I would have hoped that if they had the sense to send out a cease and desist (because somebody obviously knew that "the waffle house index" was in the cultural zeitgeist -- heck, it even has its own Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waffle_House_Index ) ...
that they would have the good sense to work with somebody on a web page WHICH COSTS THEM NOTHING, and yet can foster a sense of good will for their company??
Well, I guess Waffle House doesn't deserve them.
Good riddance. And I'll definitely be going to IHOP when making my next Hurricane escape.
If I were Waffle House, I would be thinking "hm. This is a one person project; what are the odds that it will break/go down eventually, and people will assume it was ours and get angry at us? Could write a clause about rights returning to us, get the code in escrow... but then we might wind up maintaining some random project using a stack that isn't part of our core competencies..."
And then I'd try to work something out anyhow, cause this is a cool project. But I sadly get the caution.
And I mean, do they even want to lean into that reputation to hard? I’m sure they don’t want to have some managers get somebody hurt by not closing a restaurant out of a misplaced sense of pride or bravado based on the reputation (I mean, I know almost nobody would do that, but somebody might!)
Why aren't they insisting that FEMA not use their brand when talking about "the waffle house index"?
>Trust is subordinate to anything that can flip Power dynamics. If things will not change the Status Quo of power, trust can be a held as it has benefits in reducing costs. If a power dynamic can be flipped, trust will be broken.
>Trust being broken has implications. After Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia, Britain refused to negotiate with him. Not even minor issues could be resolved and only naked power decided things. Stalin had this issue after enforcing communist parties over Eastern Europe.
>As an alternative to trust: Verification. Verification mechanisms exist. Weapons inspectors are an example of this. If the weapons inspectors are not allowed somewhere, you should not just Trust blindly. Obviously the cost is higher when you need to spend resources on verification.
It feels weird to say, but I don't need much trust. I ensure interests are aligned and have verification for things that are important.
Blind trust that wasnt earned is absurd. Trust when stakes are high is absurd. I genuinely feel bad for children and young people who are taught to blindly trust, as they will get burned.
/unpopular reality.
The least dickish example is probably the Jack Daniels incident, but even their first contact to the offender was a C&D.
The least dickish thing to do is to not be a dick.
That said, if the author had posted a tracker of Waffle House closures descriptively, without using their marks or branding, that would be fine, in the same way that google maps is fine to list which restaurants are open/closed. The key being that "google maps" is referencing the brand of google, their own trademark, and could not be confused for something authored by any of the restaurants featured on the map. Trademark is designed to avoid anyone being confused with who was the author, it's a "feels like" definition with a rubric, not a specific technical definition.
My suggestion would be to rename a site "disaster indices" and include the waffle index as one index. Even batter (yes) if you add other similar indices, like theme park closures or other.
If it's really true that there's no true Waffle House index, that would have some value for the world. Though I also suspect that there is something that exists for that (maybe part of a paid data subscription, e.g. from Bloomberg or something), since it isn't clear that the author did rigorous research for this fun side project.
As far as rigorous research, I looked semi-heavily and couldn't find anything in relation to it. I'm sure it's not a foreign concept to use local area data in this way for disaster planning though!
Is it really necessary to go that far though? I think they just need to stop using the visual mark and make clear that it's unofficial. (But I am very much not a lawyer.) You are allowed to identify a product or company by name so long as it's clear it's not you and trademark law can't be used to stop you (e.g., for a bad review). Maybe the site could be renamed "disaster index based on Waffle House closures" or simply "unofficial feed of Waffle House closures"
That's not what the author did here -- he invented a fake logo and chose a domain name and title that include "WaffleHouse." Trademark law is specifically designed to prevent people from creating a fake logo and registering a domain that makes people think it is your own brand. Yes, there is some exception for parodies and criticism, but writing a review / parody sketch is a completely different format than a website that lists information that purports to be official open/closures of your business.
You can't create a product that contains the brand name of another product; I can't invent "Magic Kleenex" or "Better Google," so he similarly can't name something a "Waffle House Index." What he could do is name something "disaster index" or "breakfast restaurant index" where the data happens to be from the waffle house locations.
That's not the only option available. They can, if they find the use of the trademark to be benign (or even beneficial), offer a license to use it for this purpose.
