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> Maybe it'd help to instead call it "IP theft", which still sounds a bit serious.

It's not a problem of naming but of who can afford fighting a legal battle in court and who cannot.

There's been many famous episode of big companies going to court for copyright infringement. But they know they can ignore individual developers.



It's less about the money than the will. FOSS types tend to not want to sue.


It's also about the money. Suing people is very expensive.

As an example, a very long time ago, I was ripped off by a software company for about $10k. I talked with my (rabid dog) attorney about suing them. His response: we would have to sue in a different state, where he wasn't licensed. That means I'd have to hire another attorney. While I would almost certainly win the lawsuit, once you added up my expenses to get there, I was likely to come out of it with little actual money even assuming that my costs in pursuing the lawsuit were covered (which is not guaranteed). When you take into account the time and energy I'd also have to put into it, there wasn't much chance that I'd come out ahead over just dropping the issue.

So his question was: the only reason to sue them is on principle. Financially, I'd come out behind. Can I afford to pay to stand on principle?

In my situation with my business, I could not.


Is this a startup or law firm waiting to happen? (Preferably driven by true-believer public interest lawyers.)




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