Knicks seek $10M+ in damages from Raptors

[Sticks]

This nonsense will get thrown out so fast. NBA should take away a 1st round pick or 2 from the Knicks for bringing this petty garbage up and wasting everybodys time

[grimlock]

I like the part where they accused the Commissioner of the NBA of being biased.

Knicks punching themselves in the face

[oversteerdawg]

There is somewhat of a precedent. Look up Spygate in F1. McLaren obtained Ferrari technical documents through a former employee. This resulted in a $100M fine for McLaren. Granted, the fine came from the FIA not a federal court and technical documents for a race car are more valuable then Knicks inner workings, but there is somewhat of a precedent for punishing the recipient of stolen IP in the sporting arena. There was a suit brought upon the recipients of the stolen IP, but it was settled out of court. Some parallels in this case should eventually make for an interesting case study.

[payton2kemp]

How do you expect him to share data from other teams if he previously worked for the Knicks?

I mean seems quite frivolous, your whole experience is taking knowledge from your previous job to your next job. Unles he signed some type of NDA's they can show or they have some plays that are 'patented' lol.

Pretty sure Thibs is using his playbook from the Bulls.

You actually can’t take your employer’s intellectual property and give it to a competitor. Pretty fundamental stuff.

So thibs should never use plays he ran for the bulls then

[iLLmatic860]

I mean seems quite frivolous, your whole experience is taking knowledge from your previous job to your next job. Unles he signed some type of NDA's they can show or they have some plays that are 'patented' lol.

Pretty sure Thibs is using his playbook from the Bulls.

You actually can’t take your employer’s intellectual property and give it to a competitor. Pretty fundamental stuff.

So thibs should never use plays he ran for the bulls then

You do realize teams don’t own coaches plays right?

And they say Seattle fans deserve a team lol

[payton2kemp]

You actually can’t take your employer’s intellectual property and give it to a competitor. Pretty fundamental stuff.

So thibs should never use plays he ran for the bulls then

You do realize teams don’t own coaches plays right?

And they say Seattle fans deserve a team lol

then this suit is frivolous as assistant coach took plays with him. same thing

[Mavrelous]

Man, what an overly protective bunch, learn from the Mavs, they leave their scouting report in the Hotel hallway for everyone to see and then go post it on Twitter.

[___Rand___]

Old news. Folks here be discussing this issue without reading any background info on this. Well-informed. Don't waste your time like Knicks are.

[cupcakesnake]

How do you expect him to share data from other teams if he previously worked for the Knicks?

I mean seems quite frivolous, your whole experience is taking knowledge from your previous job to your next job. Unles he signed some type of NDA's they can show or they have some plays that are 'patented' lol.

Pretty sure Thibs is using his playbook from the Bulls.

You actually can’t take your employer’s intellectual property and give it to a competitor. Pretty fundamental stuff.

But realistically, people constantly do. Intellectual property can be slippery, murky stuff. Company's try to protect themselves with as much contract law as they can, but at the end of the day, we usually only see legal action taken against stuff that's valuable enough to harm the business.

Workers in all fields develop IP for their companies all the time, and bring whatever they made with them to their next job. Depending on what it is, it's common and easy to rearrange things enough to have plausible deniability or have things escape legal liability.

It is only "your employer's intellectual property" because of the writings in a contract saying it is so. Workers, often the actual developers of whatever the IP is, are constantly finding ways to keep the work they justifiably feel is theirs, despite signing away their rights to own anything as a stipulation to be employed and getting paid. I don't want to incriminate myself, but I've never left a job without keeping everything I developed while on that job. I just have to be smart if I end up wanting to use it again for anything else, and think about what machinations my former employer would have to find out about it, and whether they'd have any interest in legal action.

I don't really know what's happening with the Knicks/Raps, and I don't think any of us have enough information to have a useful opinion. I'm interested enough that I look forward someone breaking it all down once the information is laid out in the case. It does sound to me like the Knicks are kicking up a stink around something that is routine in the NBA, but again, I don't really know anything here.

[Mavrelous]

I mean seems quite frivolous, your whole experience is taking knowledge from your previous job to your next job. Unles he signed some type of NDA's they can show or they have some plays that are 'patented' lol.

Pretty sure Thibs is using his playbook from the Bulls.

You actually can’t take your employer’s intellectual property and give it to a competitor. Pretty fundamental stuff.

But realistically, people constantly do. Intellectual property can be slippery, murky stuff.