For example, the Linux trademark has an approval and attribution process: https://www.linuxfoundation.org/legal/the-linux-mark
Folks should consider hiring Jack Daniels' law firm. https://www.abajournal.com/news/article/jack_daniels_cease-a...
> In order to resolve this matter, because you are both a Louisville ‘neighbor’ and a fan of the brand, we simply request that you change the cover design when the book is re-printed. If you would be willing to change the design sooner than that (including on the digital version), we would be willing to contribute a reasonable amount towards the costs of doing so.
As a college student, probably broke as well. This person probably does not have the legal understanding or access to lawyers to guide him through it.
Much easier to take it down rather than deal with potential legal ramifications.
A half decent lawyer or even the "free" lawyer services at most universities probably would have advised just removing the "trademark" elements as you would.
Please don't fold immediately to this tired legal tactic.
Feeling invincible is nice, but even low probability events can lead to financial ruin if someone chooses to make an example of you.
You need money and free time to go to a courtroom.
>They're very unlikely to sue for damages because the cost of their lawyers far exceed whatever 'damages' are in place here,
This is a not a smart thing to do without legal console. There are plenty of very large, very wealthy companies that love to play SLAPP.
Your suggestion of FAFO isn't a great idea.
You don't need one, but it is incredibly ill-advised and reckless to go into a case like this without a lawyer.
> They're very unlikely to sue for damages
Lawyer's fees are very often moved for in IP infringement cases, so even if they don't sue for damages, you're going to end up paying their lawyers.
> Please don't fold immediately to this tired legal tactic.
If you feel so confident about this, why not put up a replacement site and try this strategy when you get the inevitable C&D? Keep us informed. I'm interested to see how that plays out.
That...depends on how much you care about the outcome.
> They're very unlikely to sue for damages because the cost of their lawyers far exceed whatever 'damages' are in place here, which I would assume are close to zero.
If they "take you to court" to force a takedown, they are already suing you (for an equitable remedy.) The marginal cost of adding a claim for damages and, on top of that, lawyers fees and costs (which, as you note, may well exceed the actual damages), is very close to $0 once they are already doing that. So, you may choose not to pay for a lawyer for yourself, but that won't stop you from paying for lawyers for the firm suing you.
Note that in the US, the usual rule does not allow for shifting attorney's fees to the loser.
While in the US, the default rules in many kinds of cases don't start with loser pays, as in some other systems, there are conditions applicable to most causes of actions which will allow attorney's fees, and the default rules for some claims do assign costs and fees to a party found liable without requiring any additional factors—notably, in the context of a trademark demand letter from the holder of a registered trademark, this includes violation of any of the rights of a holder of a registered trademark, see 15 U.S.C. § 1117(a).
I don’t know many people that would purposefully drag themselves through the court system out of principle. Maybe those with enough free time on their hands and money to delegate/consult with lawyers.
You are probably right though. If a majority of people rejected the cease and desist orders and actually called their bluff about vague legal action. Then these legal tactics would become useless, and the recovery in whatever damages to their "trademark" would be far less than the cost to hire even junior legal teams at big firms.
Maybe you should test your principles. Recreate this persons website idea, wait for Waffle House corporate lackey to send C&D, then you show us how it’s done. Instead of doing your armchair "should have, would have, could have" analysis.
The dude made in good humor, a website and pushed it on social media at a time that attracted a bunch of attention. It included graphics close enough to the trademark to be confusing to visitors, and did something that the company didn’t want done for reasonable reasons.
They incurred cost. People handled phone calls, their counsel billed for the response, the web agency had to modify the website. Waffle House sells greasy diner food, every aspect of dealing with this is zero value to them.
Rather than beat around the bush, they said “stop”. He did, and wrote a funny blog about it. But for every 10 situations like this one, there’s probably 1-2 where the counterparty is a prick and wastes everyone’s time.
You ignore a C&D at your peril. The rules are complicated and the fines and penalties for not following the rules are expensive. U.S. IP law is fiercely protective of patent rights, trademark rights, and copyright. It's not something you mess around with, and anyone who tries to defend himself without a lawyer is a god damned fool. The author of the blog post did the right thing by engaging and trying to work something out without coming across like "go pound sand, I do what I want."
Please don't walk around giving bad advice like this. I pray for the poor sap who listens to it.
