copyrighted because that was evil when Oracle and Microsoft tried to do it? I guess literally copy-pasting the docs is a flagrant violation, but it seems like that's the least of their problems. Presumably BigCorp will now get a cleanroom team to re-document the re-implemented API.
- didibus 7y agoYa, I find it even more interesting that they copied the Smartcars API. In theory, if you copy an API, you also copy its semantics. The docs for it are supposed to be interchangeable. Its touchy. For example, wouldn't most people rely and use the Java doc even for Android? Now obviously, redistributing a copyrighted doc on their own website without permission is something else. Cause I'm guessing docs are copyrightable, but not APIs. The whole thing is getting more interesting to be honest.
- brootstrap 7y agoGood opinions here. I worked at very early stage startup, and our huge competitors with 1 billion worth of funding were stealing our shit from day 1. Thankfully, we didnt spec out a nice API and all that shit because we were in startup mode. That makes it a bit harder to copy things our stuff because it was a huge pile of undocumented software and data. I think that is just life in tech now. You put out a 'feature' in your app that is new and cool. Two weeks later the same feature shows up in your competitors app. In our case, always better to be ahead of the curve. You've got a small team with 20 folks who are putting pressure on the 100 person teams at these giant companies.
- wongarsu 7y agoThey could just say "Our API is identical to the Smartcars API, documentation can be found here (link)". Smartcars might even be happy about that as it's free advertising. The way they did it looks much shadier, but I doubt it's actually illegal. The longer text blocks are all original, even if clearly inspired by smartcars. The descriptions of paramters is mostly copied verbatim, but I have my doubts it's copyrightable, after all there are only so many ways to describe what "access_token" does. The overall structure of the documentation is also clearly copied and is probably protected by copyright, but it's easily changed.
- save_ferris 7y agoThere are zero material consequences for a well-funded startup to pull shenanigans like this. Why should we be surprised this is happening?
- devoply 7y agoYes except if you are a well funded startup and look like amateurs that copy things verbatim that does not bode well for your reputation going forward. Someone needs to get fired for copying shit verbatim.
- ryanisnan 7y agoA small number of developers are going to see this, unfortunately, and the ding to their reputation will be marginal. I don't know what legal recourse smartcar has, but I would think it is time to seek that advice.
- kirillzubovsky 7y agoUnfortunately for the little guy it's the winner take all market. If the well-funded company wins at the end, no one would even remember the other one existed. Is it ethical? Depends on your ethical stands. Happens all the time.
- save_ferris 7y agoThey'll fire a couple people and everyone will forget in six months. That does nothing to discourage this type of behavior moving forward.
- amirhirsch 7y agoSomeone will get fired and the company will be ordered to pay $30,000 - $150,000 for willful copyright infringement
- monocasa 7y ago$150k is probably worth it from a strictly cost benefit perspective.
- prototyperaptor 7y agoCould there possibly be reasonable explanation for this? With big name investors involved it's likely that respectable and legitimate reporters wouldn't be interested in digging up the truth.
- mkl 7y agoThat seems totally backwards to me. Did you mean "unlikely"? The higher profile the investors, the bigger the news story if something dodgy's happening. In either case, how does that relate to the existence of a reasonable explanation?
- Max-q 7y agoHard to think of a reasonable explanation for copying somebodys work and publishing it.
- cypherpunks01 7y agoYou think they accidentally the whole docs?
- mrfusion 7y agoWait, I can make an app that unlocks my car??
- sahaskatta 7y agoYep! Just check out our docs: https://smartcar.com/docs/ https://smartcar.com/docs/ Would love any feedback you may have!
- tijs 7y agoThe documentation only has a screenshot of the brands supported. Would be nice to just be able to lookup my car brand and make support in the docs instead of having to make an Auth flow first...
- dawnerd 7y agoYeah... I went to their homepage and still had no idea what cars they supported, what features the car needed, etc. From my understanding though they're just a wrapper API around the car manufactures existing apis?
- nickspacek 7y agoFound this eventually: https://support.smartcar.com/faqs/which-car-brands-does-smartcar-support https://support.smartcar.com/faqs/which-car-brands-does-smar...
- danielvinson 7y ago> From my understanding though they're just a wrapper API around the car manufactures existing apis? Yep, think EasyPost for car functions
- lars_francke 7y agoAgreed. The homepage is confusing and doesn't give me some of the information I need. The requirements/supported brands & models should be somewhere prominent on the front page, and I'm honestly still confused. Similar any country restrictions. This being limited to the US should not be hidden three levels deep in some FAQ. The Otonomo isn't any better though, it doesn't even seem to have any links to the docs.
- relaunched 7y agoThis is a great opportunity for Bessemer, and the other investors, to demonstrate that it isn't returns above all. Updated to include my tweet: https://twitter.com/MattHurewitz/status/1120356791932604421?s=09 https://twitter.com/MattHurewitz/status/1120356791932604421?...
- azinman2 7y agoWhat else is it for a VC? Isn’t that literally their purpose?
- relaunched 7y agoEvery business has an obligation to make money. However, the VC game has been filled with a win at all cost mentality that has led to the downfall of many companies - as well as evidence that the companies themselves are not prepare to become public (they aren't worthy of the public trust). One could argue that the market is okay with these types of things. But, we talk about doing the right thing. And if it's not just lip service, this could be a great opportunity to prove it.
- Gabriel_Martin 7y agolumbering forward blindly without responding to the red flags a company throws up is not profitable.
- cromulent 7y agoI can't find the Otonomo API docs online. Have they been taken down?
- bytecut 7y agohttps://docs.otonomo.io/docs/obtain-consent-from-a-driver https://docs.otonomo.io/docs/obtain-consent-from-a-driver
- prostanac 7y agoit seems like they took it down.
- ignoranceprior 7y agoYes, that appears to be the case. (Which in itself is a bit suspicious. Why would they remove it if they thought they had nothing to hide?) Anyway, it was archived: https://web.archive.org/web/20190416030526/https://docs.otonomo.io/docs/obtain-consent-from-a-driver https://web.archive.org/web/20190416030526/https://docs.oton... https://archive.fo/QiMY9 https://archive.fo/QiMY9 The full list of archived otonomo doc pages: https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://docs.otonomo.io/docs/* https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://docs.otonomo.io/docs/* https://archive.fo/docs.otonomo.io https://archive.fo/docs.otonomo.io
- joetribiani 7y agoIt is still here: http://otonomo-docs.readme.io/docs http://otonomo-docs.readme.io/docs (found on another internal forums/board) Save a copy maybe?
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- exabrial 7y agoI don't have a problem with copying another API for compatibility; Think of the Oracle/Google lawsuit, and the fact that reverse engineering for compatibility is already a protected right. I do have major issues with verbatim copying of documents and websites, there's an obvious copyright violation there.
- lifeisstillgood 7y agoThis may be a silver lining - a competitor has shown that the work you have done, exactly the work you have done is worth 55 million in VC funding. There are enough people on here who can point you in the right direction, or arrange introductions. Spend at least one of those millions on PR and lawyers to ensure it's clear who has the moral high ground, and who should be hired if a company has to choose between you - I mean if they are prepared to breach copyright so blatantly here, who knows what other problems they have in their repos - enterprises can be very conservatice on unknown legal risks like that Summary: They are vulnerable - Get 'em
- wjnc 7y agoI would agree on this with one caveat - you should be able to run this battle on a back burner or don't go there. If it would consume you ... Don't. Your time and positive energy are too important. But if you can (it's what's in the CEO learning curve imho) spent a small faction of your time dealing with competitors. If this one is a proper competitor and you have leverage (public goodwill, cash to burn for litigation and communication) - go there. Your investors are probably with you if the threat is both to you and their investment. The outrage factor will probably play into your hands as well. A bankrolled litigation fund (smallish) is doable.
