FairSoftware's Blog

HARO vs. PrManna: Out of Control Lawyers

By Alain Raynaud on March 1st, 2010

If I am to believe this blog post, HelpAReporter, a web site that helps journalists connect with sources, has sent a threatening legal letter to a free competitor called PRManna:

From the blog post summary:

I stole his idea (bullshit, his service was a mailing list when I built PRManna, and there are tons of sites for this purpose)

They’re demanding that I transfer ownership of PRManna.com to Peter Shankman’s company

I am a HARO user. The first thing this news prompted me to do is register with PRManna. Then I sent an e-mail to HARO asking if this is true (I have no reason to doubt the blog post, but it’s always a good idea to double-check).

This case is htting a nerve with me. People who have seen me speak on the topic (I have covered Intellectual Property at several sessions of the Founder Institute) will recognize this image: it illustrates my view of the US judicial system.

The point: anyone with money can sue anyone else who has less money and put them out of business. It doesn’t matter whether you have a case or not.

The HARO vs. PRManna case is a perfect example of what I say in my class: before you enter any market, check out the existing competitors and understand how threatening you are to them. It seems that HARO was making almost a million dollars a year, so of course offering a competing free service was bound to anger them.

Never mind that ideas can’t be protected on a whim (it takes a patent to protect an idea, in case you forgot, and the idea needs to be novel and non-obvious, among many other requirements).

My support is with the PRManna folks until I see some kind of evidence of wrongdoing on their part. I’m not holding my breath.