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Comment by georgewsinger | Hacker News Reader

I agree, and just want to reiterate what was written in the article: we genuinely feel no animosity towards Meta and its gaming headsets. We don't even feel animosity that they have leveraged their economies of scale to provide them very cheaply to consumers (something we aren't able to do yet[1]). We just disagree with their product vision, and are pursuing our own. We also think subpoenaing us for this case seems unreasonable.

[1] https://simulavr.com/blog/why-is-the-simula-one-so-expensive...

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I suspect that with all such things, that a hacker's opinion on the relevant law is probably `/r/ConfidentlyIncorrect`.

I have no opinion on the substantial legal matters at question. It's been my observation that the ranking folks at Meta in the VR world are as ethical as fiduciary obligation permits, but YMMV.

I thank you for your reply and hope that you agree that a substantial legal matter which will inevitably be resolved by people competent to do so shouldn't become a political football in a small but influential forum of people who on average know as little about IP law as I do :)

Wether it's reasonable or not is orthogonal to the law. It's not because something is legal that it should be a thing. I think that whether or not this is legal, the idea Meta can access internal documentation from a smaller competitor is unreasonable.

Sure, but do we even know what the law currently says on this matter? I've seen a lot of speculation in the comments here, but very few facts. Even the original blog post seems to have been written before consulting an attorney.

For example, does the law have any mechanism for compensating SimulaVR for their work on this case? What mechanisms exist for appeal? Does Meta have free reign to examine the subpoenaed documents, or are there restrictions on how that information can be used and who can see it?

It just seems to me you ought to know what the law says first before arguing it needs to be changed. Chesterton's Fence and all that...

GET OFF THE INTERNET AND HIRE A LAWYER TO HANDLE THIS

You guys want to run a business, well, start acting like businessmen. Your company will occasionally get subpoenaed or - heaven forbid! - be sued. You got a third-party subpoena for documents in a litigation. Guess what, this will happen from time to time. Your attorney should be negotiating with Meta to figure out what documents/testimony your company will provide.

Honestly, your behavior makes me question your maturity. Treat this as a learning experience about the reality of the American business/legal world. Get a lawyer to handle it and shut up about the case.

The parent is already going grey via downvotes, which I think is a bit harsh: "hire a lawyer and let them hire PR people" is in fact generally good advice.

This thread is 1 part "this isn't the place to litigate this" and 2 parts "i've got a beef with big tech", so it's unlikely to be germane and therefore the all caps are likely to be a bit much.

But it's good advice generally, and that shouldn't be downvoted.

Hiring a lawyer was the first thing we did. For the rest, I'd gladly do this if we had the funds to do so. We don't.

Plus, we as a company are (maybe excessively) open. Of course we're going to get involved in legal proceedings, that's a fact of life. Doesn't mean we won't talk about it.

In my highly uninformed view, you're thus far in the clear near as my uninformed, ignorant ass can tell.

But the GP's advice is still as good as when it was printed: for the most part, the under-resourced party is courting nothing but trouble by courting public opinion litigation.

Do talk to a lawyer, don't say more than you can help on the Internet. It's good advice.

Presumably they did get a lawyer, but I don't see why they should get off the Internet.

If Meta is going to use the legal system to bully tiny startups that tangentially compete with them, they might as well take a bit of a PR hit for doing it.

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