Hacker News Reader

Comment by pytrin | Hacker News Reader

I'm not sure what the misunderstanding is. Didn't you issue a trademark on a community created idea and then hire a lawyer to enforce it? even if that lawyer made moves not authorized directly by you, this whole incident has a bad taste to it.

View on HN

It was just supposed to be monitoring for some scammy companies and she got overzealous and sent a letter to Backupify (they are awesome and definitely not scammy). The lawyer said the best way to stop scammy companies would be to trademark it, I'm just a college student so I (unwisely) let them take care of it. Plus it was just an unnecessarily scary letter-not an legal action.

I just didn't want people to mess up their computer because they downloaded something that seemed to be endorsed us (fyi, we don't endorse anyone). That's all.

The original post said that they contacted you through the site you put up, and that you requested sponsorship ranging between $40k and $400k to be associated with this "holiday". That doesn't sound like you were just trying to protect public interest (which is not clear why you would think it is you who should say who can use that name or not).

from the sound of it, it is over, gone in the past. Mistakes happen, lets not publicly rip his clothes (lol). Sounds like he is sorry and its over. I hope so at least.

That was some proposed advertising packages on reddit plus a couple other things-I didn't handle the advertising. I'm really tired and sorry.

I just wanted want a nice event for everyone. :(

So which non-profit are you donating the sponsorship fees to?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com