
Amazon/Statsaholic Dispute Just Got A Lot More Complicated - Sam_Odio
http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/04/22/amazonstatsaholic-dispute-just-got-a-lot-more-complicated/
======
truth
Quite clearly, if you do something that violates the copyright of others, you
have to use the fame you received to ask users to download your own toolbar
because "company X is being mean to me." You have to be ready to switch
business models. Get users fired up. Maybe even sell the company for $100,000
which Amazon offered and use the publicity with TechCrunch to start a new
site, with his own statistics.

So, although I think he's doing a good job getting Amazon some really bad
publicity, even though this is a simple case of copyright violation which he
is guilty of, he should be doing more than just ticking off Amazon.

Instead of playing victim, he needs to get his toolbar out and compete with
Alexa. Don't just say, their service sucks I'm going to copy it, but say, the
service sucks, I'm going to replace it altogether. Amazon can't touch him with
copyright suits. This is basically extortion at this point. Why?

There is NO WAY he could have thought that Amazon (or any other corporation)
would not be ticked off at him at some point on the first day he started doing
this. In other words, he's moved onto "legal" extortion--trying to make the
company he's copying to pay him more than $100,000 or else he will make them
look like they are the evil ones. Had he sold his company and started his own
stats company, fine. But since he doesn't know when to stop, this is getting
ridiculous.

Finally, the fact that this is Amazon should not matter. Everybody who
develops IP (basically, everybody reading this) wants to be able to protect
it. I don't care if it's Amazon or Microsoft or Google. Amazon didn't do
anything wrong, and I don't agree that it should be spun that way. As far as
their 1-click patent goes, there was nothing like it on the web OR real life
until Amazon invented it. Finally, if people are going to bring up that Amazon
had a famous patent, why can't Amazon bring up that the user allegedly
extorting them, has served time for extorting users of another major internet
company?

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pg
It seems suspicious to me the way Arrington phrases this news. "It has become
known." Why can't he quote a source? Perhaps because the source was someone
working for Amazon?

To me, this information appearing at this time only adds to the appearance of
Amazon's guilt.

~~~
brett
He denies that his source was Amazon in a comment:

 _I have no evidence that Amazon leaked this. They certainly did not do it
formally in any event. I got this on two email tips from sources unrelated to
Amazon. Also, the Amazon lawsuit makes no mention of it._

<http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/04/22/amazonstatsaholic-dispute-just-got-a-
lot-more-complicated/#comment-1345081>

~~~
eli
The news story about it is on the Internet. This case got a lot of publicity
so someone was bound to stumble across it sooner or later, leaked or not.

------
eli
And check the comments

------
Sam_Odio
Also see: <http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=15845>

