Kickstarter suspends project 10 hours from successful funding

A little Googling finds the founders - Jason Sun [1] and Ben Yi [2] - both worked at KILLSPENCER [3] before starting Vinted Goods [4]. While it's true that both sites have a top nav, I couldn't find any pics of someone operating a sewing machine on either site. Either way, the products seem similar, but what would you expect from a mentor/protege relationship?<p>[1] <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/pub/jason-sun/20/84a/124" rel="nofollow">http://www.linkedin.com/pub/jason-sun/20/84a/124</a><p>[2] <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/pub/benjamin-yi/16/662/662" rel="nofollow">http://www.linkedin.com/pub/benjamin-yi/16/662/662</a><p>[3] <a href="http://killspencer.com/" rel="nofollow">http://killspencer.com/</a><p>[4] <a href="http://vintedgoods.com/" rel="nofollow">http://vintedgoods.com/</a><p>Edit: The owner of KILLSPENCER, Spencer Nikosey [5] has a few interesting interview nuggets [6][7]:<p>WHAT ARE YOU MOST PROUD OF? I'm most proud of the upcoming products and relationships I've built with the members of our SPECIAL PROJECTS INNOVATION TEAM. (This is the team Jason and Ben were on.)<p>WHO DO YOU BOUNCE IDEAS OFF AND/OR GET INSPIRED BY? I have a small group of mentors. These people are amazing at what they do. I give them products and they use them, and give me feedback on how to improve the designs, construction, etc. I'm so lucky to have such amazing people interested in supporting the vision.<p>TAKE US BRIEFLY THROUGH YOUR PROFESSIONAL BACKGROUND. WHERE HAVE YOU WORKED BEFORE LAUNCHING YOUR OWN COMPANY? I launched my business straight out of school. While in school, I had the opportunity to intern for some great people. Scott Robertson (Design Studio Press) is where I got my first work experience. I spent so much time observing and picking his mind on the business of design and watched him build his business from the start.<p>[5] <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/pub/spencer-nikosey/12/5a6/866" rel="nofollow">http://www.linkedin.com/pub/spencer-nikosey/12/5a6/866</a><p>[6] <a href="http://swipelife.com/2009/04/15/the-newcomer-an-intervew-with-spencer-nikosey-of-killspencer-2/" rel="nofollow">http://swipelife.com/2009/04/15/the-newcomer-an-intervew-wit...</a><p>[7] <a href="http://www.carryology.com/2012/04/12/interviews-spencer-nikosey/" rel="nofollow">http://www.carryology.com/2012/04/12/interviews-spencer-niko...</a><p>Edit 2: Google Cache of the Kickstarter campaign page: <a href="http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:jQYA_YUlWTYJ:www.kickstarter.com/projects/446805249/vinted-bags-and-leather-goods-essentials-for-explo+&#38;cd=1&#38;hl=en&#38;ct=clnk&#38;gl=us" rel="nofollow">http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:jQYA_YU...</a>

tl;dr - Person who mentored these guys didn't realize they were going to compete, takes legal action, Kickstarter complies.<p>Since Kickstarter is walking into the same land mines that eBay did, albeit with a slightly different flavor, it will be interesting to see how this plays out. The Vinted Goods folks can show pretty clear economic harm from the action, the mentor clearly thinks there is some sort of trademark, trade dress, and/or copyright violation. The story reads like a DMCA takedown although Vinted didn't provide details or a copy of the DMCA filing that they must have received (they mention a counter claim).<p>So what happens if you decide to make a Kickstarter Movie about a couple of anthropomorphized robots who end up on a dessert planet only to discover one of the inhabitants is destined to overthrow a totalitarian dictator? Hollywood loves to throw those lawsuits around.

IANAL, but if the "mentor" is acting in as bad of faith as it appears, there may be grounds for a counter-claim of "tortious interference."

It does feel like something fishy is going on, because we're only getting one side of the story. Regardless, VintedGoods is now getting a ton of free publicity.

It feels like there's got to be more to this story than is actually included in this post with regards to the mentor suddenly opposing the startup.

