My first instinct is to congratulate Shred for standing up to the big bully. That was really almost what I posted.
But pick apart Shred's note, and really it's an emotional appeal based on two ideas:
1. That the sole test of stealing ideas is source code that has been copied verbatim.
2. That the only possible secrets of Smule are features implemented in released products.
These are pretty weak legs to stand on. They're actually preposterous.
Lawyers will tell you that it's really hard to prove theft in court without a smoking gun like "stolen source code", and the chances are, if they've stolen ideas in other ways, they will probably get away with it.
Almost certainly, Shred's lawyers are playing a key strategy role in this PR campaign.
So my advice is to be wary of emotional appeals from either side of litigation. We don't know what happened, and we learn less than we think from these notes.
ps. Yes I read the remarks in Business Insider too. I'm not advocating that Smule is the innocent party here. Most likely this is some bullshit pissing contest with 0 innocent parties.
But pick apart Shred's note, and really it's an emotional appeal based on two ideas:
1. That the sole test of stealing ideas is source code that has been copied verbatim.
2. That the only possible secrets of Smule are features implemented in released products.
These are pretty weak legs to stand on. They're actually preposterous.
Lawyers will tell you that it's really hard to prove theft in court without a smoking gun like "stolen source code", and the chances are, if they've stolen ideas in other ways, they will probably get away with it.
Almost certainly, Shred's lawyers are playing a key strategy role in this PR campaign.
So my advice is to be wary of emotional appeals from either side of litigation. We don't know what happened, and we learn less than we think from these notes.
ps. Yes I read the remarks in Business Insider too. I'm not advocating that Smule is the innocent party here. Most likely this is some bullshit pissing contest with 0 innocent parties.