- mkolodny 7y ago> Summary: They are vulnerable - Get 'em Or, go get $55 Million in VC funding from someone else. You have a major head start. Your company is theoretically worth at least as much as theirs. Complaining about competitors copying you might slow them down a bit. But it will probably slow you down a lot more. On the other hand, using their valuation to raise $55M+ would be a huge boost for you.
- brk 7y ago"Your company is theoretically worth at least as much as theirs." Maybe. Having worked in the auto industry (albeit well over a decade ago), it is one of those industries where connections, and knowing how to navigate the relationships, goes a long way. I don't know much about either of these companies, or their founders, but in B2B scenarios like this, the value is often related to much more than just the underlying technology. If I were Smartcar, I would look closely at relationships, physical and virtual proximity to major automotive players, and how their suppliers prefer to do business. And, perhaps they already have...
- dillonmckay 7y agoCan you not use a DMCA and contact their hosting provider? One per offense. Also, if the docs are registered copyright, willfull infringement per offense is over $100k per instance. $50mil/$140k = 357.14 Thoughts?
- rum3 7y agoA bit naive. I am sure the DMCA can be used to put some fire on their ass to rewrite the documentation though but not much more than that.
- Veen 7y agoDepends who is hosting their documentation. Under the DCMA, hosting providers are obligated to take content down when they recieve a valid takedown notice (They can put it back up when they get a counter notice).
- dragonwriter 7y agoThe DMCA can be used to put a fire under them to file a DMCA counternotice, at which point the whole issue with their hosting provider is done and you are down to the basic question of are you going to file, litigate, and win an actual copyright lawsuit on a timeline and at a cost that leaves you with a viable startup.
- JustSomeNobody 7y agoAnd now that this has hit HN, I bet they're rewriting the docs right now.
- stale2002 7y agoNo judge would agree that damages are anywhere close to 100k per instance. It just isn't something a judge would ever agree to.
- bob33212 7y agoI expected this to be a " I had the idea first" post. But it is actually a copyright infringement post AND makes the offending company look like a bunch of hacks. If they don't have the engineering chops to build an API how are going to handle the ops of it.
- ttoinou 7y agoSo they have the intellectual property of some random CSS tables that everyone have on their website and a GET parameter of an URL ? Wow
- Veen 7y agoAre you being deliberately obtuse? It's the contents of the tables that have been ripped off.
- scient 7y agoIts OAuth documentation - its a very well described standard protocol. Most of the OAuth documentation looks and reads exactly like this. The only "smoking gun" is the "random" value used for the state parameter, which seems to be copied over - and developers copy other products/sites documentation ALL THE TIME. While there is substance in the post that some other company is building the same product, saying that its literally cloning it and using documentation similarity for a standardized protocol is not really cutting it.
- Veen 7y agoProduct ideas are not subject to copyright. Documentation is. If developers copy other products' documentation "all the time" then they should stop (unless the documentation has a licence that allows it). Doing something "all the time" doesn't make it moral or legal.
- jacquesm 7y agoThat smoking gun is smoking plenty. That and the typos are the kind of proof that are a godsend during a lawsuit when you're on the offense and a really really bad day when you're on the defense.
- yingw787 7y agoHoly crap. The only way forward for Bessemer et al. VCs is to immediately withdraw their funding for this “company” and cut all ties in order to prove that they had no forewarning that this is how their money was being used. There are so few actors this visibly bad that if they didn’t do anything they would become “that guy” everybody avoids, in both the deals and funding space, when orgs do their due diligence. So they could choose to not do anything, which means the only companies approaching them in the future are the desperate ones, and they lose the capital anyways to the markets due to a shoddy portfolio. Don’t knife your intangibles.
- jacquesm 7y agoBessemer & Co. would not spend this kind of money without doing DD to the point where their competitive review would have snagged the OP's efforts. So most likely they know.
- gnicholas 7y agoSounds like VCs need a plagiarism detector for websites (think TurnItIn) to make sure their portfolio companies aren't blatant ripoffs.
- jacquesm 7y agoWe always check this sort of stuff for our customers, and more than once it has triggered.
- gnicholas 7y agoHow do you do it? Just using Google on various phrases? Are you checking for your customers our on your customers? If the latter, why do you care (most vendors wouldn't).
- jacquesm 7y ago> How do you do it? We have a team of people that exhaustively search for players in the same space. The 'Google on various phrases' is more or less the gist of it, the more unique the better. It's not an automated process so fairly time consuming. > Are you checking for your customers our on your customers? We do not check on our customers, we check for our customers. And usually pre-investment. > If the latter, why do you care (most vendors wouldn't). You are probably wrong about that, copying something verbatim will get you a C&D pdq in most cases.
- legitster 7y agoI hope the VC notices this. At best they invested in a lazy company. At worst, fraudsters. If they actually believe the idea has merit, they should do right by Otonomo.
- dragonwriter 7y agoA lazy company—one that gets the job done expending the least unnecessary resources—is what investors want. Playing fast and loose with the law—whether it's competitors legal interests or regulatory conpliance—is often part of the economy of disruption.
- rum3 7y agoI am sorry to hear that but it is does not really surprise me. I bet they will just rewrite their docs a little bit and then go on with their business. Amazing that they have 55M$ in funding and still hire a bunch of amateurs. I bet the design for their docs is based on some free online template too because it looks very cheap. I wish you all luck!
- philjackson 7y agoYou can't copyright an API, right? What are you asking them to stop doing in the c&d? Copying the website and documentation?
- gnicholas 7y agoSee Oracle vs Google.[1] It's not as simple a question as it might seem. Google is currently appealing to the Supreme Court. 1: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_America,_Inc._v._Google,_Inc https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_America,_Inc._v._Goog....
- commandlinefan 7y ago> Smartcar’s team has worked _day and night_ over the past few years Maybe this is karma for being willing to work people to death?
- WhyKill 7y agoWelcome to the world of startups: I hope you developed some secret sauce!
- idlewords 7y agoI got stuck at "Developers can read our docs and use our API to locate or even unlock a car’s doors with just a few lines of code"
- tclancy 7y agoBut you can understand the outrage: now two sets of developers can do this. I'm still getting over the fact I upgraded the radio on my car back in 2010 with a USB stick and using the driver's side door to control the process. I think a well-documented API that shows exactly how my car is vulnerable is a step up.
- ChuckMcM 7y agoThat is pretty egregious, and its also par for the course. And that is why startup companies go through all the hoops of being "stealth" and having NDAs and what not. There was a German VC firm that was, as I recall, very upfront about this. Clone a successful US company before it got to the European market. On the one hand it is great to have validation of the idea, on the other its a pain to have someone with more money in the bank able to spend it on marketing and spinning the narrative in their favor. Since the ability to get a foreign company (in this case Israeli) to do anything is limited, your best bet is to out execute them. Also, love them or hate them, having patents helps in situations like these. The reality is that if an idea is really good, the people who came up with it know it better than anyone and that gives them a tremendous advantage in terms of knowing what is important and what isn't. Companies have been known to talk about expensive and complicated features or options in order to get people trying to copy their success to waste time and money on something for which there is no actual demand. It is no doubt worth investing in understanding how one's enemies are getting their information and shutting that off if possible.
