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(I am one of the founders of Boundless) Believe me, we would love to go into very, very specific detail on exactly what is covered in the complaint, unfortunat

(I am one of the founders of Boundless) Believe me, we would love to go into very, very specific detail on exactly what is covered in the complaint, unfortunately talking publicly about details in the suit is taboo/off-limits. Further, our response isn't yet filed, which would provide some of that detail. But it's telling they chose to pursue litigation instead of any other form of out-reach.

jamesaguilar 15y ago
> But it's telling they chose to pursue litigation instead of any other form of out-reach. Yeah, but what it's telling of is similarly open to debate. You'd probably say that that is proves they can't innovate or something in that direction. They might say that it's such an obvious and easy win that they don't even need to bother discussing it with you.
- aaronwhite 15y ago
  I'd say it's what happens when business models are threatened. In terms of 'obvious' we & our team of lawyers strongly disagree.
  - jamesaguilar 15y ago
    Well of course you disagree. I'm only pointing out that your blog post and your comment above don't represent a neutral view of the likely outcomes of this litigation given the evidence we have at hand. I'm not picking sides here, because I don't know any of the facts, and I'm not suggesting you're a bad person for your bias. Any of us would be equally biased in your shoes. I'm just trying to point out a more balanced view than what you're giving us. Truth-seeking, in other words. Also, it's worth noting that a violent reaction to a business model being threatened is not necessarily a bad thing. For example, let's suppose someone is looting your shop. Do you allow them to do so, or do you take out the baseball bat behind the counter? If the looter said, "Hey, you're only getting out that bat because your business model is being threatened," that would probably not be compelling to you or to any bystanders that happened to be about. Again, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that what you are doing is equivalent to looting. I'm only trying to point out that other readers ought not take your side simply because you think you're threatening someone's business model.
  - alain94040 15y ago
    If I was your lawyer I'd tell you to stop blogging or commenting on HN immediately. You're about to lose big. Take it from someone who has had their word used against himself 10 years later.
jcc80 15y ago
I'm curious if you've reached out to the big players in the textbook oligopoly before this? As to their lawsuit, good luck. I never understood why my books were so expensive (early 2000s). Of course if you're using the chapter titles of their texts as someone mentioned, I'm not an expert on copyright law, but it just feels wrong.
- nostromo 15y ago
  Really? To me it sounds very similar to Cliffs Notes, which summarizes, chapter by chapter, books covered by copyright. http://www.cliffsnotes.com/study_guide/literature/The-Lord-of-the-Rings-Book-Summary.id-172,pageNum-1.html http://www.cliffsnotes.com/study_guide/literature/The-Lord-o... Summarizing may legally be different than re-writing however, so it'll be interesting to see where the case goes.
  - aaronwhite 15y ago
    I'd love to get into it, and I can say we aren't rewriting their content.
    - tptacek 15y ago
      The publishers claim doesn't hang on you rewriting their content. They say you've "[copied] the precise selection, structure, organization, and depth of coverage in [their] textbooks and mapped in substitute text, right down to duplicating [the publishers] pagination", and that you "[took] hundreds of topics, sub-topics, and sub-sub-topics that comprise [the publishers] textbooks and copied them into Boundless texts, even presenting them in the same order, and keying their placement to [publishers] actual pagination"; also, that you "[copied] or [paraphrased] with respect to the substance of hundreds of photographs, illustrations, captions, and other original aspects of [publishers] textbooks". Look, most of us on HN have read many college textbooks. I think we all recognize that way more goes into a textbook than just the prose. I'm not judging you, just message-board-nerding your comment here. This is pretty common in threads about legal actions. "We didn't do XXYM", where /\AXX..\Z/ is what's been alleged. Allowing Smokey the Thermodynamics Bear was a super bad idea, by the way.
tptacek 15y ago
The textbook publishers haven't gone into very, very specific detail yet; they've only provided the amount of detail required to file a suit against Boundless. If you've infringed their content, for instance by knowingly paying contractors to create 1:1 versions of copyrighted textbooks down to specific analogies and figures (like the Smokey the Thermodynamics Bear), why would it be on them to pursue any other form out outreach? You'd have committed a tort against them. They're entitled to relief. It's on you not to violate their copyright. It's a little annoying that you're trying to leverage people's sentiment about textbook publishers so actively. Right is right and wrong is wrong, even when we don't like the people who've been wronged. It's actually even more wrong, since it casts a pall over everyone else trying to modernize the economics of textbooks.
- Natsu 15y ago
  You appear to be rushing to judgement by saying "they're entitled to relief." The items in the complaint are all allegations which have yet to be proven in a court of law. I'm hoping that you meant that to be part of your hypothetical statement and simply got carried away. Infringement is not necessarily a simple matter. Oracle pointed to what appeared to be direct copying of Java files by Google. But the truth turned out to be considerably more complex. The result is still uncertain, but there are good reasons to question whether even something like that will be enough to support a claim of infringement. Now, I don't know how things will play out in this case. But that's my point, because none of us know. We don't have to pick sides today, though.
  - tptacek 15y ago
    You missed the word "if" in my comment.
    - Natsu 15y ago
      I didn't miss it; it was part of a different sentence and it honestly didn't sound like it still applied once you got going. I'm glad that I was correct to assume the best, though.

