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Or maybe the recipient just freaked out because he didn't know how to dance to this tune and C&Ds seem like mighty and terrible things to someone who has never

by jfarmer 13y ago

Or maybe the recipient just freaked out because he didn't know how to dance to this tune and C&Ds seem like mighty and terrible things to someone who has never received one before? Sending a C&D is fast, cheap, and requires almost no thought on Tumblr's part. Tumblr is optimizing for how they focus their time and attention, not how they treat folks using their name without permission. Why spend a few thousand dollars of attorney-hours going back and forth with every person who puts "tumblr" in their domain name when you can spend a small fraction of that and just reflexively send a C&D? Next up, freetumblrthemes.com, tumblrscripts.com, tumblrbots.com, themes4tumblr.com, officialtumblrthemes.com, etc. Tumblr isn't being a dick. They're being prudent. This isn't an area of their business that is important enough to optimize relative to all the other things they might be working on, so you come up with reasonable defaults, delegate to your attorneys, and stop thinking about it. But, hey, if you get a C&D you now at least know you have Tumblr's attention! Why not be contrite and reply asking for exactly what you propose? There's no downside. Indeed, you now know you're going to receive a prompt and unambiguous answer, whereas if you had asked for permission up front you most likely would've been ignored. There is, however, plenty of downside to complaining that you received a C&D in public, particularly as a first rather than last resort.

sudomal 13y ago
Legal letters breed resentment. I was once threatened by a big business and promised myself never to use their services in the future. If only they had sent an informal email pointing out the error and suggesting a fix, but nope, it was a threatening legal letter through some third party with a short time limit for response. Just makes me angry thinking about it and this is now several years down the line.
- jfarmer 13y ago
  You could be right. If you are, Tumblr will be the worse for it and you can feel vindicated. On the other hand, maybe that's a risk Tumblr is willing to take. Who's to say the cost in attorney dollars and company focus of having dozens or hundreds of one-off conversations or more every month isn't greater than the cost of all this supposed resentment? Who's to say that the opportunity cost of addressing that resentment is too high to justify spending time on it? If you were Tumblr's CEO and believed either of these were true, would you still spend time fiddling with your trademark C&D process? To be honest, I suspect Tumblr builds up more user "resentment" every time they change the placement of a button on their site than they have from all the C&Ds they've ever sent out. I've received aggressive, company-and-livelihood threatening C&Ds from companies like Groupon, Facebook, and others of similar heft. Sometimes I complied, sometimes I didn't, and sometimes we reached an agreement. There's no reason to take it personally. Lord knows the other side isn't!
  - nknighthb 13y ago
    > There's no reason to take it personally. Lord knows the other side isn't! That people abdicate their humanity whenever the word "business" is attached to what they're doing is pretty well the root of the problem.
    - jfarmer 13y ago
      Nobody is abdicating their humanity and the only "dehumanizing" thing I see is the implication that some people are. Let's say you live above a popular bar. On Friday and Saturday nights it gets loud as folks line up to get in and then again as last call approaches. The first dozen times you go down and ask folks to quiet down because it's late and you're trying to slew. Some comply, some don't, and others are happy to comply if you buy them a drink. Eventually, this becomes tiring and you see it's a poor use of your time even if most people are happy to comply.. You enlist the bar to help and they implement a "no tolerance" policy. If the bouncer can hear you talk you're out of the line and won't be getting in that night. You are on a first date with someone and go to this bar. You talk too loudly and are told to leave. You're embarrassed and upset that this bar would embarrass you in front of your date. You try to appeal by explaining the situation. "Hey man, cut me a break. This is our first date, I didn't know the rules, and in any case we were barely whispering." "Look, man, I don't know you. I get lines like that all te time and you're making my job harder than it needs to be right now. Come back tomorrow of you want, but neither you not your date are getting in. I need to be checking IDs right now, not debating you." I'm sure you can and will nitpick the analogy, but here's my claim: even if you feel outraged at your treatment, even if it ruined your night and your date, nobody in the above scenario "abdicated their humanity," as you put it.
      - nknighthb 13y ago
        The bar owner is absolutely in the wrong for having set up shop below where people have to sleep without adequate soundproofing for their business. This is an abdication of their humanity. In order to remain in business without the cost of fixing that problem, they have abdicated their humanity a second time by treating their customers like shit.
bigiain 13y ago
"Next up, freetumblrthemes.com, tumblrscripts.com, tumblrbots.com, themes4tumblr.com, officialtumblrthemes.com, etc." And, if experience is any guide, QuantumBlrk.org and any other completely unrelated but blindly automate-able "matches"…
- jfarmer 13y ago
  Yes, naturally! I'm glad you're following me.
wpietri 13y ago
> Tumblr isn't being a dick. They're being prudent. I strongly disagree. With any product where you're building a community, you must consider community action with every single action. Randomly threatening your fans is the opposite of prudent. Further, sending a legal threat letter here is definitely dickish. The guy was trying to be helpful. When people are trying to be nice to you, you have to start out by being nice back. They could have sent him an equally cheap form letter saying, "Hey, we love you, but we have to protect our trademark. We think your tool is great, and we want you to keep running it. But to do that, we just need you to sign this attached document that says that you agree that Tumblr is our name, and that you agree to be cool when using it. Please sign it and return it to us via email by $date." If the person doesn't reply, then the can send the threat letter. The reason the guy didn't reply to Tumblr to try to work it out is already linked on the page: he's had enough of them.
coldtea 13y ago
>Or maybe the recipient just freaked out because he didn't know how to dance to this tune and C&Ds seem like mighty and terrible things to someone who has never received one before? No. An actual lawyer has responded to this -- it was not even need to begin with (to protect their copyright). So no reason to continue defending Tumblr's behavior.