It's worth noting that their campaign page has been reduced to a simple "Sorry, this project is no longer available" message.<p>This, <i>despite</i> Kickstarter's claim that projects are kept on their site forever. Their FAQ states that "Projects are not closed or taken down, they remain on site for reference and transparency.<p>I blogged more about this here:<p><a href="http://misener.org/despite-claiming-otherwise-kickstarter-quietly-removes-projects/" rel="nofollow">http://misener.org/despite-claiming-otherwise-kickstarter-qu...</a>

If anyone is curious about what they raised, here's a graph I made:<p><a href="http://canhekick.it/projects/446805249/vinted-bags-and-leather-goods-essentials-for-explo" rel="nofollow">http://canhekick.it/projects/446805249/vinted-bags-and-leath...</a><p>There's a competing site that has more information, but my graph is much nicer:<p><a href="http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/446805249/vinted-bags-and-leather-goods-essentials-for-explo" rel="nofollow">http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/446805249/vinted-bags-and-l...</a>

The underlying problem here is that the legal system is 2 orders of magnitude too slow. A court should decide such disputes, but they take months or years. Kickstarter has to pull the trigger one way or the other in hours.<p>RFS: disrupt the legal system by offering 4-hour dispute resolution.

Tsk, it stings that the timing is so poor. It's almost malicious to pull the rug in the eleventh hour like that. I agree that the story is pretty one-sided here. The posts reeks of PC, sanitized writing which is to be expected, considering they will be going to court soon. Motives are well hidden and the overall tone of how each interaction between the Vinted and their mentors sounds way too congenial.

&#62; It's hard to know how many people feel like they're shopping at a store when they're backing projects on Kickstarter.<p>I'm feeling more like dumping money in the toilet and thinking "Hey. Maybe magic fairy will bring me some cool gifts next year in some vague relation to this act of me dumping money in the toilet."<p>I keep my fingers crossed for Ouya and new Total Annihilation.

How can they still respect their "mentor" when he sued them and ruined their entire Kickstarter project?

If everything they have said is true, it's an unfortunate situation and seems to be the result of the mentor saying, 'Fuck, why did I not take it to this level?'<p>However this is only one side of the story and it definitely seems like there might be more behind the scenes. Interested to see how this plays out and it means interesting things for how Kickstarter handles issues like this.<p>Agree with ChuckMcM about how it reads like a DMCA takedown, but just with much more serious consequences than the average DMCA.

Kickstarter should rather simply put projects on 'hold' and have a dispute ticket of sorts similar to that of ebay for people to sort it out and figure it out.<p>In the end of the day it has to be black and white however.. one or the other... the question now is who that side will be? The kickstarter raiser or an outside third party?<p>It is a great shame to see such a project go down like this and I hope kickstarter is taking notice and not let something slip like this.

I don't understand why a company with such a fan base doesn't just add a "Donate" widget to their page and directly solicit donations rather than go through Kickstarter and give up 5-10%?<p>The power of Kickstarter is attracting fans you couldn't otherwise, but they take a nice big chunk. I always wonder why companies with a great story and fan base just don't solicit their fans directly instead of going through Kickstarter -- am I missing something here?

I guess we're going to have to live in a world where there's a SEVERE shortage of leather bags.<p><i>rolls eyes</i>

Somebody you mentored looks like their going to be more successful then you are. Sue them and get a settlement for part of their company. Would have been easier to invest int he company instead of paying the lawyers, but that's not the American way.

Any interest I might have had in their problem was lost when I could not read their complaint. The lines are too wide for the screen on my mobile device, and they are blocking resizing so I can not shrink it to fit.

The headline is misleading. It's not really Kickstarters fault. If they get legal threats concerning one of the people using their site it's quite normal to take it down, at least until everything is settled.

Considering how many unemployed lawyers there are these days, I don't know why any startup wouldn't automatically bring in an attorney as part of the founding team; such a person may not be able to handle all the legal challenges a startup faces, but they'll be able to spot them coming and will know when and how to engage outside counsel. At least in the US, we live in a very legalistic and litigous society: law is not something that gets in the way, it's our society's operating system and a company's legal officer works to ensure the business operates smoothly in that environment, just like the CIO works to keep the business accessible and operable via the internet.

The "mentor" here is risking destroying himself and his business over this because Vinted has their own unique look and customers are generally not going to approve of his actions.