Big company Intellectual Property concerns on the forum

[EEVblog]

A Chinese company is violating an IP? OK, but how could a forum censorship help solving the problem? 

It doesn't. In fact it can only make it worse for them. Lawyers don't understand this though.

[dr.diesel]

Lawyers don't understand this though.

However they do understand the law, and knowing you have no legal obligation to remove said content the sent it anyhow, why?  Because they are in hopes of frightening you into removing the content.

The letter might not have been directly "worded" threatening, but it doesn't have to be to get their intent known.

Thankfully you know your rights, I hope this is the end of their pursuit.  If we're lucky they will join the forum with constructive posts and thoughts.   

[A Hellene]

Dave, do not let them intimidate you with their legal crap veiled threats because:

1. LEGAL is not LAWFUL, which means that not any legal claim is necessarily lawful also.

2. This is not a court order, whatever they sent you. It is an extrajudicial request, painted in the dark colours of the intimidation of a possible legal action against you if you will not comply with their (rightful or not) demands.

3. You cannot be held responsible for what some people might be discussing about, even if they discussed any possible dark secrets of some corporate entities.
Neither THEM losing revenue (because of some discussions your forum hosts, as they claim) is any better than YOU loosing revenue due to any possible departures of forum key contributors in the case you will choose to succumb to their intimidating tactics.

For example, you are not responsible for someone finding a copyright notice of company A within the firmware dicompilation lists of a company B product, which is suspiciously identical to a product sold under the brand name of company C. (By the way, is this the case?)

Moderator: Unwarranted reference to other off topic (religion) posts deleted.


-George

[mikeselectricstuff]

I'd ignore them and wait for the next email .. IF there is any.

I responded and told them no, it's not going to happen.

I'd probably have added that any further correspondence from them may be made public. 

[liquibyte]

Imagine this scenario.  The economy tanks and the governments can't bail shit out fast enough and the world decends into chaos.  Who would you imagine would be useful to help rebuild things?  Engineers, programmers, mechanics, scientists, lawers?

The lawers don't understand that their skillset is an imaginary construct with no real value to anyone in the grand scheme of things and that they are in fact holding back the entirety of humanity with their bullshit.  We'll never have the flying cars that the sci-fi greats promised should already be here because of the fear of getting your entire life destroyed for infringing some ill conceived and approved iPatent.

I for one am tired of lawers fucking things up.  Have a gander at the class of tools running my country.  I can only say that they had better hope this isn't the Roman empire all over again because of their shenanigans (cue historical and not religious reference) because I can't think of a more suited class of useless fools to not help teach to fish (purely religious reference).

[A Hellene]

If that is indeed what was censored then the mod doesn't seem to even understand it... Religious references? Where? Historical references, sure. More evidence that the mods are simultaneously out of control and ignorant. I'm just glad Dave got this email and not one of them, or who knows how much they would have nuked.

Yes, of course this is what was censored; with the exception of the last link about the Chalcidic alphabet and another depleted now link about the five-millennial old Trojan War, pointing at to a couple of historical references I have written at the locked 'Religion Thread' of May 2012.

I could attach my original message's backup but I am sure that it will also be obliterated; if you would like to read it, though, I could send it you you by a PM or by email.


Thank you,
-George

[tom66]

Not a lawyer... but doesn't everyone hate lawyers until they need one?
- You need a lawyer if you are prosecuted to get you the best possible outcome - this should and must remain your right.

- You need a lawyer if you are seeking damages for legitimate cases. The McDonalds coffee incident is often brought up as a frivolous case, but do you know what the original demands were? (Recommend you look them up - it doesn't sound so bad once you read into it...)

- Also, what happens if you invent a really neat thing - make a few thousand of them and can live nicely on that - then a big corp comes and steals your protected idea and your living. Should you lose?

Now, I'm not saying this system is perfect - it's far from it - but without lawyers I think it'd be worse.

