
I'm being threatened by Magic Leap's lawyer. How should I handle this? - shawn
https://www.reddit.com/r/magicleap/comments/8u3mlj/magic_leap_is_threatening_me_with_a_lawyer/
======
balls187
They're telling you to take down their IP. Do it. And refrain from being cute
about it.

Ignore the tone of the request, that's how lawyers speak to ensure there is no
wiggle room for interpretation.

If you're upset that you're being bullied, know that it probably wasn't a
decision made by anyone in Engineering. Just businesses being businesses.

------
smartician
What's unclear about this? You are publicly distributing intellectual property
you have no rights over, and the owner is asking you to cease and desist. It
doesn't matter how many people actually access it, that's not a valid defense.

~~~
shawn
Sure. But are they really going to drag me into court?

I’m not trying to defend myself, or say that I wasn’t doing that. But I was
hoping to know whether it would be helpful to sacrifice myself for the greater
good here.

If this is a situation where it merits taking a stand, I’m willing to do so.
But if everyone agrees it’s ok for magic leap to assert that those who are
making them money need to toe the line and obey, then I guess I should back
down.

Mainly I was hoping to judge community sentiment.

~~~
VectorLock
Throwing yourself under this legal bus isn't going to benefit you or anybody
else. I mean you can poke them as much as you want, but is this the hill you
want to die on?

~~~
shawn
If it benefits others. That’s all I care about.

It seems like tolerating this may not be in the best interest of the community
going forward. And I would find it interesting to be able to claim that magic
leap has sued me for distributing 3 month old api docs to myself.

~~~
arkades
> If it benefits others. That’s all I care about.

I don’t see this benefiting anyone at all, so please put aside talking about
this like a martyr.

You took someone else’s property and publicly hosted it. Dropbox or gdrive or
sticking it on a private ftp or emailing it to yourself all would have done
the job just fine - but you chose to do it publicly. It’s not 1985; you have
plenty of resources for making files conveniently accessible without violating
folks’ IP rights.

And then you got told to Stop It. You didn’t get sued, though you could have.
You didn’t get DMCA’d, though you could have. You got the legalese version of
“cut the shit”.

So, what principle are you standing up for? Your right to appropriate other
folks’ property against their wishes? To distribute it against their wishes?
To then make sure they ask you pretty please to stop?q

You’re not protecting the community. This isn’t a principle that people who
make IP for a living are going to especially rally around.

Frankly, I think the answers here have been exceedingly courteous - beyond the
point of reason. It’s like Pirate Bay crying foul about being “bullied” by the
companies whose property they’re stealing.

------
yayana
Drop the content, comply with any take downs and put less energy and
enthusiasm into helping commercial APIs succeed in the future.

If you could have gotten a copyleft solution closer to competing it would have
been a better use of your time than working for free on someone else's plan to
make money.

------
jacquesm
I don't get you. You ask 'How should I handle this?' and then you proceed to
argue with everybody who tells you _exactly_ how to handle this.

You're violating copyright and the counterparty has indicated they mean
business. If you stick to this then you will lose a lot of money and in the
end it will still be removed. So there is no upside but a huge downside.

Pick your battles. This is not a smart battle even if you _feel_ that you are
in the right (you're not).

~~~
shawn
I didn't mean to argue. Thank you for taking the time to explain that.

------
mv4
It's a perfectly reasonable request by ML.

Also, their terms of service document [1] states very clearly that:

"You are not allowed to (directly or indirectly): ... (c) copy, imitate,
distribute, publicly perform, or publicly display any Site Materials"

[1] [https://www.magicleap.com/terms](https://www.magicleap.com/terms)

------
satokema
IANAL. Not legal advice, just bad opinion:

Seems banal and best to just politely take it down if no one is actually
viewing your copy.

In no way is this a heroic hill to die on; you've just posted someone else's
content accidentally and they are politely but firmly asking you to remove it.
It's not "harassment" in the slightest.

------
shawn
Howdy,

I'm not sure if this is an appropriate venue, but I wanted to ask the
community what to do. The details can be found in that reddit post.

In summary, a trademark lawyer is sending me threatening emails for uploading
Magic Leap's API documentation to github. No one viewed these except me.
Github's traffic stats show 2 viewers total.

Should I just take down the docs and forget about this? It feels wrong that a
billion-dollar startup is threatening the very developers they're counting on
to make them money, so I didn't necessarily want to encourage this behavior.

Ultimately, I think I'm willing to make a stand over this, but ideally I'd
like to not be dragged into court over some 3 month old API docs. What are my
options?

The ideal outcome would be that Magic Leap changes its behavior before it
becomes the norm. It seems like if we tolerate this now, it's going to get
worse later.

~~~
mikestew
_Should I just take down the docs and forget about this?_

Why wouldn't you do just that? It's their IP, and they asked politely (as
politely as you're going to get out of a lawyer).

 _It feels wrong that a billion-dollar startup is threatening_

What threat? The strongest word in there is "demand", and (IANAL) I believe
that to be standard legalese for "could you not do that?" The implication, of
course, is if you don't quit doing that, they'll sue.

 _so I didn 't necessarily want to encourage this behavior._

What behavior is that? "Could you not distribute our IP/documents w/o our
permission? 'k, thx." Because that's what Google's Legalese->English
translator gives me.

I mean, if you think you have a legal leg to stand on, knock yourself out. But
from where I stand (and keeping in mind that IANAL), it looks like you took
their IP, passed it around, and now wonder why they're being mean. Perhaps try
putting yourself in their place for a few moments?

~~~
mygo
> What threat?

> if you don't quit doing that, they'll sue.

I think you answered your own question.

But there’s nothing inherently wrong about a lawyer protecting his client /
employer’s IP. Sometimes lawyers have to make threats to do that. It’s within
their rights to threaten (make demands). If they don’t enforce their
trademarks they can even lose them.

You don’t have to adhere to their demands, and if you think you’re in the
right and have the financial resources you should probably lawyer up and stand
your ground and see what the court ruling says.

But from what I’ve seen Magic Leap is a very secretive company. Secretive
organizations will want control of the distribution of information. It’s just
how they operate. Apple will fire their best engineers with a single leak.
IANAL but if being in control of every inconsequential piece of information is
that important to them (even if it’s an API documentation that is distributed
to developers), they’re not letting off on this.

------
pnathan
If I understand properly, you're violating an NDA, or an alternative agreement
to not copy and publish their docs.

This is the legal enforcement of same. You can, f'instance, not do it. Now
that you've made frontpage on a major SV watering hole, you've put things in a
bind, where their response to you will now be taken as their general presumed
policy.

Unless I'm badly mistaken (IANAL), you're risking being sued in court for
this, with varied and sundry penalties. And you're _not even being paid_ by
Magic Leap.

Frankly, I suggest shutting down your magic leap work and contributing to an
AGPL project, where redistribution is licensed and appropriate.

~~~
notlob
This appears to simply be a copyright violation based on the demand letter.

------
chipuni
Magic Leap have asked you to take down their documentation. How should you
handle this?

<b>Bring your legal questions to lawyers, not to random people on the
Internet.</b>

------
jaytaylor
@shawn Did Magic Leap ever reach out to you and try asking nicely before, or
was this the very first contact?

~~~
shawn
Very first.

~~~
senectus1
Firstly this is how lawyers communicate. grow up and suck it up.

Secondly you are making something available to others that should not be. you
are in the wrong.

thirdly, if they do not actively work towards protecting their copyrights they
will lose the right to copyright it. The Law makes them do this.

do as they say, you're the one in the wrong here.