- jacquesm 7y ago> German VC firm that was, as I recall, very upfront about this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_Internet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_Internet
- lapnitnelav 7y agoAh good old Rocket Internet. Used to deal quite a lot with them back in the days. For all the ethically ambiguous things they do, I still remember fondly their creative ways of using AdTech.
- seibelj 7y agoSo they built a new product to a competitor's API spec? There is nothing wrong with that, the API itself is a plug - you need to implement the backend to compete. It is super lame and dumb to have ripped off their doc, but the API format itself is not an issue to me. If I were going to implement a competitor to Google Maps, it would make sense to copy the Maps API so people can migrate seamlessly. That is the nature of SaaS. The core value proposition is not in API design, it's in the implementation.
- beckler 7y agodocumentation is protected under copyright.
- rat9988 7y agoApi design is part of the value.
- chii 7y agoAnd not all value is capturable under copyright. If you want this level of capture of value, use patents instead.
- phkahler 7y agoI agree with you completely, but Oracle vs Google is still going through the courts on this exact issue - copyright on APIs. I've seen product roll-outs delayed because that case isn't settled yet. For VCs to jump in knowing that's what this was seems risky, but maybe they factored that in.
- ddebernardy 7y agoThis isn't (only) about copyright on APIs; it's also about copyright on the API docs.
- chii 7y agoThe docs definitely is a violation, but that's a foregone conclusion when even the examples are exactly the same. The copyright of the structure of the API, however, is still something to be debated about.
- fakfa 7y agoJews being Jews. Hardly surprising.
- jacquesm 7y agoThis is bad, but not quite as bad as it could be: they have tons of money and are ripe for the plucking due to their incredible stupidity at ripping you off in this blatant manner. Lawyer up and take them to the cleaners.
- noonespecial 7y agoYou may not hear anything right away, but someone who works for (or was outsourced by) Otonomo is currently having a Very Bad Day.
- jacquesm 7y agoOtonomo management will have an even worse day when they realize that they are not indemnified just because someone works for them. They will likely have to kiss a substantial portion of that money goodbye as compensation in whatever settlement will be reached. Their lawyers will not be able to win this one from what I've read and seen so far so the best they will be able to achieve is to settle before it gets to court, fighting this will only make it much more expensive. OP should figure out if the public stuff is all that was ripped or if it went further, it would not be the first time that an ex employee made off with a copy of the company crown jewels.
- gota 7y agoIt would be (morbidly? Sadochistically? I lack the term) interesting to watch how many people jump ship in a situation like this.
- jacquesm 7y agoOnce upon a time a group called 'CitizenX' copied the Camarades.com website and software and gave us the proverbial finger because 'they were in the US and we were in Europe and what were we going to do about it?'. Turns out not everybody working there agreed with the tactic and the day they raised money I got a very nicely worded anonymous email with the name of the investor. The ink on the press release was still wet when I mailed the VC for their legal contact because we were still well within the statue of limitations and now they could actually pay up. The only message I got back was 'we will not be investing'.
- CamelCaseName 7y agoThat is truly poetic.
- drinane 7y agoSell your rights to sue them to those Texas class action lawyers and call it a day.
- runako 7y agoThis is obviously terrible, inexcusable behavior... However, I expected to see that SmartCar (which somehow is not a trademark violation against the BMW marque?) was a scrappy indie startup being violated by a company backed by serious institutional money. TL;DR; Smartcar is backed by NEA and A16Z. (Crunchbase says they have raised $12mm, which would likely put them comfortably in the top 1% of companies by capital raised.) This is a spat between two well-funded and well-backed companies. None of this is to excuse the behavior of the Israeli company, just recognizing that the violated company probably has access to more levers than most to fix this.
- perfunctory 7y ago"is illegally cloning our product" isn't it for the court to establish?
- frosted-flakes 7y agoNo. If I photocopy the Harry Potter books, change the name on the covers, and sell them as my own, that is obviously illegal. This is the same thing, and nobody needs to wait for the courts to say that it is illegal.
- perfunctory 7y agoI am sorry. Maybe your Harry Potter example is "obvious", but the case in the blog post is not obvious to me at all. I don't see any verbatim copied documentation. "overall structure"? Hey, the overall structure of almost any api doc is pretty much the same. All I see is similar API, which is not copyrightable, and identical randomly generated identifiers - and it's not obvious to me that it constitutes copyright infringement. Let's not do witch-hunting.
- hbglih 7y agoIt's obviously not the same thing because the only parts that were verbatim copied are some property descriptions for the OAuth 2.0 protocol. Maybe 100 words or so. This whole thing was blown way out of proportion.
- option_greek 7y agoI don't have any data to back it up but majority of Israeli startups have one goal: to be acquired (and are extremely good at marketing them to acquiring companies and investors). So continue your product and in a couple of years time, they would have been acquired and the product put on back burner by the acquiring company.
- gyaniv 7y ago> I don't have any data to back it up but majority of Israeli startups have one goal: to be acquired... As someone that worked for one, and knows enough people that work in other Israeli startups, I can tell you it isn't true. True, some startups get acquired, but no more then any other place (the only difference I see is that in some tech areas Israeli talent is considered very good, so when looking for an acquisition, big corps are probably more likely to go for the Israeli options)
- xenospn 7y agoAs someone who worked for one and is originally from Israel, I can tell you it is, absolutely, 100% true. No one in Israel is interested in managing or building a large company and they all want to exit as soon as possible.
- mola 7y agoAlso Israeli, can also back this up. There are a handful of Israeli startups trying to build a large companies. There are exceptions, and large one at those. But it's the common mentality.
- rossenberg79 7y agoYou blew it. By posting this article and getting to the top of Hackernews you may have alerted their attention and they may rapidly change everything to not seem like copyright infringement. Then you might have weak or no claims.
- notsofastbuddy 7y agoThe C&D letter mentioned in the post probably already alerted them.
- evilolive 7y agoAh just the uplifting words op needed for the battle ahead.
- cadio 7y agoNothing to blow. This is not illegal. That's why they wrote it up as a blog post and are trying to garner PR from it.
- rossenberg79 7y agoSo a postmortem basically.
- foobiekr 7y agoEvery single instance of professional plagiarism that I’ve encountered in my working career has been techpubs/documentation. And that has been exponentially more common for outsourced documentation. Even solid companies like Arista got bitten by their doc writers cloning Cisco documentation. So while this sucks, the most likely explanation for the evidence presented is at that layer.
- mnort9 7y agoThis is obviously frustrating, but do not focus on it. They were wrong and lazy to blatantly copy, but would it really make a difference if they spent an extra couple hours with a few copy/css changes to make it look more unique? Unfortunately, the market does not care about who had what first. This is a validation for you. Frustrating validation. You likely do not have the resources to fight them for anything meaningful. Stay focused on your customers.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- NicoJuicy 7y agoLook who the investors are, go to person's similar in the same niche. Go for funding, your idea is already validates.
