A cease and desist letter is a document sent by one party, often a

business Business is the practice of making one's living or making money by producing or Trade, buying and selling Product (business), products (such as goods and Service (economics), services). It is also "any activity or enterprise entered into for ...

, to warn another party that they believe the other party is committing an unlawful act, such as

copyright infringement Copyright infringement (at times referred to as piracy) is the use of Copyright#Scope, works protected by copyright without permission for a usage where such permission is required, thereby infringing certain exclusive rights granted to the c ...

, and that they will take legal action if the other party continues the alleged unlawful activity. The letter may warn that, if the recipient does not discontinue specified conduct, or take certain actions, by deadlines set in the letter, the letter's recipient may be sued. The phrase "cease and desist" is a

legal doublet A legal doublet is a standardized phrase used frequently in English legal language consisting of two or more words that are irreversible binomials and frequently synonyms, usually connected by ''and'', such as ''cease and desist''. The order of th ...

, made up of two near-synonyms. A cease and desist letter issued by a government entity, called a cease and desist order, is "a warning of impending judicial enforcement".

Usage for intellectual property

Although cease and desist letters are not exclusively used in the area of

intellectual property Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. There are many types of intellectual property, and some countries recognize more than others. The best-known types are patents, co ...

, particularly in regards to

, such letters "are frequently utilized in disputes concerning intellectual property and represent an important feature of the intellectual property law landscape". The holder of an intellectual property right such as a

copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive legal right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, ...

ed work, a

trademark A trademark (also written trade mark or trade-mark) is a form of intellectual property that consists of a word, phrase, symbol, design, or a combination that identifies a Good (economics and accounting), product or Service (economics), service f ...

, or a

patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an sufficiency of disclosure, enabling discl ...

, may send the cease and desist letter to inform a third party "of the right holder's rights, identity, and intentions to enforce the rights". The letter may merely contain a licensing offer or may be an explicit threat of a lawsuit. A cease and desist letter often triggers

licensing A license (American English) or licence ( Commonwealth English) is an official permission or permit to do, use, or own something (as well as the document of that permission or permit). A license is granted by a party (licensor) to another par ...

negotiations, and is a frequent first step towards

litigation A lawsuit is a proceeding by one or more parties (the plaintiff or claimant) against one or more parties (the defendant) in a civil court of law. The archaic term "suit in law" is found in only a small number of laws still in effect today. ...

Effects on recipients

Receiving numerous cease and desist letters may be very costly for the recipient. Each claim in the letters must be evaluated, and it should be decided whether to respond to the letters, "whether or not to obtain an attorney's opinion letter, prepare for a lawsuit, and perhaps initiate

n case of letters regarding a potential patent infringement N, or n, is the fourteenth Letter (alphabet), letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the English alphabet, modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages, and others worldwide. Its name in English is English alphab ...

a search for alternatives and the development of design-around technologies." Cease and desist letters are sometimes used to

intimidate Intimidation is a behaviour and legal wrong which usually involves deterring or coercing an individual by threat of violence. It is in various jurisdictions a crime and a civil wrong (tort). Intimidation is similar to menacing, coercion, terror ...

recipients and can be "an effective tool used by corporations to chill the critical speech of

gripe site A gripe site is a type of website that is dedicated to critique or complaint about a specific subject. A company owning a

may send such letter to a gripe site operator alleging a

trademark infringement Trademark infringement is a violation of the exclusive rights attached to a trademark without the authorization of the trademark owner or any licensees (provided that such authorization was within the scope of the licence). Infringement may occ ...

, although the actual use of the trademark by the gripe site operator may fall under a

fair use Fair use is a Legal doctrine, doctrine in United States law that permits limited use of copyrighted material without having to first acquire permission from the copyright holder. Fair use is one of the limitations to copyright intended to bal ...

exception (in compliance with, in the U.S., the protection of free speech under the

First Amendment First most commonly refers to: * First, the ordinal form of the number 1 First or 1st may also refer to: Acronyms * Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty-Centimeters, an astronomical survey carried out by the Very Large Array * Far Infrared a ...

