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A Great Response to a Cease and Desist Letter
- thejacenxpress 13y agoI secretly wish I had the background law knowledge to screw with people who attempt to send these letters. I get C&D letters from youtube because my videos allegedly contain copyright music. The funny part is that my videos only contain my voice, which I'm pretty sure is not copyrighted.
- dangrossman 13y ago> The funny part is that my videos only contain my voice, which I'm pretty sure is not copyrighted From the moment you saved your recording of your voice, you were granted copyright protection to that work. The only recordings for which a copyright doesn't exist are those old enough to be in the public domain. Even a recording that infringes someone else's copyright is still protected by its own copyright rights; you can't distribute it without causing damages to the other rights holder, but the author still has exclusive rights to their creation.
- cperciva 13y agomy videos only contain my voice, which I'm pretty sure is not copyrighted Your voice isn't copyrighted, but you might infringe if you were singing a copyrighted song.
- thejacenxpress 13y agoIt was a joke but I didn't know that (hence my secret desire to learn more about law). They are simple computer tutorials.
- anoncow 13y ago>you might infringe if you were singing a copyrighted song Or if your video happens to be one of those which youtube partners don't like. Youtube, apparently, has a deal independent of the DMCA, which allows big media compan(ies) to ban any video on youtube. There was a discussion earlier today on HN, in which I said I still trust Google. This is one incidence where Google could have tried to follow its motto of "Do not be evil". Youtube exists because of DMCA safe harbour. Even though DMCA has shortcomings, without it youtube would have to face a lawsuit for every infringement. But, Youtube still chose to overturn DMCA, which allows the user to file a counter-claim. And apparently, Youtube made a deal with media companies allowing them to ban any video whatsoever without any repercussions, which is downright evil. http://torrentfreak.com/youtube-deal-with-universal-blocks-dmca-counter-notices-130405/ http://torrentfreak.com/youtube-deal-with-universal-blocks-d...
- dangrossman 13y agoYou could argue that this is the only arrangement in which YouTube can exist; is having the site with overzealous copyright enforcement worse than having no site at all? Google may prevail in court if sued for the millions of instances of infringement it hosts, but it'd still have to become the largest US employer of lawyers to handle and fund the dozens of major lawsuits it'd face every year. Is it profitable enough to do that? Does Google want to dedicate so much of its resources to court battles instead of its core competencies? Even with the DMCA, they still get sued.
- anoncow 13y agoWould YT get sued by Universal even with DMCA, if YT did not have a special arrangement with Universal? Without the option of counter-claiming, Youtube is a monarchy. I do expect a public company to have some sort of democracy, especially one who claims to follow "Do not be evil".
- dangrossman 13y ago> Would YT get sued by Universal even with DMCA, if YT did not have a special arrangement with Universal? Why not? Viacom sued despite the DMCA defense.
- anoncow 13y agoI concede. You have a point.
- digitalsushi 13y agoYour voice may not be subject to performance copyright violations, but it can assuredly invoke lyrical copyright violations. edit, cached, i lost the race.
- tehwebguy 13y agoInteresting, as C&D letters or as DMCA takedowns sent to YouTube?
- null_ptr 13y agoSadly, the letter is unreadable on Firefox Android. It's like everything is a widget these days, web pages are no longer self-contained, and usability, among other things, suffers.
- mitchty 13y agoAlso unreadable where i work where scribd is basically useless. Would be nice if people linked to pdfs instead of scribd.
- codegeek 13y agosame here. was looking forward to read but scribd is blocked at where I am
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- endgame 13y agoHas scribd been useful anywhere?
- 91bananas 13y agoI have found copies of ridiculously priced textbooks there, but the pain to search through them almost outweighs their free-ness.
- hobs 13y agoHear hear, I dont understand why people do it either, it just seems like all it adds is pagination and embedding for their pdf document which already has readers custom built for the task? If you want to make something for presentation on the web dont make a pdf.
- leephillips 13y agoPDF is excellent for presenting information on the web, but sribd certainly sucks.
- tribe 13y agoThe first time the page displayed for me, the response was shown as a 400 Bad Request Nginx error, which would have been a great response to this kind of C&D letter.
- yaakov 13y agohttp://pastebin.com/enQyYvsQ http://pastebin.com/enQyYvsQ
- abe_duarte 13y agoThis indeed is a great response. The domain owner is pissed an understandably so.