- dcolkitt 7y agoA lot of good advice on here. Let me add another point, maybe just consider negotiating an acquisition. Yes, it does kind of suck they stole your idea. But the fact that they have $55 million in funding, probably means they're willing to buy you out for a couple million. One, just to avoid any legal issues. Two, because you've already done a lot of work on the problem. Maybe it's worth fighting. But maybe it's also worth considering getting a multi-million dollar payday, and moving on to something else.
- otoburb 7y agoIf they go down this route, SmartCar should ask for at least their post-money valuation based on their last $10M raise back in March 2018[1], not just a "couple of million". [1] https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/smartcar#section-overview https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/smartcar#section-ove...
- stale2002 7y agoNo judge would agree to that as damages. The smart car documentation is worth some amount of money. But there is no way in hell that it is worth 10 million dollars. In law, there is this concept of "damages". Smartcar did not get lose 10 million dollars because a company stole their docs.
- otoburb 7y agoUnless I misunderstood, the parent comment referred to a buy-out/acquisition route, which is where SmartCar should ask for at least a post-money ballpark figure -- no judge involved in an acquisition process. If SmartCar goes for damages, then that's an entirely different ball of wax.
- novaleaf 7y agoWhat kind of tools are used to create API Docs like this? I made a dev-focused SaaS and struggle to find a good way to document API's directly via the codebase, so that code changes can be reflected automatically in the docs.
- asmithmd1 7y agoI think the de facto standard for creating API docs based on code is to use https://swagger.io/ https://swagger.io/
- ngngngng 7y agoFor GraphQL I like graph2doc. I assume if you follow a different API spex exactly you've got many options that do exactly what this package does.
- sahaskatta 7y agoWhile we built ours in house using a few open source frameworks, we do highly recommend https://readme.io https://readme.io
- ohaideredevs 7y agoThis almost scares me away from even trying to start a business - I have no idea how to compete if someone with more money tries to steal it. It seems the solutions are: 1. Do some accelerator to get connections and money. 2. Just do it and hope you don't get stomped.
- no1youknowz 7y agoI used to have these feelings as well. I'm soon to be jumping into a crowded market as well. Many of my competitors have had VC funding and do billions per year. It doesn't bother me in the slightest. I can be far more nimble than they can. Doesn't matter if they try and stomp me. A bigger company will always do something in their own interests and piss off a segment of their customer base which means they will move eventually. Not only that, because I don't have VC funding. I can always have lower prices CapEx and move it OpEx instead. As long as I am much lower costs compared to being with the incumbents then it's a better prospect cost wise to my customers. Finally, better customer service, features, ease of use, pricing and roi to the customer is what matters at the end of the day. If you simply have a much better product and able to generate and retain trust in your user base. You'll be alright. My advice. Just start the business today. Whether or not you get stomped on is neither here or there. What matters most is the experience you'll get vs in 5 years time when you wish you had started and still scared!
- arjunvpaul 7y ago"Expecting the world to be fair with us because we are fair, is like expecting the lion not to eat us because we didn't eat him" - Paul Graham I am no Paul Graham, but I think you are wasting your time. Let's say you win the case next Tuesday and the judge miraculously orders them to shut shop. They dissapear on Thursday. Then what? You still wake up next Friday with 99% of the problems (and opportunities) you had, before you "came across Otonomo’s publicly available API documentation" a few days ago. If there's still a little voice inside your head that's sayin - Paul Graham didn't say that, you are missing the f*ing point. Start over.
- dragonwriter 7y ago> I am no Paul Graham, but I think you are wasting your time. Let's say you win the case next Tuesday and the judge miraculously orders them to shut shop. The judge won't order them to “shut shop”, but to pay damages. Though it will obviously take longer than next Tuesday (but the real objective is to use the likelihood of a verdict and the harm on both sides to secure a pretrial settlement which either involves stopping and compensation or just more compensation that amounts to a buyout.)
- djabatt 7y agoIn this case hate the game and the players.
- keithwhor 7y agoSmartcar has raised $12M in financing from A16Z and NEA. The difference between $12M and $55M is a single financing stage. What likely happened here is a remote team was paid to generate docs with a directive like, “Smartcar has a good API,” and stole them directly. Then the management team didn’t bother checking. This is great PR for Smartcar all things considered, and I actually think has a fantastic silver lining: The value of a good API isn’t the API itself. It’s the expertise of designing them. APIs are difficult, the majority of the industry sucks at designing and delivering them. Otonomo can always copy you, but if you have the actual expertise to continually deliver a fantastic API experience you will win in the long-term. Stripe and Twilio are your proof points. Go get ‘em, team. Bessemer invested in Twilio and they know this, and the Otonomo team just showed them that they’re incompetent in the API space. So — I think you’ve got a bigger leg up than you think.
- ethbro 7y ago> What likely happened here is a remote team was paid to generate docs with a directive like, “Smartcar has a good API,” and stole them directly. Then the management team didn’t bother checking. If a remote team is writing your API documentation by copying and pasting, then what is the actual implementation team building from?
- keithwhor 7y agoRemote teams can be responsible for both implementation and documentation. I’m not saying that’s what happened here necessarily, but I’ve seen this pattern repeated before (less egregiously). Founders can only do so much and most people are completely ignorant of the value of a good API, so it’s not hard for an executive team to say, “make it like that other one,” instead of staffing out the proper team.
- sahaskatta 7y agoHi, I'm the CEO of Smartcar. While I can't go into exact details, I can say from what we know so far: this occurred out of their main headquarters.
- localhostdotdev 7y agonot sure how to formulate it but wouldn't a great execution be very hard to reproduce? looks like it's copying the external API. also looking at the other company documentation, it's different from the screenshots: https://docs.otonomo.io/docs/getting-started https://docs.otonomo.io/docs/getting-started (archive.org history is quite limited so may have been scrubbed) edit: yes those "screenshots" are very disingenuous: https://smartcar.com/docs/api#introduction https://smartcar.com/docs/api#introduction
- ignoranceprior 7y agoActually, many of the otonomo docs were saved to web.archive.org, last week: https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://docs.otonomo.io/docs/* https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://docs.otonomo.io/docs/* And many were saved to archive.fo today: https://archive.fo/docs.otonomo.io https://archive.fo/docs.otonomo.io The screenshots look accurate to me, what discrepancies do you see?
- localhostdotdev 7y agoyes I meant I didn't see anything very old. I meant that it's just copying the API format (e.g. probably to make migrating from the other service easy) which isn't uncommon (e.g. most of AWS services copied APIs)
- z0mbie42 7y agoSome may call it 'outsourcing'.
- jbverschoor 7y agoDoes this mean I can sell a car and then unlock (steal) it? :)
- alexnewman 7y agoAt a certain startup i worked at, we decided to rip off some random strings from a competitors docs, solely to make them think we ripped them off. In truth, we started on the product at the same time of them and waited for them to launch first to use their press and marketing against them.
- isuckatcoding 7y agoSlight tangent but can you “copyright” a REST API or UI? Sure, the endpoints and look can be copied but the secret is the implementation, no?
- jrochkind1 7y agoIn some ways it reminds one of the Google/Oracle API thing -- most of us didn't _want_ the API itself (the method signatures or 'shapes') to be copyrightable or otherwise protectable as IP (as the law seemed to say it _wasn't_ until the Google/Oracle case). However, copying the _docs_ like that is a clear copyright violation, always has been, still is, not really a legal gray area, I don't know what the heck Otonomo was thinking, and I hope they get their hat handed to them.