Notable cease and desist letters

United States

To prevent genericizing and potential loss of its

Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...

has discouraged use of the word as a verb, particularly when used as a

synonym A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means precisely or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language, the words ''begin'', ''start'', ''commence'', and ''initiate'' are a ...

for general web searching. On February 23, 2003, Google sent a cease and desist letter to Paul McFedries, creator of Word Spy, a website that tracks

neologism In linguistics, a neologism (; also known as a coinage) is any newly formed word, term, or phrase that has achieved popular or institutional recognition and is becoming accepted into mainstream language. Most definitively, a word can be considered ...

s. In an article in ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...

'', Frank Ahrens discussed the letter he received from a Google lawyer that demonstrated "appropriate" and "inappropriate" ways to use the verb "''

google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...

''". Author

Patrick Wensink Patrick Wensink (born 1979) is an American author. His novel ''Broken Piano for President'' received increased publicity when the whiskey company Jack Daniel's Properties (a subsidiary of Brown–Forman) sent a politely worded cease-and-desis ...

used

Jack Daniel's Jack Daniel's is a brand of Tennessee whiskey produced at Jack Daniel Distillery in Lynchburg, Tennessee, which has been owned by the Brown–Forman Corporation since 1956. Packaged in square bottles, Jack Daniel's "Black Label" Tennessee wh ...

famous branding without licensing as a cover for his 2012 book ''Broken Piano for President''. Jack Daniel's requested only future printings of the book to have the cover changed and offered compensation. In September 2012,

AwardWallet AwardWallet is frequent flyer miles and points tracking site. It is considered to be the first in the genre, founded in 2004, and tracked more than 400 sites as of 2011. AwardWallet is based out of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. As of 2021, it has 700, ...

, TripIt and MileWise received a number of cease and desist letters from American Airlines, Delta, United Airlines and Southwest Airlines, demanding that companies discontinue accessing their websites for tracking clients' miles rewards programs. In 2017, a cease and desist letter sent by

Netflix Netflix is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service. The service primarily distributes original and acquired films and television shows from various genres, and it is available internationally in multiple lang ...

for an unauthorized ''

Stranger Things ''Stranger Things'' is an American television series created by the Duffer brothers, Duffer Brothers for Netflix. Produced by Monkey Massacre Productions and 21 Laps Entertainment, the Stranger Things season 1, first season was released on N ...

''-related

bar Bar or BAR may refer to: Food and drink * Bar (establishment), selling alcoholic beverages * Candy bar ** Chocolate bar * Protein bar Science and technology * Bar (river morphology), a deposit of sediment * Bar (tropical cyclone), a laye ...

event was noted by news outlets such as ''

Fortune Fortune may refer to: General * Fortuna or Fortune, the Roman goddess of luck * Luck * Wealth * Fate * Fortune, a prediction made in fortune-telling * Fortune, in a fortune cookie Arts and entertainment Film and television * ''The Fortune'' (19 ...

'' and ''

Quartz Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica (silicon dioxide). The Atom, atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon–oxygen Tetrahedral molecular geometry, tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tet ...

'' for its

humor Humour ( Commonwealth English) or humor (American English) is the tendency of experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement. The term derives from the humoral medicine of the ancient Greeks, which taught that the balance of fluids i ...

ous wording.

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who is the 47th president of the United States. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he served as the 45 ...

sent a cease and desist letter to

CNN Cable News Network (CNN) is a multinational news organization operating, most notably, a website and a TV channel headquartered in Atlanta. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable ne ...

asking them to retract a poll that showed him being 14 percentage points behind his opponent

Joe Biden Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. (born November 20, 1942) is an American politician who was the 46th president of the United States from 2021 to 2025. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, he served as the 47th vice p ...

during the

presidential election A presidential election is the election of any head of state whose official title is President. Elections by country Albania The president of Albania is elected by the Assembly of Albania who are elected by the Albanian public. Chile The p ...

, prompting ''

The Atlantic ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher based in Washington, D.C. It features articles on politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 185 ...

'' to warn about attacks on the media. In 2021,

's platform

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

issued a significant number of cease and desist notices to the creators of various music bots on

Discord Discord is an instant messaging and Voice over IP, VoIP social platform which allows communication through Voice over IP, voice calls, Videotelephony, video calls, text messaging, and digital media, media. Communication can be private or take ...

