mikeshreds

Love the video!

This a more important point than anything I've said in here. Thank you.

Yeah, I hear you, hindsight 20-20.

It was Mark's manager John Shimmin who made that request. John is a great guy, and Mark had (still has?) a great relationship with him. He genuinely wanted to help Shimmin, and did so faithfully for weeks.

It's not fair to pin this on Mark and dismiss it with a "rookie move dude." Mark (and I) had no idea that facts could be twisted and ignored to create this kind of legal conflict. A lot of people operate under the guileless belief that if they help someone, that person/entity will not screw them. Mark is one of those people.

The filing is public, and referred to in the lawsuit. I'll summarize here:

Smule has claimed we violated non-solicitation provision in our contract by recruiting each other to start a startup; that we appropriated Smule's code or methods to build Shred Video (though they don't make any specific trade secret claims); That Mark is guilty of fraud in his consulting relationship w/ Smule's engineers (this is detailed our post); and We converted Smule's proprietary information into Shred Video (far as I understand, conversion is a fancy word for "stealing").

The "non-solicitation" claim is laughable, especially in California. The fraud claim is fraudulent itself, as the email record clearly shows Smule itself asked for Mark's help, and he was wholly transparent in the way he provided that help. Everything else comes down to whether we used Smule's proprietary code or methods.

When Smith says "I'm fairly confident we will figure something out eventually...unfortunately...with a bunch of lawyers," seems a reasonable interpretation that "a bunch of lawyers" is code for legal threats, and "figure something out" is code for us paying him (in equity or otherwise) to withdraw the legal threat.

Of course, if one member in a couple has $40 million dollars and the other does not, and the rich one files a lawsuit against the other without even first talking to her, one might consider that the two are not equally culpable parties.

It certainly seems like a reach to just assume bad behavior on both ends.

Which actually, is one of the more insidious outcomes of making absurd claims against someone, even if they're completely false. People naturally respond "well, no one would be crazy enough to make something like that up, so there must be some truth to it."

Yes, thoughtful response, our lawyers are looking into this very strategy.

Thanks for your thoughtful comments.

Relevantly, Shred Video doesn't even compete directly with Smule for customers. Smule is building a network of karaoke singers and aspiring music enthusiasts to create music together. Shred Video is building technology to help athletes and adventure travelers make movies.

For example, it's unimaginable that a user would consider Smule apps and Shred Video to be competing substitutes that solve a similar need. She'd literally be choosing between "do I want to use this Smule app to sing karaoke songs or play guitar with, or do I want to use this Shred Video app to make a movie from my snowboarding footage?"

What do you mean by "right strategy" in this sense? Doing a 3rd party review of Shred vs Smule code/methods will give them a trove of relevant information if they intend to win on the merits.

In my understanding, refusing it is only the "right strategy" if your intent is to not have the case go to trial.

Just want to point out that Smule has not cited trade secret theft as a claim against us.

And on non-compete, Mark and I were just employees, not officers of any sort. Neither of us was a manager with direct reports.

thoman23. You so get me right now.

Yes, in legalese those would be considered trade secrets. Tellingly, Smule did not name "theft of trade secrets" as a claim in their lawsuit.

In our case, we did not develop anything Shred-related (ideas or otherwise) while we were employed at Smule. So invention assignment is not at issue, because we did not moonlight on Shred Video while employed by Smule. I knew I wanted to build products for the GoPro audience, which is why I left Smule. Mark left for his own different reasons, and we only began prototyping on things that turned into Shred Video after he left Smule.

Completely agree. We ourselves were very conscientious to never do anything Shred Video-related on any Smule machines, and did not build anything Shred Video-related until after we'd terminated our full-time employment at Smule.

Don't you think this will be absolved with a review of Shred Video's code/methods vs Smule's code/methods? And isn't it telling that Shred Video is more than willing to submit to such a review, but Smule has not yet acquiesced?