Comment by JumpCrisscross
1 year ago
> Why is that forgivable?
Because legal naïvete is common and isn't a good predictor of founder ineptitude. Is it better to be legally savvy? Of course. But thinking you can wing it with a license agreement because it's boring and unfamiliar and you're rather focus on building your product is understandable. (In some cases, it might even be the right call.)
Claiming legal naivete is acceptable and sometimes even commendable is probably the most irresponsible thing I've ever read on here.
> Claiming legal naivete is acceptable and sometimes even commendable is probably the most irresponsible thing I've ever read on here
I'll stand by it. Most Americans are legally naïve. Most founders are, too. A start-up has to make trade-offs--it's far from clear such licensing agreements are make-or-break at the angel or seed stage.
Once that's pointed out to you, you hopefully either hire a lawyer or mitigate your legal cross section until you can afford one, e.g. by using template license agreements instead of rolling your own. But until you've been given that feedback, it's not some bizarre conclusion someone can come to. Most small businesses, for example, are formed perfectly well without much legal sophistication.
Template license agreements have been presumably written or reviewed by a contract lawyer somewhere along the line. I certainly wouldn't judge a founding team that chooses to use vetted legal templates - that's a reasonable choice early on when money is better spent on product than expensive lawyer hours.
However, using templates is a far cry from asking an LLM to write your agreement and assuming it won't hallucinate something that's going to put you in legal jeopardy.
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Disregard for law and not knowing the law are two different things.
ChatGPT'ed license signals to me that whoever does that thinks law is not a serious matter rather BS that can be generated via BS generator.
> ChatGPT'ed license signals to me that whoever does that thinks law is not a serious matter
Reasonable people can both respect the law and think license agreements are meaningless gibberish.
They're wrong. But not uncommonly--and I'd argue, not unreasonably--so.
Legal naïvete is fine. Most of us probably are.
Not realising you're legally naive is beyond stupid. Extraordinarily stupid.