Ask HN: Will Dropbox sue me?
8 comments
I don't want to sound glib or anything, but here's a thought... why not call them up and ask them? Companies aren't just nameless, faceless entities sitting out there waiting to sue the pants off of people. They have people, people you can call and talk to and negotiate with, etc. Find a contact there, and see if you can get somebody to introduce you to them. Failing that, cold call them and explain what you're doing and see where they stand.
Who knows, best case maybe they say "Sure, you can call it Dropbox Tunes, but you'll have to license our trademark from us. Since your thing is complementary, we'll license it to you for $1.00 / year" or something. Worst case, they say "Hell no, if you do anything like that we're suing your ass into the ground". Well, at least now you know, right?
Who knows, best case maybe they say "Sure, you can call it Dropbox Tunes, but you'll have to license our trademark from us. Since your thing is complementary, we'll license it to you for $1.00 / year" or something. Worst case, they say "Hell no, if you do anything like that we're suing your ass into the ground". Well, at least now you know, right?
Lol. True. Can't hurt to ask.
Take a look at the branding guidelines for developers.
"Your app's name shouldn't include the word Dropbox or be similar to Dropbox in either sound or spelling. Do not prefix your app name with "Drop.""
https://www.dropbox.com/developers/reference/branding
Logo and Branding guidelines, if you wanted to use the Dropbox logo.
https://www.dropbox.com/branding
"Your app's name shouldn't include the word Dropbox or be similar to Dropbox in either sound or spelling. Do not prefix your app name with "Drop.""
https://www.dropbox.com/developers/reference/branding
Logo and Branding guidelines, if you wanted to use the Dropbox logo.
https://www.dropbox.com/branding
Therefore, boxTunes or Tunebox is totally acceptable :)
Someone else probably owns trademarks in this space though thinking like this could get around the problem.
Someone else probably owns trademarks in this space though thinking like this could get around the problem.
Wow. that's handy. Thanks.
Briefly: Dropbox will screw you if they think there's even the slightest chance that your project will offend Big Media. Google what they did to Boxopus. My letter to them on the topic is here: https://github.com/duncan-bayne/duncan-bayne.github.com/wiki...
Does Dropbox even own the trademark to 'dropbox' or 'drop box'? I remember OSX had 'Drop Box' in the ~/Public folder since OSX Jaguar
Yes, they do. It's been on the federal trademark register since 2009.
How about something like Record Drop? That's from a common enough phrase that they might not sue you.
Relevant: http://droptun.es/
Any thoughts?
Thanks.