5 ms·

Law suits cost both parties a whole truckload of money - replit almost certainly has a larger war chest than you and can outlast you. It's easy to stand on the

by munk-a 5y ago

Law suits cost both parties a whole truckload of money - replit almost certainly has a larger war chest than you and can outlast you. It's easy to stand on the sidelines and criticize this person for not being a martyr to the cause of our terrible legal system - but, while such a lawsuit would never throw you out of your home, it could very quickly drain your personal savings which, if you have a family that's reliant on that savings for future education, could be devastating. It is 100% reasonable and a good idea to reach out to the EFF if you're being cyber-bullied by a corp with an axe to grind, but standing on your own in this sort of a scenario is certainly going to inflict a fair bit of pain on the aggressor - but it's likely going to inflict a whole lot more pain on you. Lawsuits like this can be tied up in appeals essentially until we die of heat death given our legal system unless you get extremely likely. Additionally I feel like you're making the assumption that the work a lawyer does is essentially busy work - discovery is an insanely expensive process to comply with and messing something up during discovery and accidentally deleting a key piece of evidence won't get you a "Well, you're just a rando - we'll let it slide" from the judge. Lastly - if the trial actually did end up going to court, it's extremely likely you're going to lose without the assistance of a legal professional, US law is insanely complicated and I can almost guarantee that your current employer is breaking some law on a technicality currently, I have no idea what it is - but without legal council neither will you.

IshKebab 5y ago
It doesn't have to cost a truckload. You can spend a truckload on lawyers if you want, but realistically, what is the maximum damages that a judge would award if replit won this case? $1k? Maybe? I wouldn't be surprised if there were lawyers willing to defend this obvious case on a no win no fee basis.
- gricardo99 5y ago
  what is the maximum damages that a judge would award if replit won this case? $1k? Maybe? IMNAL, but with trade secrete theft I imagine the damages awarded could be whatever the other side is able to convince was the harm done. E.g. "... defendant open-sourced our trade secretes, which was forked by competitors, causing irreparable harm ... seeking $15MM in damages ... and legal fees, etc.."
  - Aeolun 5y ago
    Yeah, with 37 visitors in a month? You need an incredibly corrupt justice system to make that work.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - smnrchrds 5y ago
      It's not the visitors they are going to bring up in the court. The angle they push will probably be something along the lines of: the intern stole our intellectual property and put them out there on GitHub. There is no way we can put the cat back in the bag. As a result of this disclosure, we are suffering a financial loss of 100s of millions of dollars. Even if his website has 0 visitors, now thousands of people have access to our intellectual property and they collectively have a lot of visitors. I mean, it's not like Anthony Levandowski put millions of self-driving cars in the streets and took business away from Waymo's self-driving cars. Just by copying Google's intellectual property, not even publishing it for the whole world to see, he committed an offence that cost 18 months in prison and more than 100 million dollars in fines. Of course, this lawsuit may not have gotten that far, as it seems quite baseless. But it would have taken years of mental turmoil and hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees for that to be established. And that is if the threat of the unfavourable outcome did not cause another tragedy like Aaron Swartz's.
      - Aeolun 5y ago
        In a working justice system the judge takes one look at all that and dismisses the case, then fines them for a frivolous waste of the court’s time.
        smnrchrds 5y ago
        Well, then I guess US and Canada's justice systems are non-working. Because that's not what will happen in practice. Also, there is a lot of legal work that needs to get done even before getting in front of a judge, and those can cost 100 ks on their own.
jacksnipe 5y ago
If you don't own your home, I fail to see how it could never throw you out of your home.
- munk-a 5y ago
  Actually - I'm quite uncertain how bankruptcy laws interact with renting in the US so maybe that is a possibility.
  - devoutsalsa 5y ago
    In a BK, some states may force you to liquidate a house if there’s equity in the home. Other states will let you keep a primary home.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - toomuchtodo 5y ago
      Florida allows you to keep your primary residence, regardless of value, even if there were criminal acts involved. Texas is less forgiving and does not indemnify your personal residence against criminal acts, but in exchange allows you to keep two horses.
      - munk-a 5y ago
        Huh - I wonder if any texans have ever "smuggled" wealth through a bankruptcy by purchasing expensive stallions. Those can run up to 70 million (according to my google fu)
      - dlsa 5y ago
        Two horses?! I can't tell if you're joking. I sincerely hope this is true. I'm imagining a sad Texas cowboy riding off into the sunset with just his two favorite mounts. "At least they didn't take mah horse!"

by munk-a 5y ago

IshKebab 5y ago

It doesn't have to cost a truckload. You can spend a truckload on lawyers if you want, but realistically, what is the maximum damages that a judge would award if replit won this case? $1k? Maybe? I wouldn't be surprised if there were lawyers willing to defend this obvious case on a no win no fee basis.

gricardo99 5y ago
what is the maximum damages that a judge would award if replit won this case? $1k? Maybe? IMNAL, but with trade secrete theft I imagine the damages awarded could be whatever the other side is able to convince was the harm done. E.g. "... defendant open-sourced our trade secretes, which was forked by competitors, causing irreparable harm ... seeking $15MM in damages ... and legal fees, etc.."
- Aeolun 5y ago
  Yeah, with 37 visitors in a month? You need an incredibly corrupt justice system to make that work.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - smnrchrds 5y ago
    It's not the visitors they are going to bring up in the court. The angle they push will probably be something along the lines of: the intern stole our intellectual property and put them out there on GitHub. There is no way we can put the cat back in the bag. As a result of this disclosure, we are suffering a financial loss of 100s of millions of dollars. Even if his website has 0 visitors, now thousands of people have access to our intellectual property and they collectively have a lot of visitors. I mean, it's not like Anthony Levandowski put millions of self-driving cars in the streets and took business away from Waymo's self-driving cars. Just by copying Google's intellectual property, not even publishing it for the whole world to see, he committed an offence that cost 18 months in prison and more than 100 million dollars in fines. Of course, this lawsuit may not have gotten that far, as it seems quite baseless. But it would have taken years of mental turmoil and hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees for that to be established. And that is if the threat of the unfavourable outcome did not cause another tragedy like Aaron Swartz's.
    - Aeolun 5y ago
      In a working justice system the judge takes one look at all that and dismisses the case, then fines them for a frivolous waste of the court’s time.
      - smnrchrds 5y ago
        Well, then I guess US and Canada's justice systems are non-working. Because that's not what will happen in practice. Also, there is a lot of legal work that needs to get done even before getting in front of a judge, and those can cost 100 ks on their own.

jacksnipe 5y ago

If you don't own your home, I fail to see how it could never throw you out of your home.

munk-a 5y ago
Actually - I'm quite uncertain how bankruptcy laws interact with renting in the US so maybe that is a possibility.
- devoutsalsa 5y ago
  In a BK, some states may force you to liquidate a house if there’s equity in the home. Other states will let you keep a primary home.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - toomuchtodo 5y ago
    Florida allows you to keep your primary residence, regardless of value, even if there were criminal acts involved. Texas is less forgiving and does not indemnify your personal residence against criminal acts, but in exchange allows you to keep two horses.
    - munk-a 5y ago
      Huh - I wonder if any texans have ever "smuggled" wealth through a bankruptcy by purchasing expensive stallions. Those can run up to 70 million (according to my google fu)
    - dlsa 5y ago
      Two horses?! I can't tell if you're joking. I sincerely hope this is true. I'm imagining a sad Texas cowboy riding off into the sunset with just his two favorite mounts. "At least they didn't take mah horse!"