- huhtenberg 7y ago> We created a standard API for cars. What do they mean by "standard" here if they object to this API being copied? The very goal of API standardization is to have a common interface for TWO parts to talk to each other in a consistent manner. An API that through whatever means allows for only one specific backend doesn't really qualify for being a "standard". > How Otonomo is illegally cloning our product So am I to understand that the API spec is their product? Or is their API not as standard as they claim? Can't have your cake and eat it too.
- PunchTornado 7y agoExactly, I don't understand what is their objection. Since when copying some API docs is illegal? We don't even know yet if API are copyrightable, right? Ever since Facebook copied snapchat's features like it was nothing it became clear for everyone that the best clone will win. You have a product? Expect a clone of it. To me this post is just "they stole my idea" whining.
- huhtenberg 7y agoNo, verbatim copying of the docs, API or not, is obviously not right. However if they are claiming to aim for API standardization, the specs should be in public domain from the start.
- ceejayoz 7y agoFacebook's cloning of Snapchat's features is legal. If they'd copied Snapchat's "how to use <feature>" documentation verbatim, typos and all, that'd have been a copyright violation.
- joemi 7y agoDid you look at the linked article? It's not verbatim. It's clear that it was heavily based on Smartcar's docs, but it's most certainly not verbatim.
- 7y ago
- ankit219 7y agoInitial disclaimer that I might be wrong about this and the space in general Have they cloned the API docs or the entire product? Copying API docs is stupid but I can see how that would have been done in a hurry. However, if I were building a Saas product with an API and a competitor to a popular tool who has it, I will deliberately keep the basic functions as similar to ensure seamless transition. Its not about uniqueness but moving fast. Companies which might want to switch will have it easier given they wont have to change their code much, and by extension can be deployed faster, and I will try to sell them on the features we offer extra over the competitors. I am not sure about copyright/patent infringement so cant comment about that. Part of what I wrote above might not be allowed, but maybe mentioning explicitly might be ok .
- injidup 7y agoWhen Google clones the java API's the tone here is that API's are not protected and Oracle are evil gold diggers. Now an Israeli startup copies API's from another startup and the tone here is completely the opposite. What's up?
- phkahler 7y agoThe tone of the post is that way. The comments here suggest quite the opposite.
- iMuzz 7y agoI wish they identified Otonomo's IP address and served them a different (inaccurate) version of the product to copy instead.
- phamilton 7y ago> 0facda3319 That's bad for sure. However, most "Oauth2 flow" documentation pages look like that. They all have a table that's basically copied out of the Oauth2 spec. They all have very similar language. This is a good thing. Oauth2 is a well defined spec, and there just isn't a lot of ambiguity there. If it weren't for the copied random state, I'd shrug this off.
- AtomicOrbital 7y agoIs there a name and shame site ... other than HN ?
- gwbas1c 7y agoThis just looks like an OAuth flow, which is rather standard. It's not a good example to use of someone stealing an API.
- omgitstom 7y agoBeing in the authentication/authorization space for a while, this couldn't be truer. If OAuth 2.0 was a compelling differentiator from your API standpoint, they are doing it wrong.
- jcoffland 7y ago> We created a standard API for cars. Does that not mean anyone else can use the API?
- yayr 7y agoAPI usually have at least copyright protection, sometimes even license protection. Although I am not a huge fan of many of their business practices, Oracle has been quite successful in defending API copyright violations. https://searchoracle.techtarget.com/news/2240220840/Oracle-takes-on-Google-SAP-Comcast-in-copyright-protection-lawsuits https://searchoracle.techtarget.com/news/2240220840/Oracle-t...
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- evil1 7y agosue them!
- hharnisch 7y agoI was expecting another company copying the core business logic based off the title, but it looks like things related to redirect and auth are very (very) similar. Nearly every API is going to need solutions for these, and they all look very similar. I'd be surprised if the redirect and auth parts weren't at least in some way inspired by other APIs.
- avip 7y agoIt "looks" like they verbatim copy-pasted the documentation (and the api).
- badrequest 7y agoThat's capitalism, baby.
- gyaniv 7y agoI sort of feel that if the worst thing you can find is that someone stole your registration or OAuth documentation, you're a bit over-exaggerating. And to say that someone is cloning your startup when they only (supposedly) stole the documentation is extreme in any case, especially when they're not really a very new startup, so it's not like you can claim everything they did was just copy from you.
- CSMR 7y ago"I cloned a sheep" does not imply "I am a clone of a sheep" or "The only thing I have ever done is clone sheep".
- bbulkow 7y agoInteresting legal point. Whether an api falls under copywrite is still under adjudication between oracle and google. Generally apis are fair game, although that might change. Otherwise, if you published and they cloned, that's the way the game is played.
- hummel 7y agoI have solid evidence that some EV startups that raised billions like Faraday Future are built on our EV-technology and self-driving stack that we built during 2007-2012. Our project died in 2014 due to lack of support and funding on Europe, while our "Chinese partners" started raising mega large rounds literally copying everything from us, from business plan to technology. You can also see an overnight quality jump on engineering and powertrain from the Chinese EVs (pre-2014) to 2015+, based on our previous work.
- HillaryBriss 7y ago> self-driving stack that we built what company was it that went out of business in 2014?
- rhegart 7y agoIn a previous thread about China ripping of IP and blatantly sabotaging others illegally, many commentators supported them saying it’s better for the world. The fact that people are this naive scares me. I’m so sorry this happened, I am glad more light is being shined in unfair practices like this.
- hummel 7y agoIt really breaks my heart every time I read this kind of thread in HN, the terrible personal experience of seeing how others build empires with your corpse is the least terrible for me. China thinks like civilization and as long as the rest of us keep thinking that this is a global world, where we are all good, kind and we do yoga while we walk our dogs, we will keep having problems with the Chinese.
- xvector 7y agoI have also seen calls for caution and warning dismissed as racism. I agree - this is an extremely sad situation.
- TheRealPomax 7y agoCan someone explain where the "illegal" part comes in? Copyright would probably cover the exact text, but it looks like they massaged it enough to not run afoul of copyright laws, so... which laws were broken?
- whamlastxmas 7y agoTo say they're illegally cloning your product is probably misleading. They're potentially infringing your copyright on your documentation but there's nothing illegal about their general product offering. I think you are hurting your case with hyperbole.
- thesausageking 7y agoPlaying the "our small team" card is a stretch for a startup that's raised $12m from two >$5B funds (a16z, NEA). It's also a stretch to say their product was cloned. It looks like what was copied was just a pretty standard OAuth setup, which most developers cut-and-paste anyway. There's nothing core to the product or even having to do with cars here.
- anon4242 7y agoWhile the posted stuff does look very similar, with identical random numbers etc, the APIs in question looks like pretty standard off-the-shelf OAUTH... Unless other APIs are very similar as well, it seems that Otonomo just took a shortcut in documenting their OAUTH by copying Smartcars documentation.
- peter_retief 7y agoKeep going and look for ways to turn it to your advantage
- mtnGoat 7y agoi think this is a perfect example of: ideas mean nothing, execution means everything. you had the idea, but they had the connections(VC, industry, etc) and knowhow to execute on it faster and bring it to market faster. Sad, but this is the market we have created! The rich can steal ideas, or do whatever they want, with impunity because they can defend their questionable actions in court. This is what AirBNB and Uber were built on.
