6 ms·
Retraction from Tumblr
- joeblau 13y agoSo essentially, a legal team was spamming anything with the word tumblr in it?
- spindritf 13y agoWell, a company they contracted did. So yes, close enough.
- cabalamat 13y ago> a legal team was spamming anything with the word tumblr in it There ought to be some comeback on people who do this, just like there ought to be for people who send out false DMCA takedown notices.
- loceng 13y agoLawyers basically say until a cease and desist is received (confirmed received), then they've spent money and are serious.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- sillysaurus2 13y agoThis seems like a risky move for tumblr, no? Doesn't this mean they're not actively defending their trademark? In which case this could cause them legal problems in the future.
- darrenkopp 13y agoIANAL, but to me it seems more like "we are actively defending our trademark (ala the hiring of the legal company), but we do not believe that you are infringing on that trademark and what you are doing is fair use, so carry on"
- AYBABTME 13y agoI can't help but read `I'm anal` when somebody uses this acronym. It always take me a couple seconds to remember `I am not a lawyer`. Sorry for the off topic.
- chimeracoder 13y agoDannyBee (who is a lawyer) pointed out in the thread last night that this doesn't need to be "defended" against. He explained that, since they use the term "Tumblr" to refer specifically to the real company Tumblr, and since it's clear that they're not trying to masquerade as Tumblr or cause any confusion, that this is a legitimate use of the term and does not need to be "defended against" in order to protect the trademark.
- sillysaurus2 13y agoThank you for answering my question.
- pcwalton 13y agoThe legal term here, incidentally, appears to be "nominative use". (I learned a lot from that thread!)
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- einhverfr 13y agoThis is correct. However, I think it is good practice to properly attribute trademarks in those cases to make sure that it is clear that it is intended in this way. A small disclaimer at the bottom of the page saying: Tumblr(R) is a registered trademark of Tumblr, Inc. which is not affiliated with this site. All other trademarks are owned by their respective owners. goes a long ways towards avoiding problems like this.
- spindritf 13y agoThis duty to defend a trademark has grown to completely mythical size. Like "fiduciary duty" of company officers.
- lvs 13y agoThis type of thinking is poisonous to the industry and to all industries.
- sillysaurus2 13y agoIt's not "thinking." It's a question. It's annoying that I can't ask a startup question in a startup community without being characterized as an evil capitalist.
- diminoten 13y agoWho called you an evil capitalist?
- Kequc 13y agoNo it's not a "risky" move by Tumblr to not sue someone.
- bcoates 13y agoYou don't want to be "could this get us sued?" guy. Lots of people have run into the type that uses it as a go-to passive aggressive way of opposing things. It's superficially reasonable because literally anything can get you sued in the US, but it's also a completely counterproductive attitude to actually making correct decisions. Even if you, personally are asking the question in a reasonable context where the answer is probably "yes", just saying it gets you bucketed into the "toxic people who must be contained or avoided" bucket in a lot of otherwise reasonable people's minds. Unless you are actually employed as a lawyer, it would probably be a good career move to strike discussions of legal risk from your vocabulary. ps: Yes, I know you were asking more about what Tumblr needs to do to keep the right to stop others from using their trademark, but nobody read past "legal problems"
- sillysaurus2 13y agoEven if you, personally are asking the question in a reasonable context where the answer is probably "yes", just saying it gets you bucketed into the "toxic people who must be contained or avoided" bucket in a lot of otherwise reasonable people's minds. Unless you are actually employed as a lawyer, it would probably be a good career move to strike discussions of legal risk from your vocabulary. This is America. We're here to make money, and to win. That means operating in a legal system that can work for us or against us depending on the law. If a startup is too immature to see my question as anything other than a straightforward request for information, then I wouldn't want to work for them anyway.
- eCa 13y agoThe way I understand it (IANAL) is that you need to protect your trademark against people who uses confusing namings on things that isn't you. In this case "tumblr" clearly and explicitly refers to tumblr.com. If you had to make sure that no one uses your trademark to talk about you, wouldn't that lead to a very strange place?
- obilgic 13y agoThat means, unless you are on HN's front page you don't have rights to use word tumblr in your domain
- asdfologist 13y agoLet's not flatter ourselves here.
- zachinglis 13y agoI agree and disagree. HN is not massive, but it is a force. HN can be one scary angry mob which is nice to be backed by, but horrible to be on the end of. Remember the Aria Richards debacle which was heightened by this community. Just one of many. (That wasn't my intention by the way and everyone's been pretty calm.) The HN effect is a strange one. :)
- nknighthb 13y agoHN's readership wields significant influence in SV/SF tech, both collectively and individually. Check your server logs, I bet you got hits from inside Tumblr's IP block almost the instant it hit the front page, along with virtually every other tech company, whose employees and even executives were glowering at their friends (and former and future colleagues) at Tumblr. To use the indelicate phrasing of my first manager, bay area tech is highly incestuous.
- bilalq 13y agoIt's become an interesting phenomena now. The rise in availability of the internet and pervasiveness of social media is making companies accountable for their wrongdoings. Of course, the more prominent/visible the complaint, the more likely it is that a company will try to act on it. However, I don't believe that most companies would just handle problems like this in a case by case basis. IsTumblrDown made some noise, and that noise led Tumblr to recognizing a flaw in their process. At the very least, it'll make them more cautious going forward. Incidents like this can lead to long-term improvements.