After receiving the C&D, the method with which I was getting the data was removed/patched (which I'm now noticing was not mentioned in the blog post...) I did ask them if there was any thing I could to keep it up and never received a response, and rather than playing a cat & mouse game of "now you don't have our branding, but you are scraping are data so here's another C&D" I just took it down :)
Check out this wild case to see how far you can go with scraping and remain legal. It’s surprising.
https://techcrunch.com/2024/02/26/meta-drops-lawsuit-against...
If you're tired, hung over, or really hungry, you can always stumble into a Waffle House at any time and get something to eat. If you can't, there are bigger problems in your life (hurricane, zombies, tornadoes).
A good point of comparison is steam db (and other similar sites), which uses Steam public info to triangulate market info that isn't immediately apparent.
> This third-party website gives you better insight into the Steam platform and everything in its database.
It clearly states that it's not affiliated with Steam and is a separate organization. There's also a further disclaimer in the footer of the page.
In contrast, the "Waffle House Index" had the Waffle House logo at the top of the page, with zero explanation or elaboration on who created the website.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craigslist_Inc._v._3Taps_Inc.
Obviously this was a much different circumstance than a not-for-profit side project but still something to keep in mind.
But if I'm running the WH brand, I simply don't want to be the semi-official corporate sponsor of every major natural disaster.
Waffle House has been trying to distance themselves from it as a "Disaster Index" ever since the FEMA Director admitted to using it as an unofficial index. It's part of why FEMA increasingly refers to it as "unofficial" and has started to distance itself from discussions about it, too. I agree with the OP that part of it is definitely Waffle House wants to distance themselves from being "the brand of disasters". When it has been talked about as a "Recovery Index" (and without mentioning FEMA, because FEMA is the "brand of disasters") and the light has been shined to focus on why they've been among the fastest businesses in the country to recover from the worst problems, they've been happy to discuss and market that. It really is cool to see their flowcharts and checklists and graded levels of menus designed for all the scenarios they thought to design disaster recovery for (does the building have electric? does it have gas? when was the last supply truck in? when is the next supply truck expected? what are the road conditions?; it truly is fascinating).
https://www.govtech.com/em/disaster/hurricane-preparation-an...
Waffle House is like weirdly serious about disaster preparedness, for a restaurant chain.
If op had named it something different, and didn't use such a closely inspired logo, he probably could have kept it up. Or at least had a much stronger case of fair use. But this is always the problem with "fan appreciation" and our trademark system. In order for Waffle House to keep their trademark, they must enforce it. They cannot let a fan use/abuse it, or else it can get to the point where a judge can say it is been made generic (ex: escalator).
When I was young, I learned this lesson via a very scary letter from Warner Brothers. The lawyers aren't always trying to be dicks (though some clearly are), but they are paid to protect the brand. And someone registering a site with your brand name, putting up a logo very similar to your real logo.... is always 100% of the time going to get that C&D letter. And eventually a lawsuit if you fail to comply.
For this to be trademark infringement, wouldn't he need to be selling products or services that compete with Waffle House? I don't think this is an obvious easy win for the WH lawyers at all, apart from the fact that they would have much greater legal resources.
Basically trademarks are like a signature, they "prove" who you are doing business with.
More than risk; some of the tweets could be actual evidence of that confusion.
I think if the general branding vibe of the site was more about hurricanes and only made a reference to the "Waffle House index" via NOAA, it might have had better chances of surviving. And also a big disclaimer that there is no affiliation with WH would have also helped.
However, you should always speak to a lawyer if you get any kind of legal notice, but especially of this type. Never assume, thats how things can go sideways, even if you may initially have had standing to dispute the notice.
Always talk to a lawyer before taking any action in situations like this.
(Though its less likely, complying with such a letter can also have hidden costs, so a consultation may be a good idea even if that is your inclination, but you are usually far more likely to experience adverse consequences beyond those you voluntarily and knowingly undertake from disregarding than from complying wiht such a letter.)
Imagine the scraper breaks for 24 hours and in that time, several WHs shut down due to a natural disaster. Someone looks at this site, decides to travel in their car, and gets electrocuted by a downed power line. They sue WH because they were relying on that information, and by goodness it looked official.
WH was aware of the site, and if they don't tell you to stop, then are they complicit in the person being fooled into trusting it and thinking it's a first-party site?
---
I think the site itself should have been allowed to stay up, had the style been changed to clearly be unofficial and had sufficient disclaimers. It sounds to me like their legal department is scared shitless of the implications of people actually relying on the Waffle House Index to make life and death decisions.