- mruts 7y agoMaybe they're just better? I'm sure A16Z was aware of both and decided to fund only one. Money (especially smart money like A16Z) goes where it's treated best, and apparently some smart people think smartcar isn't going to treat their money as well. Copying and pasting the docs seems a little egregious, but that's a pretty small issue that could be changed in a day.
- Animats 7y agoIn general, you can't copyright a "working part". That's why there are 3rd party auto parts. That's pretty much true in the software area too, although Google and Oracle are over- litigating that issue. The idea here probably isn't patentable. "Locate and unlock a car's doors remotely" is not exactly original. Just rewording the docs is cheezy. The other party should have done a full rewrite.
- cgy1 7y agoNot on such a broad idea, but a specific implementation for accomplishing such a task is much more likely to be patentable, and would be very useful to protect against a copycat that is just purely copying.
- tjungblut 7y ago> The idea here probably isn't patentable. "Locate and unlock a car's doors remotely" is not exactly original. I don't want to be disrespectful and also don't want to condone somebody ripping off API docs. But if the whole product is nine pretty simple and straightforward RESTful API endpoints with OAuth2 integration(eg. [1]), then I have a hard time to understand why there are not hundreds of other companies doing the same thing. Where is the value here, is it the integration with car manufacturers? [1] https://smartcar.com/docs/api#get-basic-vehicle-info https://smartcar.com/docs/api#get-basic-vehicle-info
- Animats 7y agoFrom a quick search, at least four apps for remote car unlocking are available. Not clear what makes this new one special.
- modzu 7y agoit seems that both companies started up at the same time both have raised tens of millions. the only direct copypasta i'm seeing is some oauth references (lame yes, but big deal without the backend code) why does this post read like david vs goliath? i hate to be such a cynic but given those two facts this reads to me like a marketing piece [0] https://venturebeat.com/2018/03/01/smartcar-raises-10-million-from-nea-and-andreessen-horowitz-for-developers-to-build-apps-for-connected-cars https://venturebeat.com/2018/03/01/smartcar-raises-10-millio...
- otakucode 7y agoLooks like someone is looking to pull a Peter Thiel. He stole Palantirs primary product from a developer in Florida. The developer sued and won completely, with the court openly declaring that Palantir had stolen his technology lock, stock, and barrel. But... they had enough money that it didn't matter.
- jandrewrogers 7y agoThis is surprisingly and unfortunately common. I do technical DD for big tech companies and VCs in my areas of expertise -- databases, geospatial, and sensor analytics. Plagiarism, particularly of white papers and documentation, is ubiquitous. I've personally been plagiarized by famous unicorn startups that are now post-IPO. I never call any of these companies out but it is a poor startup strategy for two reasons: First, someone like me flagging this has killed or crippled potential acquisitions by big tech companies. In most cases, the startup has no idea that the plagiarism was discovered but it follows their reputation. It is a giant red flag since it raises questions about the provenance of the rest of the IP. Plagiarism reduces your probability of a successful exit. Second, in some cases, it puts you in the position of tacitly trying to execute someone else's technical vision that you may be lack the expertise to replicate. I've also seen this failure mode multiple times. Plagiarized documentation makes a promise that will be difficult or impossible for the startup to deliver on because they lack specialized expertise that the company they copied it from has. This is a form of self-sabotage since it puts the startup in the position of executing from a position of weakness in order to match the content they ripped off from some other startup, which leads to poor product and poor customer experience. Copying abstract ideas is fine, there are many possible implementation variations, but blatantly ripping off other startups is a very low ROI strategy for startup success.
- iamleppert 7y agoForgive me, but all I really see that’s ripped of are...some API docs? You can tell they copied them but this is likely the work of a single lazy employee rather than indicative of an entire company. Consider that the value of a company is more than API documentation. It’s the customers, the business relationships, and the employees. The actual tech is last in the things that are valuable. If you want to survive in this industry you need to understand that eventually someone is going to copy your product. They might even do it better than you. Unless you can prove fraud, there’s nothing you can do. There’s no crime in copying someone's public API and offering an identical service; people do it all the time. Instead of worrying about your competitor and some lazy employee they hired there, worry about your own product, customers, business. Start planning your next feature or next way you’re going to WOW your customers. That’s your real job. Now get to it!
- hw 7y agoIt's not just the API docs that are copied, but the API structure itself. Then again, the examples shown in the article are just OAuth flows, which are a standard and docs are going to look similar regardless. But I totally agree with not worry about competitors. There's always going to be people copying you, and if they do that means you're doing something right. Think Stripe - I'm sure they're a huge source of 'inspiration' for a lot of sites when it comes to design and documentation.
- martinhath 7y agoIt is curious that while HN as a whole seems to be on the same side regarding the Google vs. Oracle case, they also are quick to jump on this bandwagon, but in the other direction. Is it lame to blatantly copy someones API docs? Sure. But even looking at the screenshots in their blog post, which I presume is meant to highlight this issue, it's clear that there are changes as well, so it looks more like derivative work than just blind copying (I'm not sure if there's a meaningful legal distinction here, but it feels more ethical).
- dmitryminkovsky 7y agoSame thought here but fwiw to me it seems that there are plenty of people on this thread who are on the Google side of this discussion.
- joshfraser 7y agoSeveral years ago, I hired a boutique Silicon Valley law firm to create some terms of service and privacy documents for my company. As part of their long list of questions about how we would use our customers data, they asked for a list of similar companies and competitors. I'd already reviewed all of our competitor's terms to get a sense of what other people were doing. So, when I reviewed the final documents that they wanted $5,000 for, they looked oddly familiar. A quick diff verified my suspicions. They had copy-pasted from one of our competitors and then search-replaced the company name. When I called them out on it, they said it was common practice and not to worry. I found a new law firm and they never bothered to try and collect on that invoice.
- iandanforth 7y agoSadly this is exactly what should be done in most contracts. (In a hypothetical alternate world where law worked more like OSS). Of course it was unethical for them to do it without telling you and trying to charge you $5k for it, but law would be a heck of a lot cheaper if openness and code re-use were the default.
- Max_aaa 7y agoIt would be nice to git clone a contract.
- newsoul2019 7y agoWhy doesn't all legal work start with a "git clone"?
- ptman 7y agoThe contract may well be copyright by the competing service provider's law firm. You can't just copy&paste it. It's especially worrying when law firms specialising in IPR issues do this.
- arendtio 7y agoEspecially in the startup world, such a model would be quite helpful as we spend more money on the lawyer than on anything else (in the early days).
- KorematsuFred 7y agoI built a technology to make digital books from old copyright expired printed books in various less popular languages. After I put a lot of content online and getting decent traffic from google search I started receiving DMCA take down notices from an American company that had simply copied all my data to their website and claimed to google that it is their copyright. (Imagine the audacity to call Bible translation from 1800s their own copyright). When I tried to file an appeal with Google I had to agree to abide by California jurisdiction and American laws. I am not even American. Why should I ? I am happy if Google blocks my site in American owing to DMCA because US traffic for me is next to zero. But I am not sure why DMCA should apply to India.
- kobiguru 7y agoDOn't take this lightly if you are serious about the website. DMCA takedown is worldwide and with European copyright laws in place you have more reasons to worry. Talk to a good copyright attorney. There are many, seek the help of NGOs in this area. Do NOT sit back.