- digitalsushi 13y agoI remember back when I was 16, I did a web page about my home town, claremont nh. I did this site: http://digitalsushi.com/midashi/claremont/ http://digitalsushi.com/midashi/claremont/ I was working for an ISP in town, and someone with the town called up the ISP to ask whom owned the site. Since I worked there, I was simply transferred the phone call. You can imagine how contextually confusing that would be, to be handed a call that technically had nothing to do with working there, and also, being a dumb 16 year old on tech support. Well, the guy was asking all sorts of questions. I felt very intimidated. I remember clearly a phrase he left me with: "Well, this is just Big Brother checking in and making sure you're acting in good faith." He decided that I was, that I was not on a mission to sully the good city of claremont, and that was the end of it. But it really stuck with me, probably just out of my young age and the authority of a city official grilling me. 17 years later, the troll I have turned into would have loved the chance to bring out the worst in me, so it's probably good this happened when it did. This article really brought me back to that time. Also, it's terrifying I have web content I published over 50% of my entire life ago. I know some of you have worse percentages, but that middle mark... yikes.
- austenallred 13y agoFor back in the day that's actually a fairly well-designed site.
- axb 13y agoAnd a great favicon to boot.
- johnminton 13y ago"ask who owned" not "ask whom owned". "whom" isn't just a word to put in to sound educated - it's used only when the "who" is an object. Here it is not.
- digitalsushi 13y agoYou don't have to be a dick about it. I thought 'whom' was right because the subject of the sentence was 'someone'.
- hawkharris 13y agoIt's true that most cease-and-desist letters contain awful legalese, but here's a great example of a well-written, classy one: https://brokenpianoforpresident.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/jd-letter-entire-big1.jpg https://brokenpianoforpresident.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/...
- tlrobinson 13y agoWow, that nearly brought a tear to my eye (which probably says more about past abusive C&Ds I've seen than this one in particular)
- michaelhoffman 13y agoWhat's nice about that one is it appears to fulfill their obligation to show that they are policing unauthorized uses of their trademark without causing any real harm to anyone else.
- GhotiFish 13y agowow. It's amazing how phrasing and tone can change your posture and make your compliant or resistant to demands. A form of mental/monetary Judo. Thanks for the example.
- codezero 13y agoUnfortunately, it looks like such kindly worded cease and desist orders do not actually produce results, the person here doesn't appear to have changed the cover of the book at all. http://www.amazon.com/dp/1621050203 http://www.amazon.com/dp/1621050203
- fnordfnordfnord 13y agoCan I play? http://web.archive.org/web/20080402062531/http://pturing.firehead.org/headsurfer.net/legal-1letter.html http://web.archive.org/web/20080402062531/http://pturing.fir... http://web.archive.org/web/20080402062531/http://pturing.firehead.org/headsurfer.net/legal-1reply.html http://web.archive.org/web/20080402062531/http://pturing.fir...
- fnordfnordfnord 13y agoThe source of the above lawyer letter was headsurfer.net a site poking fun at Robert Marsh, thin-skinned Houston internet magnate who often referred to himself as "teh HeadSurfer" and employer of last resort for many college students at U of H http://web.archive.org/web/20040103044611/http://www.headsurfer.net/ http://web.archive.org/web/20040103044611/http://www.headsur... More details: http://web.archive.org/web/20031017004205/http://www.headsurfer.net/hs-pissed.html http://web.archive.org/web/20031017004205/http://www.headsur...
- ctdonath 13y agoIn the early heydays of the Internet, I recall ati.com featuring a comment to the effect "there are 147 companies claiming rights to our domain name. Get in line."
- mathattack 13y agoWorked ok in Safari browser. One wonders why more lawyers aren't humorous. Is it because it causes their clients harm? Or because they are afraid they can't generate fees if they don't look professional? Here is another great example, between the Cleveland Browns and a fan. I cite Snopes, otherwise I wouldn't believe it to be true. http://www.snopes.com/business/consumer/browns.asp http://www.snopes.com/business/consumer/browns.asp
- the_watcher 13y agoIt's because lawyers are often (to make a broad generalization), terribly risk-averse. Judges can sometimes disapprove of not giving the law it's "proper respect" (see Chad Johnson's recent stint in jail after being let off). Also, oftentimes lawyers can just drop the relevant facts at hand into a template. I'd bet the lawyer sending the C&D has sent a huge number of other C&D's worded pretty much identically.
- mathattack 13y agoThe joys of using Word templates at $500/hour. :-)
- mh- 13y agoenjoyable read. i'm not a lawyer.. but i found myself wondering, if the Township followed with suit, this wouldn't also qualify as a SLAPP[1]? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_lawsuit_against_public_participation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_lawsuit_against_publi... edit: New Jersey hasn't enacted any anti-SLAPP legislation.