Or, employees begin to rely on domain squatter's map, argue with supervisor over whether they need to come into work, and N employees lost their jobs because of a third-party misinformation site.
You're a company, and some third party makes a website that very much looks like it could be official, using your name and logo in part, and this website is purporting to know the open/close status of your stores. Literally an indicator if people should bother going out to spend money at your business or not. An actual signal to economic performance of your entire corperation.
Now, this person is using your own data from your own websites to update this map. But, you do not control that person. They are not an employee. What if their scraping scheme breaks? What if their implementation has some bug and shows stores closed that are not closed. What if they get pissy and decide to just randomly start showing locations as closed just to F with you.
If the site got very popular and you had no control over it, you could could be losing customers and have no way to fix it.
It's a seriously irresponsible move to allow people this kind of leeway with your brand and trademarks. Even if it seems they mean well at first.
Vastly different approach with a much better upswing.
You've escalated where threat of escalation should have sufficed. Hey we need you to change your site to make it obvious this is a fan site and not ours. Otherwise we'll have to send a properly lawyery letter in a few weeks if we don't hear back from you about a plan.
One of these throws a person's life into utter chaos. The other gives them time to be a grownup about it.
A lawsuit is the escalation. A cease and desist is a strongly worded letter that isn't really legally binding or anything.
The issue here is just impedance mismatch on the language. The legal department is used to doing things in legal terms, and probably sends out like a lot of cease and desists. And most of the targets of those also have lawyers who are speaking the same language, so it works. Just when it's a random individual getting the letter, there's a lot more confusion.
Our mistake was posting it all over X and LinkedIn. We got hit with a cease and desist so fast.
Marked as wrong timing in the CRM and moved on!
If this is about PR, as one data point, I don't think any differently of anyone involved. I wouldn't if Waffle House engaged him either.
>They should have embraced this guy and his website, engage him, and through that channel let him know "hey, you can't use our trademarks, etc. so you'll need to rebrand, but we love what you're doing and want to help."
I don't mean this cynically or rhetorically, but: why? I get that this is a fun and humorous side project for the creator, but I don't see any real upside for Waffle House in supporting it. If Waffle House wanted to lean into the proxy-for-FEMA marketing angle, it'd be much better off doing it in-house, where it'd have complete creative control. More likely, Waffle House marketing strategists crunched the numbers and are understandably hesitant to expand branding based on national disasters and the woeful state of government response infrastructure.
We do this every year when Nintendo sends an icy C&D to some quirky project built on its IP. Techies rend their garments about the deplorable state of IP law, and forecast imminent fallout from all the "bad PR" and "missed opportunities," as if there's a vast, highly sensitive market segment of temporarily aggrieved nerds that has somehow gone unaccounted for in its sprawling global marketing strategy. "I'll never buy a Nintendo product again!" says the 42-year-old Senior Software Engineer with 312 unplayed games in his Steam library, and the money-printing machine continues to hum unabated.
https://locations.wafflehouse.com/
What this person did was summarize this to a single map with red dots and a "% closed" indicator at the top. And tying it to the connotation that it is due to storms/natural disasters with the "index" moniker. Not something Waffle House really needed.
Waffle House (or any other brand) must and 100% always will send out a C&D for trademark misusage, otherwise they lose legal protection for that trademark.
Time to change that braindead law then. Copyright has a "fair use" provision, and trademark law could be adapted similarly.
What you can't do is claim it's yours. Or let people think it's yours.
No, you can't. If you could use it whenever yoh want, we wouldnt have the concept of “nominative fair use” as the exceptional case of when and how you are allowed to use someone else’s mark in commerce without permission.
You can’t represent yourself or product as a brand. But you can write a scathing review about them and use their name and nobody can stop you. That wouldn’t be a trademark situation, it would be defamation, not infringement.
Waffle House had a legitimate claim and acted on their obligation to their trademark.
There is a pretty good argument that Waffle House continues to have a claim.
They probably wont do anything because its, frankly, a waste of time.
This could probably have been avoided entirely if copyrights were correctly respected from the beginning.
Actually, I'm pretty sure their request has no trademark law legs to stand on. Trademark infringement first and foremost requires two things: a) commercial use and b) for the goods and services the trademark is registered for.
