Cease and desist

Although cease and desist letters are not exclusively used in the area of intellectual property, particularly in regards to copyright infringement, 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 copyrighted work, a trademark, or a patent, 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 negotiations, and is a frequent first step towards litigation. ==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 [in case of letters regarding a potential patent infringement] a search for alternatives and the development of design-around technologies." A company owning a trademark may send such letter to a gripe site operator alleging a trademark infringement, although the actual use of the trademark by the gripe site operator may fall under a fair use exception (in compliance with, in the U.S., the protection of free speech under the First Amendment). ==Notable cease and desist letters==

United States To prevent genericizing and potential loss of its trademark, Google has discouraged use of the word google as a verb, particularly when used as a synonym 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 neologisms. In an article in The Washington Post, Frank Ahrens discussed the letter he received from a Google lawyer that demonstrated "appropriate" and "inappropriate" ways to use the verb google. Author Patrick Wensink used Jack Daniel's 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, 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 for an unauthorized Stranger Things–related bar event was noted by news outlets such as Fortune and Quartz for its humorous wording. Donald Trump sent a cease and desist letter to CNN asking them to retract a poll that showed him being 14 percentage points behind his opponent Joe Biden during the 2020 U.S. presidential election, prompting The Atlantic to warn about attacks on the media. In 2021, Google's platform YouTube issued a significant number of cease and desist notices to the creators of various music bots on Discord, 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 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 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 issued a letter of cease and desist to the creators of Club Penguin Rewritten, a game that was created as a remake of Club Penguin after its shutdown on March 31, 2017. Google 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 the 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 issued a letter of cease and desist to the creators of Yuzu, a video game console emulator for the Nintendo Switch. The program allowed its users to not pay or participate in grinding for downloadable content, such as all of its Booster Course Passes and a Gold Mario for Mario Kart 8. In August 2025, the Roblox Corporation sent a YouTuber known as "Schlep" a cease-and-desist letter for catching child predators. Roblox also terminated all of his accounts. Philippines (ABS-CBN Manila) before stopping all broadcasts at in compliance with the NTC order because of franchise expiry on May 5, 2020 The Philippine National Telecommunications Commission administered a cease and desist order against ABS-CBN 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 all of its free TV and radio stations across the country (ABS-CBN Channel 2, S+A Channel 23, DZMM 630, and MOR 101.9). 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), the NTC and Solicitor General Jose Calida released two alias cease-and-desist orders against Channel 43 on digital TV receiver ABS-CBN TV Plus and Sky Cable's nationwide satellite service Sky Direct to cease further operations. On January 22, 2024, the National Telecommunications Commission issued a cease-and-desist order to Sonshine Media Network International, citing its failure to comply with the original 30-day suspension order issued by the said agency. ==See also==