Hadn't seen this before. What a nicely written letter. Explained why they have to do this, outlined a reasonable action step, and even offer to help said action. Moreover, it didn't contain a single threat.
I wish all companies took such an approach. You catch more flies with honey, and all that.
I used to be the webmaster for my parent's HOA[0], and I bought their .com domain name when it became available (a realtor had owned it originally). They eventually hired a firm to run the site, and I pointed the domain at their nameservers, and forgot about it (paying the ~$20/year in renewals, because that's not a lot of money & I have fond memories of living there).
15 years later, I get a registered letter from a law firm – counsel to the HOA – claiming that I was violating their trademark by owning the domain name, demanding that I turn it over to the HOA, etc.
If an actual human had reached out to me, I would have happily transferred the domain. Instead, they paid a lawyer to be a dick about it – so I ignored the letter, they registered the .net, and everyone moved on.
I still keep the domain up, and redirect it to their new URL, because as long as the .com domain works, people will be using it. Which means they will still want it, and I'm not giving it to them. At least not until they ask nicely, and catch me with honey instead of vinegar.
[0]Despite this incident, their HOA is normally perfectly reasonable. It's a few hundred dollars per year to keep up with road repairs, signage, community facilities upkeep, etc.
I totally understand that, but theirs is genuinely not an HOAzilla – they just took a stupid approach to this particular problem. It's honestly the prototypical example of how to run an HOA – low fees (no outside management), providing community features (pool, tennis courts, paved private roads, etc.) basically at-cost, and even hiring folks from the community to help out (teens as lifeguards, retired folks as maintenance, etc.).
Also, my parents still live there, so I didn't want to start any more drama. In fact, they sold their previous home and built a new place in the same community, while it would have been far cheaper to build outside the HOA.
All this to say that, while the internet is full of genuine examples of nightmare HOAs, my parents' HOA is normally run by a few retired folks who mind their own business.
You honestly should have searched to see if they had a trademark. Unlike copyright, trademarks have to exist. I suspect you were probably played. They appeared nice, sure, but they don't appear nice to me. If it were me, I'd have' pointed the domain at a certain picture involving ladies and cups. I've dealt with bullies myself, even in the legal system (IANAL, but do run a few successful small time ventures), and it always blow my mind what people will say.
I recently had a guy from India that claimed I had a security vulnerability, and that I owe him a bounty. I have no bounty and the vulnerability did not exist (I suspect he misunderstood the issue completely...the issue was not an issue at all, it was as designed). When I didn't respond he followed up multiple times, and threatened to sue (I am in the U.S.) He finally gave up. The issue he was referring to was his misunderstanding of modern email standards. It wasn't an actual issue, nor did I ever offer any type of bounty of actual security stuff (I would, but most of my stuff is OOTB, if someone did come to me with an actual issue I'd definitely give them something)
If plaintiffs had to pay the fees for defense prior to settlement or judgement, most of this would disappear. Sadly, nobody has the balls to implement that.
If I cared about HN karma, I'd just post "why not Rust?" on every Go post, and "why not Go?" on every Rust post.
> why wouldn't you just tell the lawyer this or contact the current webmaster
Because the lawyer was trying to scare me with nonsensical legal threats. I'm not interested in helping people who threaten me with legal action.
> your retelling just seems really petty.
It was supposed to – I was replying to someone who wrote, "I wish all companies took such an approach. You catch more flies with honey" – they tried to "catch" me with vinegar, and I don't have a taste for it.
Relatedly, Jack Daniel’s recently won a unanimous Supreme Court decision affirming their right to pursue trademark claims against a dog toy manufacturer.
The toy company claimed their products were parodies, which have heightened protection from such claims, but the Court didn’t buy it.
Weird, when I looked it was showing it as the kindle edition and I could have clicked buy on it. Looking now, if you hit other editions it'll show you the paperback with the old cover but if you click through the editions, eventually it'll only show you the new one for all of them.
This sort of thing always reminds of the Jack Daniels cease and desist letter[0], which, at least for me, had the exact opposite effect.
0. https://brokenpianoforpresident.wordpress.com/2012/07/19/jac...