Now I just checked and Waffle House has registered its trademark for "waffles", for "mugs", for "keychains" and other trinkets and for "restaurant services", but has zero registrations for "providing information online" or similar. So they really had nothing to defend with regard to a website that sells nothing.
Basically, had he just changed the website to use the name in text, they would have had a hard time to even forbid the nominative use of the trademark to refer to the actual waffle house (referring to the actual owner of a trademark in a nominative/descriptive manner is generally allowed).
There may be other areas of law that are more pertinent, but this is no case of good faith trademark defense. There was no "must" here. Looks like BSing someone who does not know better so he backs off. Also looks like using the archaic und expensive US legal system as a tool for coercion. Even if you're right, you need to be able to afford being right...
The core use of trademark protection isn't a commercial use, necessarily. Rather, it's the act of infringing on the trademark holder's commercial use. So, if Waffle House is selling Waffle House t-shirts, and a business next door is giving away free Waffle House t-shirts that they printed - then yes, Waffle House would very likely win a lawsuit against someone giving away waffle house t-shirts.
Basically if someone is giving away or, especially, selling something that causes a confusion against the original trademark, then yes, the trademark "must" be protected.
By "must" I don't mean it's legally required. I just mean you're going to have a harder time in court if you need to pursue legal action against a company or person if there's a precedent you have not actively protected the trademark in other instances.
edit: and in this case, the site was causing confusion, so they sent a C&D. Also as the other commentor mentioned, the logo is trademarked.
There is a difference when treating well-known trademarks (say Coca-Cola, Sony, Google), however I doubt Waffle House gets over the threshold set for that for being too local (I counted at least 20 states that do not have one) and not sufficiently known by all demographics (if you want to know more read up on the Lanham Act).
Full disclosure: I am a TM lawyer, but not in the US. YMMV and what I write here is no legal advice ;-) since only gathered from US colleagues' explanations regarding cases clients had in the US.
The notorious/well-know concept is part of an international treaty (Art. 6bis of the Paris Convention) and its interpretation is similar in most western countries, so I'd expect the US interpretation to not be that far off.
Though, I am, again not a lawyer, but I am 99% sure you can't go use the Waffle House logo to sell anything, let alone waffles. I only say that because no one is using, say, the Coca-Cola brand to sell shoes, and if they did, we all know Coca-Cola would prevent that. That goes for any trademark in the US. So perhaps trademark law is different here?
Also, Waffle House are ubiquitous as a brand in the United States - certainly not as well known as Coca-Cola or Sony, but I have no doubt they'd be able to prove national awareness in any demographic.
In this particular case if you look at the C&D, it is for the trademark usage. It's likely that this person could have simply removed the trademark from the page and it would have been fine.
edit: I think the key in other industries would be proof of brand dilution - that is, if you start using the Nike logo to sell waffles, Nike would send a C&D if not a team of lawyers because you are diluting the trademark. So I guess you're technically right, although functionally, brand dilution is easily provable.
Interestingly enough, Waffle House is mentioned in a 2007 article related to a US trademark law reform as an edge case [1].
This does not seem to be the first time that Waffle House appears to be overreaching: [2]. The balls to pull this off with a straight face, kudos to the colleagues.
An article from INTA relating to dilution [3].
[1] https://scholarship.shu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1864... page 458, last paragraph and footnote [2] https://www.techdirt.com/2011/08/17/waffle-house-says-rap-so... [3] https://www.inta.org/fact-sheets/trademark-dilution-intended...
This logo image consists only of simple geometric shapes or text. It does not meet the threshold of originality needed for copyright protection, and is therefore in the public domain. Although it is free of copyright restrictions, this image may still be subject to other restrictions. See WP:PD § Fonts and typefaces or Template talk:PD-textlogo for more information.
At least within my corner of the business world (and not just "the internet"), it seems this is common knowledge among lawyers.
My guess is that, sure, would a court throw out a trademark? Maybe not, but the law works on a fine line between actuals (precendent) and hypotheticals, and it's just cheaper to issue a C&D than it is to fight a prologned legal battle about predcedent.
Also, it's interesting you mention Frisbee. There's a term for that: "genericide," and it's the term used to describe that exact scenario. Frisbee is one brand that didn't actively protect against trademark erosion and now we call every flying disc a Frisbee. Retrospectively, Frisbee might have wished they'd sent more C&Ds. Nintendo is one brand that has actively protected brand erosion, which is why we don't call it a Sony Nintendo.