If there is enough bad blood, there will be lawsuits, specifically for this reason, not an uncommon practice, if a high ranking product architect (close comparison to NBA coach/scout) changes companies, it is abundantly clear that part of IP will jump with him, and it's left to the CEO if they swallow it or be vindictive.

[MoneyTalks41890]

I mean seems quite frivolous, your whole experience is taking knowledge from your previous job to your next job. Unles he signed some type of NDA's they can show or they have some plays that are 'patented' lol.

Pretty sure Thibs is using his playbook from the Bulls.

You actually can’t take your employer’s intellectual property and give it to a competitor. Pretty fundamental stuff.

But realistically, people constantly do. Intellectual property can be slippery, murky stuff. Company's try to protect themselves with as much contract law as they can, but at the end of the day, we usually only see legal action taken against stuff that's valuable enough to harm the business.

Workers in all fields develop IP for their companies all the time, and bring whatever they made with them to their next job. Depending on what it is, it's common and easy to rearrange things enough to have plausible deniability or have things escape legal liability.

It is only "your employer's intellectual property" because of the writings in a contract saying it is so. Workers, often the actual developers of whatever the IP is, are constantly finding ways to keep the work they justifiably feel is theirs, despite signing away their rights to own anything as a stipulation to be employed and getting paid. I don't want to incriminate myself, but I've never left a job without keeping everything I developed while on that job. I just have to be smart if I end up wanting to use it again for anything else, and think about what machinations my former employer would have to find out about it, and whether they'd have any interest in legal action.

I don't really know what's happening with the Knicks/Raps, and I don't think any of us have enough information to have a useful opinion. I'm interested enough that I look forward someone breaking it all down once the information is laid out in the case. It does sound to me like the Knicks are kicking up a stink around something that is routine in the NBA, but again, I don't really know anything here.

I'm not saying anything about the facts of this particular situation. It looks perhaps likely even that the Knicks are blowing smoke based on some of the reporting about the system all teams have access to but again I don't know.

However, it's pretty clear from the reporting that the things the Knicks allege to have been taken would not have been work product developed by this individual, but instead pretty clear Knicks property. Works made for hire provisions of the copyright act also covers a ton of stuff irrespective of any contracting. Patentable items become more murky and that's not an area I feel comfortable wading into but that's often where there are specific agreements to delineate what belongs to whom. But also I think there are likely reams of policies here that establish the lines that are agreed to by contract.

And just because folks take stuff with them doesn't mean they have a legal right to do so, as you recognize here. And trade secrets are amongst the most protectable items that aren't just templates or some other kind of generic work product, if that is indeed what we're actually talking about.

[payton2kemp]

You actually can’t take your employer’s intellectual property and give it to a competitor. Pretty fundamental stuff.

So thibs should never use plays he ran for the bulls then

You do realize teams don’t own coaches plays right?

And they say Seattle fans deserve a team lol

Like I said if there is a specific NDA or some type of patent about IP, its not just "pretty fundamental stuff". Again it depends on what he signed when he was hired by the Knicks. None of us have privy to that at the moment.

[Woodsanity]

Stealing and implementing the knicks secrets would explain why we suck now.

See the trick was to do the opposite of the knicks secrets. Then you would have won another championship.

[aminiaturebuddha]

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/38951994/knicks-owner-james-dolan-resigns-nba-board-committee-positions

Dolan has always been a bit of a weird and litigious guy, but it seems he now has some sort of axe to grind against the league in general for some reason, not just the Raptors.

[SFour]

this is just pettiness from the Knicks/Dolan....$10 million is chump change, so it's clearly not about money.

[WargamesX]

this is just pettiness from the Knicks/Dolan....$10 million is chump change, so it's clearly not about money.

They didn't say how much they were going to sue for. They simply said it was more than $10 million in order to justify why arbitration would not be the proper form of dispute resolution instead of taking it to court for litigation.

Also yes this is a big ole middle finger to both Silver and the Raptors. Depending on the amount I could see the raptors settle if it is a smaller lawsuit to avoid embarrassment, but I don't know if Dolan wants to settle. He might want to embarrass everyone involved and for once he would be justified.

[ForeverTFC]

this is just pettiness from the Knicks/Dolan....$10 million is chump change, so it's clearly not about money.

They didn't say how much they were going to sue for. They simply said it was more than $10 million in order to justify why arbitration would not be the proper form of dispute resolution instead of taking it to court for litigation.

Also yes this is a big ole middle finger to both Silver and the Raptors. Depending on the amount I could see the raptors settle, but I don't know if Dolan wants to settle. He might want to embarrass everyone involved and for once he would be justified.

