Comment by devoutsalsa
5 years ago
It goes both ways. Imagine Replit’s attorney going after OP. If OP didn’t take down the site, then suing them is going to be a huge expense & waste of time. Is Replit really gonna pay some corporate attorney $600-ish per hour to harass someone? You don’t even need a lawyer to show up in court and say “I’m a broke ass new grad, and these guys are trying to take down my website. I don’t even know why, but I’m dragging it out because I don’t like being bullied.” A good attorney would say “it costs nothing to demand we take this site down, but if the kid wants to fight us, do you really think it’ll be worth the effort? I’m expensive and this is not a threat to your business.” A bad attorney will just bleed Replit dry to accomplish very little.
If you sue me, I’ll just say “ok, see you in court, let me know if you need anything for discovery“. You’ll be spending lots of money and I’ll be spending nothing. It’s only expensive for me if I get an attorney, and I don’t need one. What happens if we go to court and lose? I have to take down my website? If there’s one lawyer in town, they drive a Chevrolet. If there’s two lawyers in town, they both drive Cadillacs.
Law suits cost both parties a whole truckload of money - replit almost certainly has a larger war chest than you and can outlast you.
It's easy to stand on the sidelines and criticize this person for not being a martyr to the cause of our terrible legal system - but, while such a lawsuit would never throw you out of your home, it could very quickly drain your personal savings which, if you have a family that's reliant on that savings for future education, could be devastating.
It is 100% reasonable and a good idea to reach out to the EFF if you're being cyber-bullied by a corp with an axe to grind, but standing on your own in this sort of a scenario is certainly going to inflict a fair bit of pain on the aggressor - but it's likely going to inflict a whole lot more pain on you. Lawsuits like this can be tied up in appeals essentially until we die of heat death given our legal system unless you get extremely likely.
Additionally I feel like you're making the assumption that the work a lawyer does is essentially busy work - discovery is an insanely expensive process to comply with and messing something up during discovery and accidentally deleting a key piece of evidence won't get you a "Well, you're just a rando - we'll let it slide" from the judge.
Lastly - if the trial actually did end up going to court, it's extremely likely you're going to lose without the assistance of a legal professional, US law is insanely complicated and I can almost guarantee that your current employer is breaking some law on a technicality currently, I have no idea what it is - but without legal council neither will you.
If you don't own your home, I fail to see how it could never throw you out of your home.
Actually - I'm quite uncertain how bankruptcy laws interact with renting in the US so maybe that is a possibility.
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It doesn't have to cost a truckload. You can spend a truckload on lawyers if you want, but realistically, what is the maximum damages that a judge would award if replit won this case? $1k? Maybe? I wouldn't be surprised if there were lawyers willing to defend this obvious case on a no win no fee basis.
IMNAL, but with trade secrete theft I imagine the damages awarded could be whatever the other side is able to convince was the harm done. E.g. "... defendant open-sourced our trade secretes, which was forked by competitors, causing irreparable harm ... seeking $15MM in damages ... and legal fees, etc.."
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I think you have way too much faith that a legal proceeding will reveal the "truth" about your intentions and actions. It's about competing narratives and interpretations of "facts".
If it goes to a legal proceeding, it is about convincing a stranger and lay-person (i.e. Judge, or perhaps even worse a group of jurors), that you didn't violate the law. You have to do this while the other side is doing their very best to convince the same stranger that you are a devious thief who did irreparable harm to their company and cost them millions in damages (or some other absurdly large number). They will paint everything you did and say as part of your plan to steal from and damage their company. They will have highly qualified experts submit very convincing reports, and testify, that what you did was trade secrete theft, and caused immense damage. Your only defense will be to push your own narrative that can counter all of this, sufficiently to get you off the hook. You'll need at least a lawyer, perhaps experts of your own, and all the cost that this entails. This will be a big deal to your life, but will be a business expense (i.e. before taxes) for the company suing you.
Of course you get a lawyer before it goes to court. However you can do the first round without a lawyer. Just a simple letter saying you dispute a claim is enough in some cases to tell the others you are serious. If you get a response after that, then find a lawyer.
You could probably get a response letter drawn up probono by the EFF for the initial claim - but honestly that response letter would likely cost you less than 100$ to have drawn up by a lawyer which is likely a more valuable way for you to spend your time to make sure everything is perfect.
Or simply ignore them until they actually sue you.
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>> It goes both ways. Imagine Replit’s attorney going after OP. If OP didn’t take down the site, then suing them is going to be a huge expense & waste of time. Is Replit really gonna pay some corporate attorney $600-ish per hour to harass someone? You don’t even need a lawyer to show up in court and say “I’m a broke ass new grad, and these guys are trying to take down my website. I don’t even know why, but I’m dragging it out because I don’t like being bullied.”