jamesaguilar 15y ago

> But it's telling they chose to pursue litigation instead of any other form of out-reach. Yeah, but what it's telling of is similarly open to debate. You'd probably say that that is proves they can't innovate or something in that direction. They might say that it's such an obvious and easy win that they don't even need to bother discussing it with you.

aaronwhite 15y ago
I'd say it's what happens when business models are threatened. In terms of 'obvious' we & our team of lawyers strongly disagree.
- jamesaguilar 15y ago
  Well of course you disagree. I'm only pointing out that your blog post and your comment above don't represent a neutral view of the likely outcomes of this litigation given the evidence we have at hand. I'm not picking sides here, because I don't know any of the facts, and I'm not suggesting you're a bad person for your bias. Any of us would be equally biased in your shoes. I'm just trying to point out a more balanced view than what you're giving us. Truth-seeking, in other words. Also, it's worth noting that a violent reaction to a business model being threatened is not necessarily a bad thing. For example, let's suppose someone is looting your shop. Do you allow them to do so, or do you take out the baseball bat behind the counter? If the looter said, "Hey, you're only getting out that bat because your business model is being threatened," that would probably not be compelling to you or to any bystanders that happened to be about. Again, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that what you are doing is equivalent to looting. I'm only trying to point out that other readers ought not take your side simply because you think you're threatening someone's business model.
- alain94040 15y ago
  If I was your lawyer I'd tell you to stop blogging or commenting on HN immediately. You're about to lose big. Take it from someone who has had their word used against himself 10 years later.

jcc80 15y ago

I'm curious if you've reached out to the big players in the textbook oligopoly before this? As to their lawsuit, good luck. I never understood why my books were so expensive (early 2000s). Of course if you're using the chapter titles of their texts as someone mentioned, I'm not an expert on copyright law, but it just feels wrong.

nostromo 15y ago
Really? To me it sounds very similar to Cliffs Notes, which summarizes, chapter by chapter, books covered by copyright. http://www.cliffsnotes.com/study_guide/literature/The-Lord-of-the-Rings-Book-Summary.id-172,pageNum-1.html http://www.cliffsnotes.com/study_guide/literature/The-Lord-o... Summarizing may legally be different than re-writing however, so it'll be interesting to see where the case goes.
- aaronwhite 15y ago
  I'd love to get into it, and I can say we aren't rewriting their content.
  - tptacek 15y ago
    The publishers claim doesn't hang on you rewriting their content. They say you've "[copied] the precise selection, structure, organization, and depth of coverage in [their] textbooks and mapped in substitute text, right down to duplicating [the publishers] pagination", and that you "[took] hundreds of topics, sub-topics, and sub-sub-topics that comprise [the publishers] textbooks and copied them into Boundless texts, even presenting them in the same order, and keying their placement to [publishers] actual pagination"; also, that you "[copied] or [paraphrased] with respect to the substance of hundreds of photographs, illustrations, captions, and other original aspects of [publishers] textbooks". Look, most of us on HN have read many college textbooks. I think we all recognize that way more goes into a textbook than just the prose. I'm not judging you, just message-board-nerding your comment here. This is pretty common in threads about legal actions. "We didn't do XXYM", where /\AXX..\Z/ is what's been alleged. Allowing Smokey the Thermodynamics Bear was a super bad idea, by the way.

tptacek 15y ago

The textbook publishers haven't gone into very, very specific detail yet; they've only provided the amount of detail required to file a suit against Boundless. If you've infringed their content, for instance by knowingly paying contractors to create 1:1 versions of copyrighted textbooks down to specific analogies and figures (like the Smokey the Thermodynamics Bear), why would it be on them to pursue any other form out outreach? You'd have committed a tort against them. They're entitled to relief. It's on you not to violate their copyright. It's a little annoying that you're trying to leverage people's sentiment about textbook publishers so actively. Right is right and wrong is wrong, even when we don't like the people who've been wronged. It's actually even more wrong, since it casts a pall over everyone else trying to modernize the economics of textbooks.

Natsu 15y ago
You appear to be rushing to judgement by saying "they're entitled to relief." The items in the complaint are all allegations which have yet to be proven in a court of law. I'm hoping that you meant that to be part of your hypothetical statement and simply got carried away. Infringement is not necessarily a simple matter. Oracle pointed to what appeared to be direct copying of Java files by Google. But the truth turned out to be considerably more complex. The result is still uncertain, but there are good reasons to question whether even something like that will be enough to support a claim of infringement. Now, I don't know how things will play out in this case. But that's my point, because none of us know. We don't have to pick sides today, though.
- tptacek 15y ago
  You missed the word "if" in my comment.
  - Natsu 15y ago
    I didn't miss it; it was part of a different sentence and it honestly didn't sound like it still applied once you got going. I'm glad that I was correct to assume the best, though.