4 ms·

It's not prudent unless it's likely to both happen and succeed. Not only is "I'll sue you" often just bluster, if they already think they're in the right —and

It's not prudent unless it's likely to both happen and succeed. Not only is "I'll sue you" often just bluster, if they already think they're in the right —and I'm yet to understand that they're not— they'll be betting that you're not actually going to risk paying their legal fees to make a faulty argument in court. In making that bet, only lose out by having their legal team engage with you. That's expensive. In a low risk scenario, it's easier and cheaper to wait until it actually counts.

lisper 5y ago
> you're not actually going to risk paying their legal fees to make a faulty argument in court. In the U.S. a losing plaintiff does not pay the defendant's legal fees unless the lawsuit is deemed to be frivolous, which hardly ever happens.
- chii 5y ago
  Which i think is a failure of the system - it makes some court cases that would be ruled in favour of the "small guy" to not take place instead, which makes the "big guy" win by default. The US should adopt a small claims courts system which costs less (like a copyright small claims etc), which would admit frivolous DMCA take downs etc, as well as cases like these. And amend the damages awarded to include fees incurred as part of the case.
  - lisper 5y ago
    There are small-claims courts, but the limit on what you can sue for there is typically <$10k. Not enough if your entire livelihood is at stake, as it is in this case.
rsync 5y ago
"It's not prudent unless it's likely to both happen and succeed." No, that is incorrect - there is an asymmetry here which is (oddly) in the ops favor. Paying my lawyer (for instance) to create and send a letter like this, etc., might cost me $3-800. Properly responding to it and covering all the bases and carrying out ones legal duties vis a vis google might cost 5x that. ... and the letter writer will be dealing with an entirely different operation at google. Real people will be considering the case.
- oliwarner 5y ago
  Costs aside, you're still weighing up "the case", like it's a definite, or that by responding to a legal letter, that it's definitely not. In real life it's neither of those things. Very few people actually litigate unless they have very strong grounds on well trodden rights. I'm trying to establish any grounds in other comments, but any lawyer looking to litigate this is going to have to warn to their clients that they're not going to win against Goliath. When you're dealing with a family that's just lost its only income, hiring a lawyer is even more unlikely. And even if Google reads and responds with the best letter, solid reasons, the bulk of a real legal defence, short of some backtracking or a large payoff, there's no reason the devs wouldn't go on to sue. For a case which would take a junior and a massive pile of existing case law and afternoon to dismiss, I don't see that making a new penpal here helps Google. It might be ten times the amount to read and respond to a letter, but it's twenty times less likely to happen.
  - oliwarner 5y ago
    And as I was recently reminded, Google's legal cost is sunk. Those lawyers are salaried Google employees. The cost to put them on this case for the ten minutes it'd take to defend is only measurable in what else they could be doing for Google.

lisper 5y ago

> you're not actually going to risk paying their legal fees to make a faulty argument in court. In the U.S. a losing plaintiff does not pay the defendant's legal fees unless the lawsuit is deemed to be frivolous, which hardly ever happens.

chii 5y ago
Which i think is a failure of the system - it makes some court cases that would be ruled in favour of the "small guy" to not take place instead, which makes the "big guy" win by default. The US should adopt a small claims courts system which costs less (like a copyright small claims etc), which would admit frivolous DMCA take downs etc, as well as cases like these. And amend the damages awarded to include fees incurred as part of the case.
- lisper 5y ago
  There are small-claims courts, but the limit on what you can sue for there is typically <$10k. Not enough if your entire livelihood is at stake, as it is in this case.

rsync 5y ago

"It's not prudent unless it's likely to both happen and succeed." No, that is incorrect - there is an asymmetry here which is (oddly) in the ops favor. Paying my lawyer (for instance) to create and send a letter like this, etc., might cost me $3-800. Properly responding to it and covering all the bases and carrying out ones legal duties vis a vis google might cost 5x that. ... and the letter writer will be dealing with an entirely different operation at google. Real people will be considering the case.

oliwarner 5y ago
Costs aside, you're still weighing up "the case", like it's a definite, or that by responding to a legal letter, that it's definitely not. In real life it's neither of those things. Very few people actually litigate unless they have very strong grounds on well trodden rights. I'm trying to establish any grounds in other comments, but any lawyer looking to litigate this is going to have to warn to their clients that they're not going to win against Goliath. When you're dealing with a family that's just lost its only income, hiring a lawyer is even more unlikely. And even if Google reads and responds with the best letter, solid reasons, the bulk of a real legal defence, short of some backtracking or a large payoff, there's no reason the devs wouldn't go on to sue. For a case which would take a junior and a massive pile of existing case law and afternoon to dismiss, I don't see that making a new penpal here helps Google. It might be ten times the amount to read and respond to a letter, but it's twenty times less likely to happen.
- oliwarner 5y ago
  And as I was recently reminded, Google's legal cost is sunk. Those lawyers are salaried Google employees. The cost to put them on this case for the ten minutes it'd take to defend is only measurable in what else they could be doing for Google.