You are really underestimating how petty a lot of people are. I was sued for way less than this and the company suing me stood to gain nothing. Companies often have lawyers on retainer for this reason.
You also underestimate the massive stress a lawsuit entails.
I think the problem here is that Repl.it’s CEO is not spending his own money.
Do you think Repl.it's investors and board will be happy with the company using its money to pursue this lawsuit that is unlikely to prevail?
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John Oliver is actually a really good source for this sort of point as he dedicated an episode[1] to the trials and tribulations of his lawsuit against Murray Energy - something he described as a SLAPP suit which I think is a fair viewpoint.
The replit case is especially interesting since it could be a lot more personal (because the dev behind it previously worked for them and people hold grudges) and also because it might actually be a lot more valid then a lot of other frivolous C&Ds we see (since they were a former employee and it would be impossible to claim they were unaware of how replit worked at a very basic level). I think this lawsuit is a lot riskier than most and replit certainly does have a leg to stand on in open court.
1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UN8bJb8biZU
This is dangerous advice if the lawyer fees get paid by the loser of the suit like they do in some cases. ianal but i'd look into that before taking this tactic.
In the US there is no loser pays clause - except that you can sue for legal fees as well. There are pros and cons of both, with no clear winner.
In the US it’s way more complicated than that, and not just because there are 50 states that all have their own laws on whether or not the prevailing party can recover costs and it furthermore depends on the specific action.
FALSE! FALSE FALSE FALSE! There are many, many circumstances in the US where the loser has to pay costs and attorneys fees. Like copyright infringement. https://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap5.html#505
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The attorney will never say this. They will bill hours after hours because it is in their best interest.
The attorney is bound to act in their client's best interest. A bad lawyer might do that, but a good lawyer will indeed tell their client when something isn't worth the cost, despite their own financial interest.
Some people enjoy harassing other people with lawyers. Saying it’s not in their interest is meaningless when someone is willing to spend 100k on a neighborhood fence dispute.
The costs for replit isn’t the same as the costs for an individual. For a corporation the cost is already budgeted in and pre-taxes so why do they care?
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If a client insists there was trade secrete theft, a good attorney would do their very best to argue this case and seek legal remedies. Most attorneys, being non-technical, would have to rely on experts to outline exactly what/how a trade secrete theft occurred.
Did you read any of the stories what a tech company did to an employee who complained about safety issues at the plant? Tried to get him SWATted up by lying to the police. People are extremely petty, and just because people have well paid jobs doesn't mean they are reasonable in any way.
If you post a link, it'd be interesting to have a look
I originally read about it on HN, but don't recall where. I found this Bloomberg article about the issue:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-03-13/when-elon...
(I originally didn't want to mention the name of the company since you always get very aggressive comments when you post about this company on HN)
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> What happens if we go to court and lose? I have to take down my website?
No. What happens if you lose is you pay up to $150,000, plus costs and attorney fees, plus possible criminal penalties. (Here in the US, anyway.)
https://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap5.html#504
Being an attorney does not give you the power to automatically bankrupt someone, just like owning a gun doesn’t mean you can point it at people and automatically get them to do what you want. Picking a frivolous fight with the wrong person can go very poorly for you.
I guess the main point I’m trying to say that one doesn’t have to fold the second someone threatens you with legal action, even if you don’t have an attorney. A porcupine doesn’t automatically shed all its quills and throw themselves in a mountain lion’s mouth as soon as the mountain lion eyeballs it with a hungry look. You can f*!with people who f* with you. They may just go away when they realize you’re not going to make it easy for them.
The kid who posted this website could get a notarized affidavit saying he didn’t steal any IP, here’s how he got all the stuff, provide links to all the publicly available information, that he simply state that he built a hacky weekend project I good faith, and that no matter how much they pursued him or time they wasted on him, it wouldn’t change the facts of the case. The more time the attorneys spend going after him, the more they’re just gonna waste their own time and look super dumb. Say they are free to pursue whatever legal action they want, just like you’re free to stand up to a frivolous, insecure bully with too much money and free time. Take all the fun out of it for them, don’t roll over and take it because you’re afraid of being potentially bankrupted.
> The kid who posted this website could get a notarized affidavit saying ...
Sure. He could. It would mean absolutely nothing, but he could.
> Say they are free to pursue whatever legal action they want, just like you’re free to stand up to a frivolous, insecure bully with too much money and free time.
Great. Are you going to pay for it? (And pay for it when he loses since it isn't even slightly frivolous?)