Slashdot Mirror
Dealing w/ Outside Interests in Your Projects?
Anthony Boyd asks: "Last weekend, I built a web site that is a poor-man's version of Classmates. Except that it is custom-built just for my high-school, with no ads or fees. I got a fine response from the people that knew about it, and was busy reconnecting with lost friends... until [last week], when my school's alumni association called and gave me an earful of comments such as, 'that's a rogue site' and 'it may not be legal!' Turns out, they hoped to build something similar, as a platform to entice donations. So, I'm stuck. Before I do anything, I'd like to ask Slashdot: have the projects you built for 'just for fun' been overrun by outside interests? If so, what did you do, and what would you have done differently?"
Well, if you're pleasant and charismatic, you can always try selling them their very own customized alumni website, which you just happen to have right in this briefcase....
--Mike--
Yes, it's legal. Assuming your school wasn't a private school, you can hook up as many people as you want for whatever price you want- as long as you make it clear that you're not an employee or affiliate of the school.. You're matchmaking based on a common interest, i.e. that school.
If they contact you about it again, tell them politely that you're exercising your rights as a public citizen and serving as a resource for alumni. If they would like to cooperate with you to avoid competiting services, that would be lovely; however, in the interests of alumni relations you would suggest that they cease their threats of legal action to avoid the inevitable bad press and probable decline in alumni support, as well as the embarrassing and ultimately expensive legal battle. If you keep getting problems, use your alumni network to find legal representation.
If it's a private school, though, you may well be screwed. I doubt it, but you may.
Well, I don't think anyone here is going to be able to help you much with this, since it really depends on the details. There's certainly nothing illegal about making a website for alums to coordinate. If they object based upon such a general reason, tell them to piss off as they're clearly just trying to get you to cave in.
However, if you used any copyrighted logos or artwork swiped directly from their site or any of their literature, they could probably get an injunction based on that. So, make sure the site is either text-only, or that any logos that you do use are original works that you create. Since it sounds like this is a non-commercial endeavor I don't know exactly how trademark laws work but so long as you acknowledge all marks as being property of their owners and you're not selling something that's related in any way, then there's no reason that you can't use a logo of a product or institution.
In other words, I don't think it's illegal for me to put a picture of a box of "Kellogs Corn Flakes" on a web site, so long as I took the picture (i.e. I own the copyright), and I'm not trying to sell cereal.
I know that colleges are often very protective of their Mascots and logos since they want a piece of the pie in terms of merchandising and they don't want thier image tarnished. If they continue to object to your site (moreso than a "please stop") then it will probably be on these grounds.
I personally have never been in that situation. That being said, I can't help but think I'd fight it. "Tell me why this is illegal. Tell me why you should be the only player in town. Tell me why we can't work something out."
If they can't answer that, then I'd keep it going until I recieved a cease and desist. Assuming that there isn't any legal issues with the students names being printed there, what's the BFD?
Like I said, I'd fight, though I wouldn't rule out compromise. Maybe you could support donations for them?
Don't turn this into a battle. What was the original purpose of your site? Not fame. Not fortune. To be connected with classmates. Offer your website gratis to the association if they fund the hosting and give you due credit. Then everybody wins. You get free hosting. The alumni gets their donations. Classmates get a better quality service.
Instead of fighting them, or bunkering down at the first threat of litigation (which was probably an ignorant threat with no merit), talk with them and work out how you can both benefit.
Unless they're assholes. In that case, tell them to get stuffed.
PS: I've never been in the situation that you describe but that's what I'd do.
You have a site frequented by many people from your high school. The alumni association survives by the goodwill of that same group of people.
:)
Post a bulletin on your site explaining the situation, and provide the alumni association's contact information so your classmates ---who presumably enjoy your site and want it to continue--- can ``express their concerns''.
Then sit back, wait a bit, and enjoy the newly friendly and polite alumni association.
If you don't like this kind of bullying, definitely don't give in. Post your correspondence on your web page, with as little editorializing as possible, and let others draw their own conclusions. If their behavior is outrageous enough, I'm sure you'll find that it results in a lot of bad publicity for them, and the last thing they want is for students to have a good excuse to hate the association when they call asking for money. Go ahead and stick a paypal link on the site that lets alums donate to the school at their discretion. Make sure you use trademarks carefully (you can check a primer about this many places online), and build your site with renewed purpose. ;)
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Spurious legal threats, be they from lawyers or just the old boys' club, are one of the worst problems in the legal climate today. Since there's so little cost to fire off a Cease and Desist letter that sounds scary but is essentially contentless, corporations do it as a last resort to harass small developers who they'd never be able to beat in court. The only way I know of to fix this situation is to make there be a *high cost* for waging war against the small guy, and this could easily come in the form of bad publicity if people don't just shut down their sites right away.
By the way, yes, this has happened to me several times. Most recently was my battle with the DMCA over flipping embedding bits