- JeffJenkins 13y agoI really enjoyed reading the Something Awful legal threats (although I didn't read the site itself): http://www.somethingawful.com/d/legal-threats/ http://www.somethingawful.com/d/legal-threats/ It's unclear if Lowtax just got bored of responding or people stopped sending them.
- robmclarty 13y agoLove it.
- guelo 13y agoScribd is a parasite. EDIT: oh look, the document is viewable again. I'm guessing someone paid scribd their ransom fee.
- kefka 13y agoWell, yeah. They are. They are also really good at book warez. And all you need "feed" them is a PDF that's full of garbage text and a few images. Uniquely generated from LibreOffice and wikipedia.
- coldpie 13y agoI love requiring javascript to view text. The mind spins.
- sp332 13y agoIt's till better than needing a plugin or stand-alone app to read text in the original PDF format.
- kyrias 13y agoThey could at least give you the choice, especially now that ~60% of web users use a web browser with a built in PDF viewer and I'd bet that a large part of the remaining 40% already have a PDF viewer with a browser plugin installed.
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- tomasien 13y agoMy dad writes response letters like this. He's taught me so much about how the law actually works, he should design a class that is mandatory for all students to pass the HS.
- larrys 13y agoDon't agree with the humor and tact of this letter even though "it worked". "Shmucking" someone can backfire in many cases and cause a bigger problem. To be spiteful (I mean do we really know the mental state of the attorney writing the c and d?) maybe he would decide pro bono to file some action even knowing it might fail, on his own time, to defend his honor. Which this attorney would then have to defend pro bono. The other thing with regard to the listed domains is as they always say "don't ask a question you don't know the answer to". They probably don't know whether the others have been approached or not. And it doesn't matter at this stage anyway. So what. Maybe he was the first one. Lastly Kaplitt isn't known for expertise in either domain names or IP. If he was he would know that very often people with bogus claims are able to wrestle domains from people for bogus reasons. Oh one last thing. In his letter he states that "ICANN rulings have held that..." (or something like that). ICANN doesn't issue "rulings" like that for this (.com). He is almost certainly referring to the UDRP cases not ICANN.
- alan_cx 13y agoI think the humor was there because the two lawyers graduated from he same place, perhaps knew or know of each other.
- Pitarou 13y agoI totally agree. It's great for entertainment value but further down the line, if there are other legal disagreements, this letter could come back to haunt.
- jelled 13y agoAgreed, I think he took it too far. I wouldn't want that letter to end up in front of a judge if this thing did end up in court.
- Tloewald 13y agoI don't think such letters have much weight in court except insofar as they might involve breaches of professional conduct. I assume the writer has something to back his claim of excessive property tax, so it seems pretty safe. It also seems like there's some history involved.
- kevinalexbrown 13y agoThis reminds me about how important it is to have a solid lawyer, and an understanding of the legal ecosystem. Even in cases like this with typos, "respond in ten (10) days" can be quite intimidating, especially when there's a money/legal power asymmetry. In one such case, Monster Cable issued a C&D to a much smaller, Blue Jeans Cable. The founder actually worked in litigation for 19 years and I found this portion of his response informative: I have seen Monster Cable take untenable IP positions in various different scenarios in the past, and am generally familiar with what seems to be Monster Cable's modus operandi in these matters. I therefore think that it is important that, before closing, I make you aware of a few points. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1985, I spent nineteen years in litigation practice, with a focus upon federal litigation involving large damages and complex issues. My first seven years were spent primarily on the defense side, where I developed an intense frustration with insurance carriers who would settle meritless claims for nuisance value when the better long-term view would have been to fight against vexatious litigation as a matter of principle. In plaintiffs' practice, likewise, I was always a strong advocate of standing upon principle and taking cases all the way to judgment, even when substantial offers of settlement were on the table. I am "uncompromising" in the most literal sense of the word. If Monster Cable proceeds with litigation against me I will pursue the same merits-driven approach; I do not compromise with bullies and I would rather spend fifty thousand dollars on defense than give you a dollar of unmerited settlement funds. As for signing a licensing agreement for intellectual property which I have not infringed: that will not happen, under any circumstances, whether it makes economic sense or not. There are several obvious points to be made here, but there's a subtle one, too. These hit-and-run settlements depend fundamentally on the compliance of isolated companies. If a larger organization asserts control over a smaller one (like the township-->$3.17 website, here, or on a larger scale Monster-->Blue Jeans), it often does make "economic sense" to settle. It's almost a negative version of the Tragedy of the Commons / Public Goods Dilemma. If every small company stood up and said "no, we will not settle" then there would be far less incentive to pursue bogus infringement claims. On the other hand, it always, locally, makes sense not to challenge claims and let some other small company deal with it. This brings me to one broader point, and that's the idea of standing for something on principle. I don't mean this in the sense of "be a moral person", but in the sense of larger organizations assuming (often correctly) that the short-term economic sense of individual actors will outweigh any principled objections they hold to the circumstances imposed by the power asymmetry. Cultivation of principles which favor the latter instead of the former course of action might be a good solution to the public goods dilemma outside of a difficult to ensure coordination of action. It's worth thinking about this in the context of Google and its recent stance against an entity with an enormous amount of legal power. http://www.audioholics.com/news/industry-news/blue-jeans-strikes-back http://www.audioholics.com/news/industry-news/blue-jeans-str...
