ok duck, since there are some profits involved, just wondering here when/if HN can go against you and ask you to cease your activity. I am not sure so maybe someone here can answer, but isnt it that HN website owns some sort of copyrights to their website's content even if it was created by other (users)
The copyright belongs to an author or poster, respectively, depending on whether it is an article or comment. HN gets an implied license to display the comments and cannot be held to infringe from a typical link to an outside article.
I have to confess to having felt pretty idiotic when I went many months ordering individual print issues, thinking all along that Hacker Monthly might not last for a full subscription year (in time, I subscribed). This is far and away the most popular item in the reading area of our office, with many, many clients asking for copies of articles from it. It is a great product and I am happy both to subscribe and to feature it for clients. Lim has done something pretty amazing here.
I have nothing to do with Hacker Monthly (bearwithclaws is Lim's HN handle), but I do run Hacker Newsletter (http://hackernewsletter.com) and do make a profit, although a magnitude smaller than Lim. With that said I think we both have zero to worry about.
The only thing they could make a claim about is trademark infringement of "Hacker News". Everything else is content from various authors around the web, which have freely given their permission to allow reprints.
But I mention this mostly to be technically correct (the best kind of correct), and for the entertaining prospect of trying to determine exactly who or what actually created the collection in the first place, from a legal point of view. And then it would require whoever that author or set of authors may be to sue, and that's either effectively impossible (the group of submitters) or impossibly unlikely (if the law decided it was YCombinator, because my goodness would that ever be a stupid no-win lawsuit for that entity).
Hacker News doesn't seem to be trademarked, I see no claim for that anywhere on the site. Even if it were trademarked, the vast amount of sites already using the term Hacker News could cause the trademark to be invalidated since, in order to keep a trademark valid, you must actively defend it from being infringed upon.
IAAL. Don't go too far thinking that existence of a trademark depends on whether you see a (TM) or (R). The touchstone of trademark law is whether your branding will make customers think you're related to someone who was in the space before you. If you're confusing customers, you have a problem; if you're not, you don't. Having an (R) makes it easier for the earlier entrant to prove infringement and collect damages, but it's not the end of the story.
(So for example in this case, when you say that the number of sites using the term Hacker News invalidates the trademark, what you mean is that no reasonable customer would think Paul Graham sponsors HNM, because the term Hacker News isn't associated with this site in particular. That's, let's say, up for debate.)
Trademark is actually one of the sanest areas of IP. It's pretty much about whether the alleged infringer is hurting consumers or not. I've fantasized sometimes about what would happen if you applied the same principle to patent or copyright ...
[Disclaimer: This is so not legal advice. Don't be an idiot.]
most sites that use HN content does not generate profits, at least not so obviously.
now, don't get me wrong -- huge kudos to author for pulling this off but me and sure other users here had the similar idea long time ago: a nice, polished thick and colorful catalog full of the 1st page articles even with printed Hackernes comments. The major thing that stopped me, for example, was the thought that if this will get a traction and will bring some profits, most likely HN will come after me to either option A (95% probability) shut this down, or option B (5%) - to work out some sort of a deal.
Major reason why HN, Facebook, Youtube, etc etc does not care about someone infringing is because there is no business behind what they do. So most likely they can only "spread the word" which is a good thing. Now, when it comes to generating some profits off of someone else thats a different story.
once again to underline this: huge kudos for great idea and awesome execution!
But which law would HN use to compel you to shutdown your project?
-Not trademark because there is none here.
-Not copyright because you can't copyright facts. You might get them on the structure of the facts (this bit of info is first, that bit is second and this is third) but with a site like HN, there is no fixed structure, except that at one time this link was in the top X. I believe that's a fact more than structure.
-Comments! Now that's the weak link. If you don't get permission from each commenter, you're likely infringing. HN cant shut you down but they can incourage others to and it only takes one commenter to make your life difficult in this type of publication.
IANAL but this is my understanding. If anyone knows different, please correct me where I'm wrong.
I'm not sure, as I am not an attorney. The basis would be that without Hacker News website, there would be no Hacker News Monthly. It doesn't take a rocket science to imagine that running busy site like HN takes someones time AND money. HNM editor clearly profits off of it, just leaving all the costs to HN and squeezing essence out of it, making reasonable bucks for himself (again: kudos to the author; had I had time and balls to pull this of.... I'm just pointing out what would stop me from putting my time/effort into it)
I guess time will show (if HNM will keep traction) if HN will somehow, anyhow react.
I would argue that the value is in quality of those links. HNM editor doesnt simply take any articles; this way he could just make loops through an X amount of tech/news sites and reprint. But thats not what takes place here. In other words: he is using Hacker News ecosystem (with all its limitations, votes, points, karmas etc) and based on that formula, he reprints "the best of". Perhaps smart attorney would want to ask him to stop using HN formula to build his catalog, since its obvious that HNM wouldnt get traction if he wouldnt keep high quality articles in it (he does know which articles have quality ONLY thank to HN). But again I am not trying to get the author in any sort of troubles. Its just another thought that would stop me from working on this idea.
There's nothing "copywright-able" about a community. I'm sure PG could give this guy a headache if he really wanted to (as could the authors who's content he's repurposing) but the general consensus of the HN community intrinsically encourages this type of initiative and rewards it when it's well done (just take a look at the revenues).
Generally, there's all sorts of ramifications any time you do something worth doing - if you use that as an excuse not to start, you'll never do anything.