It's sort of the natural outcome of competition. Competition produces the best system in theory - but in practice it's extremely wasteful; think about how many man-hours and dollars have gone into producing Samsung, Apple. HTC, Nokia, BlackBerry, Sony phones when they could all combine a seventh of that effort if only one company existed.

[nctnico]

I'd ignore them and wait for the next email .. IF there is any.

I responded and told them no, it's not going to happen.

That is the best course of action. Unless they come up with a court ruling saying you should remove any reference to that particular product...

It is a problem they should resolve with the Chinese company who is infringing their IP and/or companies importing/selling that equipment.

[Sigmoid]

You know, I kind of imagined Apple trying to remove all references to Samsung from the web (or vice versa). It's a ridiculous idea.
Funny request though. In a similar manner, I could, in theory, email Donald Trump and ask him to give me a million bucks in the hopes that he's in a charitable mood.

[TerraHertz]

Blaming lawyers for laws is like blaming car companies for gridlock, plumbers for leaks, or the mass media for dumbing down society.

Society, people and politicians are responsible for creating laws. Not lawyers. Laws are only created when there is a perceived need, or for the cynical, when a politician can see some political benefit. That benefit being bestowed upon them by voters ie. society.

Human nature is as it always was, and will be.

It's a specific instance of a more general rule: All self-perpetuating systems over time become more complex and parasitical of the wider environment in which they operate. The legal system and all its hangers-on expand in complexity indefinitely, the tax system does the same, parliaments, congresses, executive structures, customs&excise, law enforcement, industrial safety, health schemes, municipal boards, unions, ad infinitum. Cancer is a good analogy, and that extends to either doing something radical about it, or dying.

This tendency is identified in the book 'Collapse of Complex Societies' (Tainter) as ultimately a primary cause, common to most examples of social collapse throughout history. Societies intrinsically have a limit to their man-hour, material and energy resources. But elements of the social infrastructure tend to go parasitic, and demand more resources than are available. Because the people operating as units within those structures can't see the broader picture. They virtually never go "Oh hey, my entire career is a net drain on society, I should quit and learn some useful trade."

Likewise societies on the whole virtually never have facepalm moments, where they realise "Wait, this is stupid. We really should entirely abolish (patents/copyright/income-tax&theIRS/corporations/the entire body of existing law/Congress/the Presidency/etc) peacefully and just start over."

And because they don't do that, all societies ultimately fail(violently), collapse(violently), or have a revolution (violent or ideally not so violent.)

The 'collapse/fail' scenarios happen when the resources required to sustain the hugely bloated parasitical self-interest groups and systems, grow beyond the practically available resources. Inevitably. It's just basic thermodynamics - you can't have what doesn't exist.

Many argue that some nations today are well into the energy & resources deficit zone already, and are just running on momentum, inertia and delusions. Not to mention theft from other nations. Where's all that gold gone anyway, FED?

In the meantime as the parasites grind onwards, you get many trivial examples. Like passive-aggressive letters from lawyers, 'asking' you to do something they have no standing or right to ask. Obviously in the hope that your fear of them will coerce you into compliance.

[don.r]

Personally, I would be more concerned about small company IP as small companies cannot afford the IP legal battles like big ones can. I would be more inclined to help the likes of Dave or other individual creators on here defend their IP rather than a large and deep-pocketed corp who can easily fight their own battles in court. JMVHO. Of course, Dave is under no obligation to defend either group.

[marshallh]

Something that can't go on, won't.

[DrGeoff]

You could accomodate them maybe by editing the first post about this product and mentioning that this product violates the IP of this company.
But removing and moderating free discussions on a free open forum sounds very much like censorship 

It's only an allegation, not a fact. Until the allegation is proven and upheld then that is all it will be.

[Psi]

I have an idea who this maybe, but we probably shouldn't start guessing.

[Legit-Design]

If it's some ripoff I think people take it as a warning and stay away anyways. If it's from china it has probably been bought from some place that is known for selling fakes and people expect that things that are too cheap are fakes. Therefore it drives people to buy from authorized sellers and having it discussed on the forums only does good to the actual company.

