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Ask HN: Will Dropbox sue me?

4 points by dave_sid ↗ HN
I'm looking to create a music streaming service to be used with Dropbox. Basically a lightweight music library manager. If I create such a service and called it Dropbox Tunes, or Droptunes for example, would and could they sue the pants off me for copyright infringment? Or would this be seen as okay as it's not really competing with them, it's just to compliment their product.

Any thoughts?

Thanks.

16 comments

[ 4.0 ms ] story [ 48.4 ms ] thread
mindcrime
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?

dave_sid
Lol. True. Can't hurt to ask.
[dead] killnine
I say F it. Just do it. Even if down the line they pull their tech from your product, there are substitutes for dropbox, right?
niggler
Does Dropbox even own the trademark to 'dropbox' or 'drop box'? I remember OSX had 'Drop Box' in the ~/Public folder since OSX Jaguar
dangrossman
Yes, they do. It's been on the federal trademark register since 2009.
tobylane
Referring to a drop box and the Dropbox are different things. Anyway, cloud is an accepted term and lets you do live mesh, mozy and others.
dave_sid
true.
dave_sid
I sometimes laugh when I try domain names and some are actually taken.. woofcloud.com I was joking but it's away already. wtf
draker
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

caw
Therefore, boxTunes or Tunebox is totally acceptable :)

Someone else probably owns trademarks in this space though thinking like this could get around the problem.

dave_sid
This is exactly what I was looking for. pity I've already paid for a domain name that start's with "Drop" :-)

At least they are clear about what can and can't be done.

Thanks.

mtrimpe
I'd still call and ask though.

As we say in Dutch: never shot is always missed ;)

logn
How about something like Record Drop? That's from a common enough phrase that they might not sue you.