I don't know US Laws, why Instagram can ask Mass Planner Shut Down

And Mass Planner agreed this request, by US Law ?

Can tell me more ?

It's not about who is "legally" right or wrong in the US. It comes down to who has more money for litigation. Someone goes to court, the strategy is to draw out litigation and essentially outlast the other guy. One side will have to settle once they reach their financial limit on legal representation. Depending on the issue at hand, legal representation can get very very costly.

fd55 said:

It's not about who is "legally" right or wrong in the US. It comes down to who has more money for litigation. Someone goes to court, the strategy is to draw out litigation and essentially outlast the other guy. One side will have to settle once they reach their financial limit on legal representation. Depending on the issue at hand, legal representation can get very very costly.

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Can't they just shutdown the service and start a new one in Russia for example?

fd55 said:

It's not about who is "legally" right or wrong in the US. It comes down to who has more money for litigation. Someone goes to court, the strategy is to draw out litigation and essentially outlast the other guy. One side will have to settle once they reach their financial limit on legal representation. Depending on the issue at hand, legal representation can get very very costly.

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Dude the law may be an ass, but we have certainly not reached such a lawless level you just described.

MacRichard said:

Can't they just shutdown the service and start a new one in Russia for example?

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I can't speak for them... that's a decision they will have to make and they'll announce it once they are ready to I'd imagine.

Unsullied said:

Dude the law may be an ass, but we have certainly not reached such a lawless level you just described.

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I hope you never get hit with with some "frivolous" litigation. I have been in a few "pointless" extended court battles that went on for years which could have easily been settled up in a month or so. Every court date, there was a continuance request, so you show up only to have court date rescheduled.... again and again and again. My attorney would just say, they asked for continuance so we just would plan to come back. There was no new discovery being done, or circumstances preventing going forward with something at each specific time.

I won't say much, but in my case - the other side was trying to outspend me, but the strategy backfired. 3 yrs into it, they changed their legal team a few times; they had a big dog representing them, and I had a bigger dog and a war chest to keep going for several more years if needed. The damages that they initially asked for - which was a very significant amount, was settled for less than what I spend on a cup of coffee on, and needed to be there as there needs to be an amount listed... which I promptly delivered...in pennies....

Unsullied said:

Dude the law may be an ass, but we have certainly not reached such a lawless level you just described.

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It wouldn't be about the laws, It would be a civil dispute, at least that is what it would be called here in the UK and very often the person with the deepest pockets will crush the little guy.

Unsullied said:

Dude the law may be an ass, but we have certainly not reached such a lawless level you just described.

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It is standard practice in the real world.

I believe MassPlanner is based in Romania. Looking into Romanian corruption - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_in_Romania it looks to be pretty rampant. So my guess is that Facebook has more than enough money to pay off whoever to bring down the gavel on MassPlanner in their own country.

they should have been more careful,
.ru domain, ru servers, bitcoin payments, lay low.

but then again, if they do that they can't make lot of money..so yah

Ofcourse I think they will come again with a new name

I think the focus of the thread missed the point.

It's Instagram's terms of service. It's "free", they do whatever they want. If they wanna ban bots, they can ban any without any legal justification for it.

But there is a case though in US law where MassPlanner may have rights: you have the right to reverse engineer services and systems for compatibility reasons. So if your program makes Instagram talk to other programs, you can freely develop it without Instagram's permission. This is meant to give incentives for an open market without domination by a single closed entity.

So if MassPlanner can make the case they make IG more open and compatible, then they can remain functioning legally. But if they simply try to use IG API for free, they are not entitled to anything.

bartosimpsonio said:

I think the focus of the thread missed the point.

It's Instagram's terms of service. It's "free", they do whatever they want. If they wanna ban bots, they can ban any without any legal justification for it.

But there is a case though in US law where MassPlanner may have rights: you have the right to reverse engineer services and systems for compatibility reasons. So if your program makes Instagram talk to other programs, you can freely develop it without Instagram's permission. This is meant to give incentives for an open market without domination by a single closed entity.

So if MassPlanner can make the case they make IG more open and compatible, then they can remain functioning legally. But if they simply try to use IG API for free, they are not entitled to anything.

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Awesome point.