- jordan0day 13y agoI'm not a lawyer, but is the P.P.S. portion some sort of thinly-veiled reference to the way the original (c&d-sending) lawyer perhaps works with the township?
- vonskippy 13y agoThis is just another sad reminder of how broke the legal system is in the States. A simple fix, for this and many other types of legal bullying, make the protesting party pay ALL legal fees and a stiff penalty if they lose in court. Protects the clear cut owners who get infringed, yet weeds out bs cases like this one. Since it makes sense, is fair, and would simplify things - you know it will NEVER happen.
- danielweber 13y agoThat's not strictly better. You can be discouraged from suing big parties because they may run up their own bills, which you would have to pay if you lost. And losing doesn't mean your case was without merit. There is no perfect answer. It beats the old days where people would have to fight to the death to settle disputes, at least.
- kreeben 13y agoStarting a company in teh USA is similar to plugging a winxp sp1 machine into the network. Only a few seconds til the first law suit/virus. Zing!
- gcv 13y agoI'm sure tort reform will happen eventually — after we abolish the Electoral College and rewrite the tax code, it seems like a good next step for the legislature to consider. /s
- mherdeg 13y agoThere was a confusing bit in the "P.S." section in this letter which read like some kind of veiled threat to expose the city for tax fraud, or for some kind of tax-related misdeeds. What was that all about? Is it generally a good idea to put veiled threats in responses to cease-and-desist letters?
- brown9-2 13y agoThe joke is that he is demanding a refund of his property taxes without any evidence or argument just as the township lawyer was also issuing merit-less demands.
- mherdeg 13y agoAh. Whoosh. Yep. Thanks.
- RKoutnik 13y agoThe amount was the same as the town paid for their web site. ($5,000/yr for hosting? Ludicrous.)
- leephillips 13y agoPerhaps, but there was a more serious, barely veiled threat of disbarment or sanctions against this lawyer for misrepresenting the law in his C & D. This may be why Kaplitt was able to have such a rollicking good time with no worries about blowback: he knew he had this ass over a barrel. (I thought the response was awesome.)
- deepblueocean 13y agoIt's hard to talk about great C&Ds without mentioning Chilling Effects, http://www.chillingeffects.org/notice.cgi http://www.chillingeffects.org/notice.cgi, a repository/database of many C&Ds and copyright claims, which receives copies automatically of many letters sent to large websites. Some of the content in there is particularly golden for humor value (search "perfect 10"), but more importantly, it serves as a first step to quantifying how many of these letters get sent and how many of those are legitimate. Chilling Effects doesn't track what happens afterwards, but it's one step above anecdote, anyway.
- csel 13y agoBest Part - "Jake swears that was his actual cost. Looking at his website, I believe him." LOL
- jmgao 13y agoI'm a fan of Lowtax's response to Ubisoft's cease and desist: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2686438 http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=268...
- peripitea 13y agoYour link appears to be behind a paywall (must pay for archives access), but I think this is it? http://www.dmlp.org/threats/ubisoft-v-kyanka http://www.dmlp.org/threats/ubisoft-v-kyanka
- stox 13y agoThe town of West Orange has been the subject of ridicule for some time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUzs5dlLrm0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUzs5dlLrm0 Pleasant Valley Way, the subject of the tune, is in West Orange. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleasant_Valley_Sunday https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleasant_Valley_Sunday
- cfontes 13y agoThis is a master piece, thanks for submitting it. It should be printed in A0 and glued in Law Colleges.
- dmelamed 13y agoIn the spirit of great and hilarious legalese writing... http://www.chattanoogan.com/2008/2/26/122772/Chattanooga-Sending-Truck-Load-Of-Water.aspx http://www.chattanoogan.com/2008/2/26/122772/Chattanooga-Sen...