Comment by duxup | Hacker News Reader

Comment by duxup | Hacker News Reader

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I feel like legal threats / take downs that are baseless at face value .... should have consequences for the lawyer / organization making them. Perhaps some system like small claims court that could relatively efficiently deal with them.

I recently received a "cease and desist" from a company who competes with the company I work for with some subtle insinuations (without saying I personally would be in legal trouble... they imply it). It was sent to me via LinkedIn of all places. The company I work for has a valid mailing address that is easily googled, same thing with contact email address, phone numbers, etc. I suspect because I'm involved in web development they think I'll just take down the content they do not like / disable some things at their direction.

I ignored it, I had my employer contact them and respond as it's their deal. The issue the other company has is entirely BS. I am not a lawyer but I ran it by some lawyer friends who thought it was hilarious how misguided it was.

It seems like there should be some potential consequence to prevent threats that are that far off.

Is this the kind of this you can complain to the lawyer's Bar Association about? A one-off bad cease and desist might not warrant any action but if it's a pattern of behavior they might be interested in having it documented. Am I being too optimistic?

The bar associations, while often well intentioned (depends on the state but most are), have very very limited resources to do investigations.

They also receive a large number of baseless complaints (IE are about re-litigating the case. For example, in a divorce, they often receive complaints about lawyers because the client lost, not because the lawyer did anything wrong. )

As such, they spend most of their time and energy mostly investigating egregious issues (IE stealing from clients, etc). They also get referrals from judges about bad or illegal behavior.

It is unlikely a complaint about DMCA behavior is going to go anywhere.

> It is unlikely a complaint about DMCA behavior is going to go anywhere.

It is guaranteed that the lack of a complaint will not go anywhere. And legal processes tend to be VERY slow and inefficient but they thrive on formal documentation.

I'm licensed in three states as a lawyer, so i'm quite aware of what they thrive on :)

What you write is a truism, but i'm not sure it's that helpful. The post i responded to seemed to be trying to understand the tradeoff and likelihood it has an effect, which is what i was answering. You have not argued it will have an effect, actually, just said it's non-zero probability.

If it cost zero time/energy to file a complaint, sure, why not. That isn't the case here and most people want to understand the tradeoff, not the extreme.

Otherwise, you'd just do everything, regardless of time/cost/effectiveness.

This is sort of what I was thinking. Not expecting that anything would happen, but having documented the complaint should something more egregious arise in the future.

Hard to know. If it continues I'll look into it, but like all legal things I'm guessing the cost to just get involved is pretty high. I suspect I'll never hear from these folks again.

Right now it's just one message on LinkedIn. If I hear form them again ... I'll have to think about it / contact a lawyer.

Perhaps you should engage a lawyer yourself and send your own "cease and desist" letter in response to their actions. Let them know that their continued harassment will result in a lawsuit.

It's amazing how quickly some companies will respond to a succinct letter from a reputable law firm.

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