- KorematsuFred 7y agoI have blocked my site for Europe any ways. I will not comply with European laws of any kind as the site is fully hosted and run from India. I would rather focus my energy on getting Indian government pass laws that will protect us rather than pay an attorney for my non profitable website.
- ItsJason 7y agoVery good prioritization. Focus on providing value rather than deal with trolls in countries outside your target market!
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- propman 7y agoWould it be beneficial for you to make this a big deal from a political or media perspective? You seem to have an excellent case, and I would reach out to major news publications like Bloomberg or the NYTimes now while it’s at the top of HN. Maybe make a medium article or something for extra exposure as well? Are there entities that protect American IP from other countries? Maybe the US chamber of commerce, or maybe reach out to the government itself.
- nwsm 7y agoAm I missing something or did they only copy the OAuth flow? Yes it's unethical and seemingly illegal, but it's not like this is getting them anywhere close to a working product. None of the content in the article is related to any API that actually does something... It's just authorization.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- jmtame 7y agoLooks like par for the course. This happens all the time and it’s just part of the game you have to play when entering the markets. A judge or jury will have to figure out the rest of it, if you have the resources to go that route. Ultimately you’d be better off viewing this as a distraction. Every hour you spend on this is an hour you don’t spend on your own customers or hiring your team to do what matters: execute. And others will pop up just like this, with more funding and more powerful lawyers.
- agotterer 7y agoJust because they copied your idea doesn't mean they've won. Executing on that idea better than your competitors is how you ultimately win. It seems like you have a bit of a head start, so find a way to take advantage of that. Just don't forget that many companies with even deeper pockets have tried to knock off ideas before and have failed. Go execute better than them.
- agotterer 7y agoSerious question: Is it actually illegal to knock off documentation? Is documentation protected by copyright?
- IvanK_net 7y agoI don't understand what is the problem. If you made your API public, you want people to use it. If another company decides to use the same API, it is only good, in my opinion. It is very similar to an issue with phone chargers. There were times, where each phone manufacturer had a different charger, and if a new company decided to use a charger desing from Nokia, they would probably sue them. I am so glad those times are over and we use USB everywhere. Arent you glad, that your API could be used everyhwere? Or another example, imagine if every web browser had a different "web language" like Javascript, and developers would have to make several versions of their website for each browser. And if a new browser wanted to display webpages ment for Firefox, Firefox would sue them.
- Alexmv 7y agoDoes this mean that smartcar.com is cloning the many year old API for authenticating with Google backends for limited-input devices? https://developers.google.com/identity/protocols/OAuth2ForDevices https://developers.google.com/identity/protocols/OAuth2ForDe... Because these APIs all look very similar to me.
- nicodjimenez 7y agoSuck it up and stop whining.
- pg_is_a_butt 7y agoEspecially considering SmartUSA.com and "Smart Cars" existed before SmartCar.com, and SmartCar.com is actively profiting off a brand and trademark established by someone else. Looks like karma is catching up with them.
- Gibbon1 7y agoSomeone I know worked for a company making ultra sound machines. A US company bought one of their machines and exported it to Japan where it was reverse engineered. And they found out about it. The upshot was both the US company and the Japanese company were enjoined from developing, manufacturing or selling ultra sound equipment for 20 years. Federal three letter agency's were heavily involved in wielding the stick side of things. That is the angle OP should pursue.
- ruchitmatalia 7y agoBesides the blatant copy. I think Otonomo needs to decide whether they using oauth v1 or v2. Point being, the quality of work is speaking for itself. JSON FROM OTONOMO ------------------- https://consent.otonomo.io/oauth/v1/authorize?response_type=code https://consent.otonomo.io/oauth/v1/authorize?response_type=... curl https://consent.otonomo.io/oauth/v1/token https://consent.otonomo.io/oauth/v1/token \ Documents Shows ------------------- response_type This value must be set to code. OAuth2 outlines multiple authorization types.
- schwap 7y agoIt looks to me like they only use OAuth2 (based on the authorize/token endpoints), they just oddly decided to version their OAuth2 api.
- ruchitmatalia 7y agoYeah. I completely missed to see that.
- pg_is_a_butt 7y agoThey stole Smart Cars IP (SmartUSA.com), now they're whining about other people. Seems hypocritical, especially for an API meant to be universal.
- znpy 7y agoMeh. APIs are not copyright-able. See the whole Google-vs-Oracle Java debacle. You can try and go the bad-press route but there's not really much you can do. That's how the free market works, basically. Also, if an idea is good, it would have attracted competition sooner or later.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- tcgv 7y ago> Otonomo’s docs are a systematically written rip-off of ours > Did none of the over 100 Otonomo employees (according to LinkedIn) think that what they were doing was wrong? > Today we are taking legal action. We have sent Otonomo a cease and desist, demanding that they immediately stop ripping off our hard work. Is publicly available documentation protected by intellectual property rights? Since I'm not familiar with the subject I'm trying to understand the grounds for taking the legal action in this situation.
- DavidAdams 7y ago> Is publicly available documentation protected by intellectual property rights? Yes, by copyright. Copyright is one of the most straightforward and easiest to enforce IP rights.
- kristopolous 7y agoSame thing has happened to us more than once. I blame the founders for not seeing the scalable parts and running with them. I'm tired of building things, getting knocked off and then having to say "welp didn't see that coming" because I totally did from miles away. It takes good engineers and good founders. If one group are bozos who don't listen it doesn't work.
- dhanvantharim1 7y agoIsn't it mostly standard OAuth workflow, Is there something proprietary in the docs themselves.
- gepoch 7y agoI haven't seen this mentioned anywhere so I thought I'd post it to see what you all think... IANAL, IMHO, etc. I searched for one of the unique tokens in the docs: https://www.google.com/search?q=0facda3319 https://www.google.com/search?q=0facda3319 That pulls up their SDK github repo: https://github.com/smartcar/node-sdk/blob/master/doc/readme.md https://github.com/smartcar/node-sdk/blob/master/doc/readme.... Which is published with a standard MIT license: https://github.com/smartcar/node-sdk/blob/master/LICENSE.md https://github.com/smartcar/node-sdk/blob/master/LICENSE.md Which says (among other things): "Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software." Which may have significantly complicated their copyright claim if Otonomo includes the MIT license and attribution to smartcar.. At the same time, I can't find Otonomo's docs anywhere. Something to think about when setting up your GitHub license!
- woah 7y agoWhat a plot twist. How embarrassing for Smartcar to have written this whole blog post and tried to sue them.
- nameisu 7y agohaha
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- doublekill 7y agoEspecially when using words like "illegally", probably without consulting a lawyer. May now be open to countersuit for accusing them of illegal behavior.
- 7y ago
- theaccordance 7y agoI would have found the article more damning had the author cited examples beyond standards-based protocols like OAuth
- daanlo 7y agoI am not from the automotive industry, but if they are selling predominantly to automotive OEMs then I suppose Otonomo can be in serious trouble. Even a pending IP infringement case could potentially stop OEMs from working with them. Plus OEMs don't typically like companies that infringe IP, afaik.
- FailMore 7y agoWhat would be a smart move for Otonomo now? Complicated perhaps... we are at Peak HN now, so there is a feeling to calm the storm immediately, but maybe there is an argument that things will die down and they have not broken the law (depending on the technicalities re gepoch’s comment), so doing nothing is prudent, though mean. My gut feeling is to put it right today though, maybe 1) give $1MM to Smartcar, 2) put a link to Smartcar’s site while the current document structure exists 3) redo the docs and try to make them better then Smartcar’s.
