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May 2020
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Tim Bray, Early Internet Guru, And Amazon VP Quits Over The 'Chickenshit' Company's Targeting Of Employees Speaking Out About COVID-19

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If you do anything internet related, hopefully you already know Tim Bray. Among tons of other things, he helped develop XML and a variety of other standards/technologies the internet relies on. He's also been a vocal and thoughtful commenter on a wide variety of issues, especially in the tech policy space. For the past five years he's been working at Amazon as a VP and Distinguished Engineer -- but as he's announced he has now quit in protest over the company's retaliation against workers who were speaking up over the company's handling of their working conditions during the pandemic. Bray gives some of the background of workers organizing and speaking up about their concerns, and then discusses the company's reaction (firing the vocal ones and offering lame excuses).

Warehouse workers reached out to AECJ for support. They responded by internally promoting a petition and organizing a video call for Thursday April 16 featuring warehouse workers from around the world, with guest activist Naomi Klein. An announcement sent to internal mailing lists on Friday April 10th was apparently the flashpoint. Emily Cunningham and Maren Costa, two visible AECJ leaders, were fired on the spot that day. The justifications were laughable; it was clear to any reasonable observer that they were turfed for whistleblowing.Management could have objected to the event, or demanded that outsiders be excluded, or that leadership be represented, or any number of other things; there was plenty of time. Instead, they just fired the activists.At that point I snapped. VPs shouldn't go publicly rogue, so I escalated through the proper channels and by the book. I'm not at liberty to disclose those discussions, but I made many of the arguments appearing in this essay. I think I made them to the appropriate people.That done, remaining an Amazon VP would have meant, in effect, signing off on actions I despised. So I resigned.
Bray does not mince words about how terrible he thinks this response was, and even includes "some descriptive phrases you might use to describe the activist-firing."
  1. Chickenshit.
  2. Kill the messenger.
  3. Never heard of the Streisand effect.
  4. Designed to create a climate of fear.
  5. Like painting a sign on your forehead saying 'Either guilty, or has something to hide.'
Tim notes that while he does believe that the company has been "putting massive efforts into warehouse safety" the workers' own testimony can't be ignored either -- and that firing workers for speaking out and trying to make things better is exactly the wrong response.
Firing whistleblowers isn't just a side-effect of macroeconomic forces, nor is it intrinsic to the function of free markets. It's evidence of a vein of toxicity running through the company culture. I choose neither to serve nor drink that poison.
For reasons beyond just the coinage of the phrase, I find it especially interesting that Bray made the Streisand Effect comparison. Amazon has a history of somewhat ruthless employee practices, but straight up intimidation of a workforce speaking out for their health and safety in the midst of a pandemic, when they're more essential than ever... seems just insanely short-sighted and self-destructive. Hopefully, Bray taking a stand and quitting his job makes someone wake up within the company that this is the exact wrong approach.While Amazon may be right that its warehouse workers have the short end of the power-balance stick, the company is still deep in competition for engineering talent. Bray quitting so publicly and with such clarity of purpose may certainly make a number of top engineers whom the company would like to hire think that they may feel better about their souls by choosing to work elsewhere.On a separate note, Bray points out that the Guardian, somewhat bizarrely for a major publication like this, simply reprinted his entire blog post without first asking him:
Tim does have a CC BY-NC 2.0 license on his blog, where the post was originally made, but it's not clear whether the Guardian's use would really be considered "non-commercial." Of course, for years we've called out the vagueness associated with what is and what is not "non-commercial" use, but the Guardian is at least on a very thin borderline. I find it somewhat surprising that it chose not to at least ask before publishing it. At the same time, the Guardian has tremendous reach, and if the most important part to Tim is getting his message out, the Guardian is not a bad way to do it.Update: Tim took out his list of descriptive phrases after someone suggested it was too far. We'll be leaving them in this post. Separately, he notes that the Guardian took down their post and apologized, and he seems content with this outcome.

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posted at: 12:00am on 05-May-2020
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Court Sides With Nike And Dismisses Kawhi Leonard's Lawsuit Over 'Klaw' Logo

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Sometimes you turn out to be wrong. When we initially discussed Kawhi Leonard's lawsuit against Nike over the "Klaw" logo, I'd said I was interested to hear Nike's response. That was because my glance at Leonard's description of the history of the logo, one which he created in rough draft form when he was young to one which Nike used as inspiration for the eventual Nike Kawhi shoe logo, it sure seemed like Nike was being hypocritical. After all, Nike has a reputation for being extremely protective of its own intellectual property rights while being rather cavalier with those of others. As a reminder, Leonard created a logo that makes something of a "K" and "L" outlined via the tracing of his own hand. It sure seemed that if that all wasn't unique enough that Nike shouldn't be trying to trademark a version of the logo from under him, what could be?Well, a U.S. District Judge in Oregon appears to disagree. And, given some of the side by side comparisons that Nike brought in its response... perhaps he has a point.

U.S. District Judge Michael W. Mosman ruled that the logo Nike designers helped create with Leonard marked an “independent piece of intellectual property’’ that was distinct from the original sketch Leonard initially conceived and shared with Nike.“It’s not merely a derivative work of the sketch itself,’’ the judge ruled from the bench after an hour of oral argument held by phone as well as multiple briefs filed in the case. "I do find it to be new and significantly different from the design.''
Here is Leonard's rough draft side by side with the Nike logo.
Are they creatively different. Yes, I think that's fair. But the real problem here is that Leonard's entire use of the logo in commerce appears to be his deal with Nike.Still, it sure feels like this logo, on a Nike shoe or not, is associated in the public's eye as much or more with Kawhi Leonard as Nike. Yeah, there are creative differences in the designs as drawn above. But one sure feels to me to be derivative of the other. And, yet, Leonard's lawyers argued the exact opposite.
One of Leonard’s lawyers, Mitchell C. Stein, urged the judge to view Leonard’s initial sketch and the final logo as "one and the same.''Leonard isn’t claiming ownership of a derivative work. “We’re claiming ownership of the logo Leonard created,’’ Stein told the court."The KL, the No. 2 and the hand as expressed by Mr. Leonard in his sketch and as modified is the protectable element that appears in the Nike Klaw,'' Stein argued.
That... feels like a stretch. And the court apparently thought likewise, having sided with Nike and stating clearly that the two logos were definitely not "one and the same."
As stated on the record, I GRANT the motion with respect to Defendant Nike's ownership of the Claw Design. As a result, and because amendment of the complaint would be futile, I DISMISS Plaintiff's claims with prejudice.
And that should be the end of that. Frankly, I'm, again, a little surprised in this case, because it just... doesn't all feel as cut and dry as the ruling would suggest. Nike had an endorsement contract with Leonard, the clear author of an original logo for which Nike created an a derivative logo... and yet this all ends with Nike getting the all clear? The same as though it had created this logo whole cloth? And to what end? Leonard is no longer a Nike athlete. So Nike gets that logo and he has shoes elsewhere?Like I said: messy.

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posted at: 12:00am on 05-May-2020
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