Startup Threatened Into Settling Over Hyperlinking

An anonymous reader writes "A tiny startup that was threatened by a massive law firm over nothing more than a humble hyperlink has been forced to settle and change its linking policies, handing Goliath the win in this gratuitous trademark case. Under the agreement, real estate startup BlockShopper can no longer include hyperlinks anywhere on its website to Jones Day, a massive Chicago law firm, except explicitly on URL text. Essentially, jonesday.com is okay, but not blah blah blah." I wonder if the owners of jonesdaysucks.com feel the same way.

Comments

Re:All those lawyers...

[Anonymous Coward]

When the only tool you have is a hammer...

Apropos of nothing

[ChrisGoodwin]

It really sucks that the little guy got screwed by a bunch of litigious bastards.

grasp of technical matters fail

[timmarhy]

I have a feeling jones day, are about to have a really bad day.

No Justice, No Peace?

[clambake]

From TFA: "Do you know, young man, how much money it's going to cost you to defend yourselves against Jones Day?"

So, basically, here's a just saying, point blank, that he's not in the business of justice... that it's irrelevant if you are right in the eyes of the law, if you don't have enough money, you lose. It's refreshing to see a judge being so honest.

Re:No Justice, No Peace?

[Dhalka226]

So, basically, here's a just saying, point blank, that he's not in the business of justice

Why? Because he said exactly the same thing repeated day in and day out on slashdot? For saying what is not only conventional wisdom, but unarguably true? It would cost an absolute fortune to defend--even successfully--against this lawsuit. That's simple fact. After all, they're thinking about fighting a law firm. While the /. crowd loves people to expend hundreds of thousands of dollars to fight the good fight on their behalf, reality isn't nearly so kind. As it stands, they "settled" for only linking to this idiot company using its name. (In reality they'll probably just elect to not bother with them anymore.) Other than /. karma, what exactly do these guys win by financially ruining themselves to be able to do otherwise? The crapshoot chance of recovering some of that money in lawyers fees afterward? Underwhelming.

As far as the amicus brief issue is concerned, if Ars' one-line explanation of the situation was entirely accurate then that was indeed bogus. As is so often the case, however, the reality of the situation likely can't be wrapped up quite so tidily--if for no other reason than we can't know the judge's mind. This is a preliminary hearing; a lawsuit was filed, BlockShopper asked it be tossed out, and the judge said no. *shrugs* I don't like the ruling, but I fail to see the justification in attacking the judge like that. The entire legal system is fucked up and biased toward rich litigants, and courts more often than not choose to let cases actually play out rather than tossing them right at the start. It's just the way the legal profession goes. Based on that article, we don't even know what the specific lawsuit claims were. If you dig into the settlement agreement you can see that it was "for service mark infringement, service mark dilution, false designation of origin and deceptive trade practices." All the judge has said so far is "yes, this is permitted to go to trial" and "are you really sure this is worth it to you?"

Maybe he's a horribly biased, awful judge. Maybe he makes consistently horrible decisions. I really have no idea. There's damn sure not enough in this article for a reasonable person to make any of those claims though. If Slashdot wants to let loose the dogs of war, direct them at the party making the claims you find ridiculous. It seems to me THEY deserve the derision.

Re:oh yizzo

[zappepcs]

I get the feeling that they are soon to learn about what is called The Streisand Effect - You know, it's where you fuck up on the Internet and the entire fucking Internet takes a moment to let you know about it.... lol

wtf judge?

[KDingo]

Unfortunately, the judge in the case refused to even look at the brief after Jones Day said the brief sided with one party (as most amicus briefs do); he also refused to dismiss the case at the request of BlockShopper. According to TechDirt, the judge even allegedly put pressure on BlockShopper to back down by saying, "Do you know, young man, how much money it's going to cost you to defend yourselves against Jones Day?"

I may not know much, but that's pretty low.

Re:oh yizzo

[larry bagina]

I wonder if they have a proper license for all their software... I bet the BSA would like to know, too!

Re:oh yizzo

[The Master Control P]

The Streisand Effect isn't so much that one fucks up on the Internet (people do that all the time), but that one fucks with the Internet. Which then proceeds to try a hundred times harder at doing whatever you didn't want it to do.

Do not taunt happy fun Internet.

Re:All those lawyers...

[blantonl]

..then you are bound to hit your finger.

Re:oh yizzo

[Sun]

Possibly this is just an exercise in reverse psychology:

1. Threaten and win a frivolous law suite concerning not linking to your site, thus activating the Streisand Effect.
2. Prominent high ranking site Slashdot starts filling an article with links to you, thus upping your page rank
3. Profit

Shachar

Re:oh yizzo

[ShieldW0lf]

At least you didn't link to gay porn or child porn or beastiality or golden showers or shit-eaters or goatse.cx or any crude stuff like that...