- molecule 13y agoIsTumblrsLawsuitDown.com
- rlongstaff 13y agoThe cynical reaction would be to say this is all about damage limitation to their brand since it appeared on HN, as they meant to do it rather than it being a 'clerical error'. Good thing I'm not cynical.
- saosebastiao 13y agoHN, and its readership, simply isn't that important to tumblr. If it were reddit, maybe the cynical reaction would be accurate.
- Zaheer 13y agoYes it is. Tumblr's parent is Yahoo and Yahoo will be keen on being friendly to the developer community to attract top talent. Much of which reads HN.
- dylangs1030 13y agoI know it seems that way, but that's actually reddit and r/programming. Based on sheer numbers, I think most engineers don't frequent Hacker News. I was just at dinner with an ex-Zynga game dev last night who had never even heard of it.
- pearjuice 13y ago>ex-Zynga game dev Well, he did say "top talent"!
- dylangs1030 13y agoI'm not sure if you're being sarcastic, but it's unfair to judge someone's ability based on where they used to work. This friend of mine was laid off in New York and received his severance; based on what I know about him, he could work in a multitude of places right now if he wanted to. Zynga's vilified image aside, there is no reason to believe their engineers are not "top talent."
- raverbashing 13y agoAnd by the way, this is not (mainly) because it was front page on HN. HN users do not overlap (a lot) with the target audience for Tumblr. (not a lot at least) HN is of course an important news outlet in the industry.
- DocG 13y agotrue, but it is same with google reader. it is not profitable, but who is target audience? the guys who install and recommend most of the software for casual users. So in some cases, you need to please a smaller group, to win over bigger group. I think any company can win market, if your local it friend/guy starts recommending you specific brand. For example, I changed 10 peoples mind how to think about AV. They went over from AVG to MSE, because I recommended. Why? Because, there is less chance for them to fuck it up and install trial.
- kumarski 13y agoWith our powers combined....
- mayoff 13y agoIt doesn't matter to Tumblr if HNers boycott Tumblr the web site. It might matter to Tumblr if HNers boycott Tumblr the employer or Tumblr the business partner.
- mcintyre1994 13y agoIt's also worth considering Yahoo! the employer or Yahoo! the business partner.
- alan_cx 13y agoWhy no appreciation of the apology? If all people are going to do is find fault with people apologizing, why bother? How should Tumblr reacted? What are they supposed to do?
- geuis 13y agoWell said. A company can either continue on as before, which makes us associate them as bullies, or can correct a mistake. The real test is what comes after.
- ben0x539 13y agoWhy should we appreciate the apology? We might blame tumblr a little less now than if they'd stayed their course, but I don't see why it should swing over into appreciation of what they're doing. Perceivedly, it happens a lot that big scary companies bully smaller entities with meritless but expensive-to-fight legal threats. That sometimes there's enough of a public notice of that to make the company reconsider and to limit the damage done is just part of the game and doesn't really leave them without blame, it just means they got "caught" this time.
- aespinoza 13y agoI think you are missing the point here. It is stupid to blame Tumblr for all the other big scary companies. They made a mistake. They apologized and fixed the problem, and according to the apology they found a bug in their process and fixed it. Instead of bashing Tumblr for apologizing, we should be happy they retracted. If HN was the reason why they retracted, then great. But let's stop looking down on Tumblr purring ourselves at the top. We are all at the same boat and same level. We are all trying to make our companies work.
- whistlerbrk 13y agoHe is missing the point, it's not even his apology to accept, it's Zach's. He's appeared to do since he considers the apology 'genuine'. The thing to note in all this is: "Our legal department very recently started using a third party vendor to assist us in pursuing trademark infringers and, due to an error in our new process, your domain was mistakenly caught in the cross-fire." If tumblr has switched to yahoo! legal, that is not a nice side effect of the acquisition.
- bowlofpetunias 13y ago> ...pursuing trademark infringers... That's the part they should be apologizing for. Unless their business is actually getting hurt in any way (is someone selling fake Chinese made Tumblr t-shirts on the black market?), this is just a systematic exercise in corporate bullying. They shouldn't be engaged in this in the first place. Tumblr is not friggin' Nike.
- sjtgraham 13y agoThere's no choice in the matter. Do you realise trademark holders have to vigorously defend their marks in order for them to remain protected? Failure to do so jeopardises protection. Disclaimer: IANAL
- chadwickthebold 13y ago... and istumblrdown.com is somehow stealing tumblr's business?
- a3n 13y agoOnly when tumblr is down.
- calbear81 13y agoThank you for pointing this out. Tumblr is just doing what any company who has spent time building their brand must do if they want to be able to retain their trademark. Their 3rd party enforcement company didn't exercise "common sense" and when Tumblr realized this they said sorry.
- samuelfine 13y ago"...is someone selling fake Chinese made Tumblr t-shirts on the black market?" I wouldn't be surprised. Tumblr just sold for a billion dollars, remember? That's certainly a brand worth protecting.
- solray 13y agoThis is a classic case of TDC. (i.e. Tumblr Damage Control).
- pearjuice 13y ago"So I'll be bringing it online in a few weeks again." Wait, what? He gets to keep his product but post-pones its availability by a "few weeks"? Opportunity missed. Or am I missing something?
- zachinglis 13y agoIt's not really a product. It's a page that says "Tumblr is up" or "Tumblr is down." Very very niche and incredibly limited functionality.
- smegel 13y agoI wonder what the threshold is for pursuing trademark infringement...obviously imposters but what else?