- connorcodes 7y agoMan, plagerism is too bad. That's all I can say.
- vprasanth 7y agoThis is pretty weird, some of the things, like the fields related to auth, are just standard oauth data... Granted they providing a very similar service. Similar products, using similar technologies... I mean yeah, things are going to look similar.
- rcchyssser 7y agoI came in here to say... Duh?
- tibyat 7y agodoesnt facebook do this to someone new every week?
- bdz 7y agoAccording to their repo the API is under MIT license? So what's the problem? https://github.com/smartcar/node-sdk https://github.com/smartcar/node-sdk
- ezekg 7y agoIt's interesting — I have a couple competitors who have done the exact same thing to my API product (https://keygen.sh https://keygen.sh). Total copy of a feature subset, down to the API payloads, and verbatim copying my painstakingly written documentation. It bothered me (immensely) at first, but then I stopped thinking about it and instead turned my focus back onto my business. If they want to copy me, so be it. I'll still have the edge because I'm the leader, in a sense.
- foobar1962 7y agoInn't this the Java API Oracle/Sun/Google/Android case, only cast with different players?
- thedogeye 7y agoThe good news is your domain name is sooo much better than theirs
- foota 7y agoIt doesn't look like they're complaining about copying the API itself, but rather the docs specifically.
- stonogo 7y agoAre they complaining about someone else implementing the same API? Since the entire point of an API is interoperability, what could the problem possibly be? Are Smartcar claiming their product is a series of URLs? And that sounds sane enough to defend? Or are they complaining this other company is copying their documentation, which is evidently released with a permissive license? Is Smartcar's product the API documentation? Either way, this is far removed from my understanding of how computers work. Copyright exemptions for compatibility work have a long precedent. If Otonomo's business model is to build Smartcar-compatible products, and Smartcar does not like this, it seems like they should have more carefully considered what their product is, and how to protect it.
- trpc 7y agodoes this page ever load? I've tried like 5 or 6 times over the course of the last 9 hours and never been able to see what the hell that is all about even with a VPN
- ignoramous 7y agoYes, the page does load. Try this mirror: https://outline.com/FfSCUm https://outline.com/FfSCUm
- trpc 7y agoThank you, that works
- kumarski 7y agoReddit faked comments in the early days. Youtube & Vkontakte hosted pirated content knowingly. In the early days, iOS apps juiced their valuations with vanity invite metrics that entailed invite-walls that juiced downloads to access full functionality of apps. (invite 50 people to use full app features). Some of these were acquired for 8 figures plus. Paypal created a bot that bought goods on eBay and then, insisted on paying for it using PayPal. Rentoid bought and rented the items themselves. Dating networks seed enough fake accounts on both sides to start the demand. AirBnB allegedly created a bot & fake email addresses that would automatically respond to posts on Craigslist. Marc Benioff of SalesForce hired fake protesters to disrupt his biggest rival’s conference and commandeered all the taxis at the event to deliver a 45-minute pitch about his own product. In another instance, he cancelled his keynote at the Oracle Conference and drew crowds to his own speech at a nearby restaurant. Otonomo cloned some code, nothing that was impossible to deduce as well.
- nathanvanfleet 7y agoI am not really sure if this is very insightful. Other people having done something doesn't make it suddenly ethical. The documentary (and book) about Theranos goes over the "fake it until you make it mentality of Silicon Valley. It's only a useful tool if you can actually eventually pull it off. Of course if you can fake it in a way that's not a felony that can help too.
- istjohn 7y agoWhataboutism doesn't justify bad behavior.
- trevor-e 7y agoAm I one of the few failing to see what is so egregious here? Looking at the screenshots, the documentation text differs quite a lot. The API structure is very similar and many of the parameters have the same names, but I thought the HN crowd generally agrees that API's should not be copyrightable? To me this looks like a smart business strategy: Otonomo can migrate SmartCar customers to their platform with very few code changes. With that said, copying the identifier from the SmartCar's documentation could be seen as lazy or clever.
- adi18g 7y agoIt's obvious that someone read the SmartCar docs, and copied the oAuth2 flow. But it's not like SmartCar's API is unique. It's pretty standard flow. Correct me if I am wrong. Check this, https://www.oauth.com/ https://www.oauth.com/ On custom schemes, check https://www.oauth.com/oauth2-servers/redirect-uris/redirect-uris-native-apps/ https://www.oauth.com/oauth2-servers/redirect-uris/redirect-...
- caseysoftware 7y agoCloning someone's documentation is not "cloning our product" Using the Wayback machine, I looked at both company's docs and the navigation isn't the same - https://twitter.com/CaseySoftware/status/1120521768723255297 https://twitter.com/CaseySoftware/status/1120521768723255297 - so even the copy/paste job looks like a single page. Yes, it's absolutely poor form and may be a copyright violation but the screencaps cover OAuth 2.0, therefore everything - yes, including the parameter names - MUST be the same, according to the spec. Without more evidence, this is a nothing burger.
- singlewind 7y agoI read the post, from the documentation I can tell it is a very standard oauth2 API will look like. Standard like OpenID connect has very specific on message and query format as well. Do you have more details about API which related to your product and they copied?
- nige123 7y agoA way to avoid this problem is to use a combined copyright + trademark licence. "smartcar" feels like a weak trademark and is likely not registrable. "Otonomo" is inherently more distinctive - making it a stronger mark. To avoid this problem - "smartcar" needed a stronger trade mark in the first place. Secondly the API copyright licence needs to work in combination with the improved "smartcar" trademark. The Artistic Licence 2.0 for Perl 6 is an example of a copyright licence that works in combination with a trade mark. Copyright licences are incredibly flexible - it's possible to restrict server-side implementations for example. Depending on the business objectives it should be possible to strike the right balance - binding the API to your trademark via the copyright licence - could be a good move if your API is a market-maker.
- dragos1984 7y agoSerious question: how does this situation compare to the google vs oracle case ?
- dragos9191 7y agoSerious question here: how does this compare to what Google did in the Oracle vs Google java api copyright case?
- bob33212 7y agoGoogle was openly copying an API for compatibility. Similar to how a toaster company may make their toaster support bread exactly the same size as a competitor does. The toaster company would advertise the compatibility, not hide it. In this case this company is being accused or taking the API design as well as the supporting documentation. Not for compatibility reasons but to represent the design as their own.
- bengrunfeld 7y agoOh please.... tech companies are NOTORIOUS for cannibalizing each other's ideas, IP, and designs. The general exit strategy these days is "Sell out before Google or Facebook says screw it and just copies your product". Copying an API? Because of some similar wording and similar structure. That's literally scraping the bottom of the bottom of the barrel - and yes, that's two bottoms!!
- hbglih 7y agoSomebody at Otonomo used the Smarcar OAuth 2.0 documentation as a reference for their own documentation because it is pretty much the same (as it is for anyone who runs an OAuth 2.0 server). To conclude from this that Otonomo is "illegally cloning [their] product" is misleading at best. The Smartcar CEO is obviously pissed that they have a direct competitor with more funding so he tries to smear them over some trivialities.
- _1tan 7y agoAnother company with a similar idea (although I am not aware of any API similarities): https://high-mobility.com/ https://high-mobility.com/.
- darepublic 7y agoEven for my simple freelance projects I fork up the dough to make the repos private.