People make decisions on whether to try going to a place or not on this all the time. Sites use company logos in all kinds of ways, not the least of which is display in image SERPs, whether they fit brand guidelines or not.
The difference is this was a small site without the leverage to ignore WH.
The data should be accurate as possible, and if it isn't, the person should take the site down for that reason. But otherwise, they should have just changed the branding and kept it up.
Isn't it the opposite? RSC returns raw HTML. Did you mean that it obscures the API fetches it makes?
Cease and desist letters can be scary. In my opinion, (which is not a legal one) theirs was pretty chill and straightforward.
In case you're curious, hafflewouse.com is available ;)
I wouldn't be so sure about that:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waffle_House_Index#/media/File...
Apparently false (from WH perspective).
I am confused about FEMA: are they using some automated process or is it an abandoned index?
This is conjecture but I'm pretty sure the idea of it even being an "index" is a stretch. More like people who work in disaster relief talking about their jobs informally. "I just got back from Town A. They had a tornado but it wasn't too bad. The Waffle House stayed open." "I'm heading to Town B. They've been having flooding so bad the Waffle House has been closed for 12 hours." That sort of thing.
Edit: Apparently FEMA contacts local businesses including Waffle Houses in the areas affected by a disaster to ask how they are doing. This makes sense as an added source of data to gauge the severity of an emergency. Still a stretch to call it the "Waffle House Index".
https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2017/sep/01/waffle-ho...
I am not all that surprised. Companies have to take trademarks and such VERY seriously and act quickly. They can be royally screwed later if they do not.
I am surprised the creator of the site didn't add a disclaimer that information should not be used in any sort of serious manner.
In biological taxonomy, new names are coined all the time. Aliases for species are quite common. Common names for species are also common. We just learned that a "Buzzard" in the US is different than "Buzzards" in Europe/UK.
Pharmaceutical companies and scientists coin new "fake Latin-sounding" names all the time. So do astronomers! If there can be an asteroid named "25924 Douglasadams" then why can't Activia add a brand-name alias to something they use? Arguably, bacteria replicate so fast that Danone could have a new species if they cultivated it in a lab, rather than in animals.
Conversely, the food industry has taken names such as "milk" and "water", and expanded their definitions far beyond what common people recognize as those substances. Always receiving legal assent to sell fruit juice [nuts are fruits] with a mammalian name.
I've not had much experience with supplements, but more than a few I've purchased made proprietary blends of substances, and named that blend. Totally FDA-compliant.
I think your website got left up because it's fundamentally not a threat to any such practice in labelling.
I hereby address the candida albicans growing in my intestines, to announce that I dub thee candida hackernewsensis because sitting here has undoubtedly helped it grow.
If you mean things like oat milk, it's unlawful in the EU (and I think still the UK) to label plant-based alternatives as milk or dairy under EU Regulation 1308/2013.
> In English, the word "milk" has been used to refer to "milk-like plant juices" since 1200 CE. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_milk
It's like complaining that modern electric irons can't be called irons because the heat plate doesn't have iron in it.
The other uses like oat milk come from 1980's ads. It's so recent that the JM Smucker Company tried to trademark it.
The idea of the site and its domain name is to try to get to the top of search engine rankings - which it has done successfully - so anyone who searches for it gets a clear answer, rather than just marketing fluff. I noticed that the Pages widget on the right was missing, which I've now reinstated, but here's the background to why I did it: https://whatisbifidusregularis.org/about-this-site/
People don't seem to be complaining about that substance (not to be named) that usually goes with jelly on bread, and is not actually a dairy product.
This timeline is interesting: https://www.soyinfocenter.com/pdf/166/Milk.pdf
https://gizmodo.com/heres-why-disney-is-the-proud-owner-of-m...
IIRC the marketing team embraced it on social posts and reached out to share some merch as acknowledgment.
I think the site overloaded
I ended up taking it down anyways to appease script kiddies that were DDoSing my site, but not before setting my DNS to the DDoSer's C2 server, resulting in a temporary lull in the attack.
* I have no relation to Team Avolition. They were allegedly illegally rehosting Minecraft. I was just hotlinking resources from sources that were allowed by the Minecraft ToS.
dutilh•1d ago