by jfarmer 13y ago

sudomal 13y ago

Legal letters breed resentment. I was once threatened by a big business and promised myself never to use their services in the future. If only they had sent an informal email pointing out the error and suggesting a fix, but nope, it was a threatening legal letter through some third party with a short time limit for response. Just makes me angry thinking about it and this is now several years down the line.

jfarmer 13y ago
You could be right. If you are, Tumblr will be the worse for it and you can feel vindicated. On the other hand, maybe that's a risk Tumblr is willing to take. Who's to say the cost in attorney dollars and company focus of having dozens or hundreds of one-off conversations or more every month isn't greater than the cost of all this supposed resentment? Who's to say that the opportunity cost of addressing that resentment is too high to justify spending time on it? If you were Tumblr's CEO and believed either of these were true, would you still spend time fiddling with your trademark C&D process? To be honest, I suspect Tumblr builds up more user "resentment" every time they change the placement of a button on their site than they have from all the C&Ds they've ever sent out. I've received aggressive, company-and-livelihood threatening C&Ds from companies like Groupon, Facebook, and others of similar heft. Sometimes I complied, sometimes I didn't, and sometimes we reached an agreement. There's no reason to take it personally. Lord knows the other side isn't!
- nknighthb 13y ago
  > There's no reason to take it personally. Lord knows the other side isn't! That people abdicate their humanity whenever the word "business" is attached to what they're doing is pretty well the root of the problem.
  - jfarmer 13y ago
    Nobody is abdicating their humanity and the only "dehumanizing" thing I see is the implication that some people are. Let's say you live above a popular bar. On Friday and Saturday nights it gets loud as folks line up to get in and then again as last call approaches. The first dozen times you go down and ask folks to quiet down because it's late and you're trying to slew. Some comply, some don't, and others are happy to comply if you buy them a drink. Eventually, this becomes tiring and you see it's a poor use of your time even if most people are happy to comply.. You enlist the bar to help and they implement a "no tolerance" policy. If the bouncer can hear you talk you're out of the line and won't be getting in that night. You are on a first date with someone and go to this bar. You talk too loudly and are told to leave. You're embarrassed and upset that this bar would embarrass you in front of your date. You try to appeal by explaining the situation. "Hey man, cut me a break. This is our first date, I didn't know the rules, and in any case we were barely whispering." "Look, man, I don't know you. I get lines like that all te time and you're making my job harder than it needs to be right now. Come back tomorrow of you want, but neither you not your date are getting in. I need to be checking IDs right now, not debating you." I'm sure you can and will nitpick the analogy, but here's my claim: even if you feel outraged at your treatment, even if it ruined your night and your date, nobody in the above scenario "abdicated their humanity," as you put it.
    - nknighthb 13y ago
      The bar owner is absolutely in the wrong for having set up shop below where people have to sleep without adequate soundproofing for their business. This is an abdication of their humanity. In order to remain in business without the cost of fixing that problem, they have abdicated their humanity a second time by treating their customers like shit.

bigiain 13y ago

"Next up, freetumblrthemes.com, tumblrscripts.com, tumblrbots.com, themes4tumblr.com, officialtumblrthemes.com, etc." And, if experience is any guide, QuantumBlrk.org and any other completely unrelated but blindly automate-able "matches"…

jfarmer 13y ago
Yes, naturally! I'm glad you're following me.

wpietri 13y ago

> Tumblr isn't being a dick. They're being prudent. I strongly disagree. With any product where you're building a community, you must consider community action with every single action. Randomly threatening your fans is the opposite of prudent. Further, sending a legal threat letter here is definitely dickish. The guy was trying to be helpful. When people are trying to be nice to you, you have to start out by being nice back. They could have sent him an equally cheap form letter saying, "Hey, we love you, but we have to protect our trademark. We think your tool is great, and we want you to keep running it. But to do that, we just need you to sign this attached document that says that you agree that Tumblr is our name, and that you agree to be cool when using it. Please sign it and return it to us via email by $date." If the person doesn't reply, then the can send the threat letter. The reason the guy didn't reply to Tumblr to try to work it out is already linked on the page: he's had enough of them.

coldtea 13y ago

>Or maybe the recipient just freaked out because he didn't know how to dance to this tune and C&Ds seem like mighty and terrible things to someone who has never received one before? No. An actual lawyer has responded to this -- it was not even need to begin with (to protect their copyright). So no reason to continue defending Tumblr's behavior.