[TerraHertz]

Another factor that may be making it awkward for Dave, is that the company in question might be one that loans him stuff for reviews.

In which case the 'we're asking you to remove all mention of X from your site' letter takes on a more obnoxious aspect, in that it carries an implied 'or we will stop loaning you nice things.' I wonder if a lawyer could comment on whether that's 'demand with menaces'? Extortion?
I suppose it would depend on how well established the practice of loans for review had become.

That Dave is being polite about it, instead of doing stuff like naming the company, posting a scan of the letter, or telling them to go take a flying leap, suggests to me that may be the case. Or perhaps he's just a really polite guy.

[EEVblog]

That Dave is being polite about it, instead of doing stuff like naming the company, posting a scan of the letter, or telling them to go take a flying leap, suggests to me that may be the case. Or perhaps he's just a really polite guy.

As I said, it's a big company, and I suspect it's just some corporate lawyer is just acting on their own accord having been tasked with cleaning up the IP for this thing. I'd be very surprised if it's "the company" deliberately trying to shove their weight around.
They weren't rude, so I have no reason to be rude back. I just found their request silly and told them no.

[EEVblog]

They replied with "The intent of my initial message was to raise your awareness about this company."
Of course, only after their request was bluntly denied :->
So that's the end of it.
They are deciding if they will will post directly on the forum themselves about it in order to "raise awareness".

[BravoV]

Since Dave clearly stated he won't expose the parties involved, I guess its fair enough to start the guessing game ... 

My shot ... Siglent with that "Phosphorus" thingy (the hint) vs the big company (c'mon, you should know which by now ).

[AndyC_772]

Presumably they realise that "raising awareness" is the very last thing they should be doing, if discussion is taking place that they'd rather was NOT taking place.

My shot ... Siglent with that "Phosphorus" thingy (the hint) vs the big company (c'mon, you should know which by now ).

In which case, if it's who I think it is, they should be much more concerned about their own lack of technical progress over the last, say, 5 to 10 years. Shame, they used to make really decent, competitive kit. Emphasis on "used to".

[Frost]

My shot ... Siglent with that "Phosphorus" thingy

But sorry, this is only marketing geschwurbel (bullsh...).
They all use normal LC-Displays within their new products
and no phosphorus technology like FEDs for example.
So where is the big IP to put a LC-Display in a product.

[Sigmoid]

Many argue that some nations today are well into the energy & resources deficit zone already, and are just running on momentum, inertia and delusions. Not to mention theft from other nations. Where's all that gold gone anyway, FED?

Not that it would help anyone anyway. You can't eat gold, or do anything productive with it (well except for making microchips and gold plated connectors, but that needs very little of it).

[Sigmoid]

But sorry, this is only marketing geschwurbel (bullsh...).
They all use normal LC-Displays within their new products
and no phosphorus technology like FEDs for example.
So where is the big IP to put a LC-Display in a product.

We're talking about "digital phosphor" (DPO), wildly flaunted as the greatest thing since sliced bread by its creator. It's two things - less downtime between signal acquisition periods, and a digital emulation of the intensity gradation on a CRT display, allowing to see infrequent wave patterns.
A well known competitor has made a point of frequently denouncing it as useless and marketing crap tho.

[Rigby]

I declined to do so on the grounds that:
a) There is none of the companies IP being violated on the forum (which I am strict on and will remove)
b) This is what the forum is for, open discussion of industry products.
c) Moderation of such things is against the "open" nature of this community forum, and will hurt the reputation of the forum.

I agree with this, completely.  Not violated here means not your problem.

[G7PSK]

 There is no law ageist talking about any IP. in fact if they have got a patent that knowledge is in the public domain you can't use it directly but you can talk about it and even develop upon it to something else.

 Gagging is a two edged sword, In order to stop all mention of the opponents product you would have to stop all mention of the original so as comparisons would not be made.