, such as Rythm and Groovy. These music bots allowed users to request songs and have the bot create a queue. This was done by pulling the audio stream from various

streaming Streaming media refers to multimedia delivered through a network for playback using a media player. Media is transferred in a ''stream'' of packets from a server to a client and is rendered in real-time; this contrasts with file downl ...

and video platforms, including YouTube, and then played that audio on the Discord voice channel. Because such music bots did not play any of the advertisements included on the video-hosting site, the company alleged missing revenue for itself and the content uploaders. A spokesperson for Google told ''

The Verge ''The Verge'' is an American Technology journalism, technology news website headquarters, headquartered in Lower Manhattan, New York City and operated by Vox Media. The website publishes news, feature stories, guidebooks, product reviews, cons ...

'' that Groovy violated YouTube's terms of service for "modifying the service and using it for commercial purposes". The makers of Groovy had decided to comply with Google's request by shutting down the bot on August 30, 2021. According to estimations, the bot had more than 250 million users. In 2022,

Disney The Walt Disney Company, commonly referred to as simply Disney, is an American multinational mass media and entertainment industry, entertainment conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios (Burbank), Walt Di ...

issued a letter of cease and desist to the creators of ''

Club Penguin Rewritten ''Club Penguin Rewritten'' was a 2017 fan server and later on a fan game based on the original game, ''Club Penguin''. It was created by two indie developers as an alternative to the original game, which had been shut down by Disney on March 3 ...

'', a game that was created as a remake of ''

Club Penguin ''Club Penguin'' was a massively multiplayer online game (MMO) that ran from 2005 to 2017. The game featured a virtual world that included a wide range of online games and activities. It was created by New Horizon Interactive (now known as Di ...

'' after its shutdown on March 31, 2017.

issued a letter of cease and desist to the creators of YouTube Vanced, an Android app developed as a third-party modification of YouTube. The app, which utilizes apk (file format), allowed its users to skip advertisements, among other functions. Since March 13, 2022, the app has been discontinued, with all links being removed.

Nintendo is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto. It develops, publishes, and releases both video games and video game consoles. The history of Nintendo began when craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi ...

issued a letter of cease and desist to the creators of

Yuzu Yuzu (''Citrus'' × ''junos'', from Japanese language, Japanese or ; ) is a citrus fruit and plant in the family Rutaceae of China, Chinese origin. Yuzu has been cultivated mainly in East Asia, though it has also recently been grown in New Z ...

, a

video game console emulator A video game console emulator is a type of emulator that allows a computing device to emulate a video game console's hardware and play its games on the emulating platform. More often than not, emulators carry additional features that surpass ...

for the

Nintendo Switch The is a video game console developed by Nintendo and released worldwide in most regions on March 3, 2017. Released in the middle of the Eighth generation of video game consoles, eighth generation of home consoles, the Switch succeeded the ...

. The program allowed its users to not pay or participate in grinding for

downloadable content content (DLC) is additional content created for an already released video game, distributed through the Internet by the game's publisher. It can be added for no extra cost or as a form of video game monetization, enabling the publisher to gain ad ...

, such as all of its Booster Course Passes and a Gold Mario for

Mario Kart 8 is a 2014 kart racing game developed and published by Nintendo for the Wii U. It retains the gameplay of previous ''Mario Kart'' games, with players controlling a ''Mario'' character in races around tracks. Tracks are themed around locales fr ...

. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom was released May 12, 2023; however, an

internet leak An internet leak is the unauthorized release of information over the internet. Various types of information and data can be, and have been, "leaked" to the Internet, the most common being personal information, computer software and source code, a ...

was discovered on file hosting site https://nyaa.si/ dated May 1, 2023. The file can then be read by Ryujinx, a Nintendo Switch emulator.

Philippines

The

Philippine The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...