Settle what? There is no way the Raptors and the NBA want this precedent. The Knicks are getting mocked by everyone in the know because of this law suite. There is no reason for the Raptors to help them save face here.

[WargamesX]

this is just pettiness from the Knicks/Dolan....$10 million is chump change, so it's clearly not about money.

They didn't say how much they were going to sue for. They simply said it was more than $10 million in order to justify why arbitration would not be the proper form of dispute resolution instead of taking it to court for litigation.

Also yes this is a big ole middle finger to both Silver and the Raptors. Depending on the amount I could see the raptors settle, but I don't know if Dolan wants to settle. He might want to embarrass everyone involved and for once he would be justified.

Settle what? There is no way the Raptors and the NBA want this precedent. The Knicks are getting mocked by everyone in the know because of this law suite. There is no reason for the Raptors to help them save face here.

Who cares what those people think? Legally from the sounds of it, they will be able to prove that several Raptor coaches colluded to steal their scouting information. Its a reputation hit for the Raptor organization, and their new coach and regardless if this goes to trial or is settled out of court precedent has already been set.

The raptors asked the NBA to force this to arbitration and the NBA said no this is going to litigation. The precedent has been created

[dockingsched]

I like the part where they accused the Commissioner of the NBA of being biased.

Accused him of having a conflict of interest, which is pretty standard stuff.

[Tacoma]

You actually can’t take your employer’s intellectual property and give it to a competitor. Pretty fundamental stuff.

But realistically, people constantly do. Intellectual property can be slippery, murky stuff. Company's try to protect themselves with as much contract law as they can, but at the end of the day, we usually only see legal action taken against stuff that's valuable enough to harm the business.

Workers in all fields develop IP for their companies all the time, and bring whatever they made with them to their next job. Depending on what it is, it's common and easy to rearrange things enough to have plausible deniability or have things escape legal liability.

It is only "your employer's intellectual property" because of the writings in a contract saying it is so. Workers, often the actual developers of whatever the IP is, are constantly finding ways to keep the work they justifiably feel is theirs, despite signing away their rights to own anything as a stipulation to be employed and getting paid. I don't want to incriminate myself, but I've never left a job without keeping everything I developed while on that job. I just have to be smart if I end up wanting to use it again for anything else, and think about what machinations my former employer would have to find out about it, and whether they'd have any interest in legal action.

I don't really know what's happening with the Knicks/Raps, and I don't think any of us have enough information to have a useful opinion. I'm interested enough that I look forward someone breaking it all down once the information is laid out in the case. It does sound to me like the Knicks are kicking up a stink around something that is routine in the NBA, but again, I don't really know anything here.

I'm not saying anything about the facts of this particular situation. It looks perhaps likely even that the Knicks are blowing smoke based on some of the reporting about the system all teams have access to but again I don't know.

However, it's pretty clear from the reporting that the things the Knicks allege to have been taken would not have been work product developed by this individual, but instead pretty clear Knicks property. Works made for hire provisions of the copyright act also covers a ton of stuff irrespective of any contracting. Patentable items become more murky and that's not an area I feel comfortable wading into but that's often where there are specific agreements to delineate what belongs to whom. But also I think there are likely reams of policies here that establish the lines that are agreed to by contract.

And just because folks take stuff with them doesn't mean they have a legal right to do so, as you recognize here. And trade secrets are amongst the most protectable items that aren't just templates or some other kind of generic work product, if that is indeed what we're actually talking about.

Are you speaking about the facts of the case or in general again? According to the NY Post the facts of the case are the stolen info were "play frequency reports, a prep book for the 2022-23 season, video scouting files and materials". Knicks claim Raptors' stole them "to assist this novice coach [Darko] in doing his job." These aren't classified trade secrets, they're video scouting reports.

And it also assumes the Raptors don't already have them and Nick Nurse probably already using a facsimile of them in Philly. Many in the NBA in fact say it's commonly done, e.g., former Bucks' Director of Basketball Research Seth Partnow said:

"I've talked to a couple of dozen people who either currently or formerly worked for teams, the universal response has been, 'What's the big deal?'... It's sort of the stuff that's done in a matter of course, just in a particularly clumsy way, seems to be the general consensus in reaction, and pretty universal among the people I've talked to in and around those positions.”

So if the Raptors are found guilty and end up paying $10M, this opens the Pandora's box for lawsuits of this nature not only of the NBA but other sports leagues as well.