National Telecommunications Commission The National Telecommunications Commission (NTC; ) is the telecommunications regulator of the Philippines. It is an attached agency of the Department of Information and Communications Technology responsible for the supervision, adjudication ...

administered a cease and desist order against

ABS-CBN ABS-CBN is a leading Philippine media and content company. It serves as the flagship media brand of ABS-CBN Corporation, a subsidiary of Lopez Holdings Corporation. Once the country's largest free-to-air television network, ABS-CBN has since ...

to stop broadcasting on May 5, 2020, after its franchise expired the day before (May 4, 2020). At 7:52 pm (PHT), ABS-CBN stopped its broadcast in compliance with the NTC's letter,

signing off ''Signing Off'' is the debut album by British reggae band UB40, released in the UK on 29 August 1980 by Dudley-based independent label Graduate Records. It was an immediate success in their home country, reaching number 2 on the UK albums chart, ...

all of its free TV and radio stations across the country (

ABS-CBN Channel 2 DWWX-TV was the flagship VHF station of Philippine television network ABS-CBN. The station was owned and operated by the ABS-CBN Corporation, with its studio and transmitter located at the ABS-CBN Broadcasting Center, Sgt. Esguerra Avenue ...

, S+A Channel 23, DZMM 630, and

MOR 101.9 DWRR-FM (pronounced as DW-double-R; 101.9 FM broadcasting, FM Stereo), broadcasting as MOR 101.9, was a commercial radio station owned by ABS-CBN Corporation and previously operated by the Manila Radio division and the Star Cinema, Star C ...

). The said agency also gave ABS-CBN ten days to explain why its assigned frequencies should not be recalled. On June 30, 2020, considering that Channel 43 was also included in the May 5, 2020 shutdown order issued by the NTC against ABS-CBN (although ABS-CBN CEO Carlo L. Katigbak insisted that it is part of their blocktime agreement with

AMCARA Broadcasting Network AMCARA Broadcasting Network was a Philippine television broadcast company. The company is located in Katipunan Avenue, Loyola Heights, Quezon City. The company is majority-owned by the heirs of Arcadio M. Carandang, one of the pioneers of Ph ...

), the NTC and

Solicitor General A solicitor general is a government official who serves as the chief representative of the government in courtroom proceedings. In systems based on the English common law that have an attorney general or equivalent position, the solicitor general ...

Jose Calida Jose Callangan Calida (born July 7, 1950) is a Filipino lawyer. He previously served as Undersecretary of Justice and executive director of Dangerous Drugs Board under the Arroyo administration, as Solicitor General under the Duterte adminis ...

released two alias cease-and-desist orders against Channel 43 on digital TV receiver

ABS-CBN TV Plus ABS-CBN TV Plus (formerly Sky TV+ and stylized as ABS-CBN TVplus, repackaged in 2021 as ABS-CBN TVplus Digital TV Receiver) is a Philippine ISDB, ISDB-T encrypted digital terrestrial television provider owned and operated by ABS-CBN Convergence ...

and

Sky Cable Sky Cable (stylized as SKYcable) is a cable television service of Sky Cable Corporation in the Philippines. It covers areas across the country with both digital and analog cable services, and it has 700,000 subscribers, controlling 45% of th ...

's nationwide satellite service

Sky Direct Sky Direct (stylized as SKYdirect) is a direct-broadcast satellite subscription television service in the Philippines. From its founding in 2016, it was owned and operated by Sky, a subsidiary of ABS-CBN Corporation. Sky Cable had been eyeing ...

to cease further operations. On January 22, 2024, the National Telecommunications Commission issued a cease-and-desist order to

Sonshine Media Network International Sonshine Media Network International (SMNI), also known by its legal name Swara Sug Media Corporation (SSMC), is a Tagalog broadcast media arm of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ (KJC) led by the Tagalog televangelist Apollo Quiboloy. Based in Dav ...

, citing its failure to comply with the original 30-day suspension order issued by the said agency.

References

External links

Chillingeffects.org
��A joint project between the

Electronic Frontier Foundation The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is an American international non-profit digital rights group based in San Francisco, California. It was founded in 1990 to promote Internet civil liberties. It provides funds for legal defense in court, ...

and several universities to monitor uses and abuses of intellectual property rights on the internet. Contains a database of cease-and-desist letters to which either senders or recipients can contribute. * {{DEFAULTSORT:Cease And Desist Legal terminology Letters (message)