. . . and the irony is that these same inspectors disdain “checklist” reports in favor of “narratives.” Meanwhile all they do is check boxes for the pre-written “narrative.”
Unfortunately schools no longer teach “reading and writing and 'rithmetic.” Kids today make poor choices based on a lack of fundamental knowledge in science, poor reading comprehension, and critical thinking skills.
Well said…I agree…this is overreach and a violation of free speech. Like nobody ever said “it’s broken” before…
RH is claiming copyright on 15,000+ narratives. The copyright claim is very questionable if you read the court documents. On one hand, I understand Spectora’s desire to settle. On the other hand, it would have been nice to see what a court decided in the matter.
In the injunction, I read where they stated the narratives were either verbatim or nearly the same. Whatever that means. Also, apparently Spectora become pretty belligerent and did not correct the issue when it had several years to do so. (I am not sure if that was court ordered)
I hope Nick makes some headway. I do not see how you can copywrite individual “phrases”. Kenton may have some insight since I am sure he has protected his work.
I saw that also. I admittedly didn’t read through all the court documents Nick posted, but it seemed like RH and Spectora had an arrangement to remove the comments, but Spectora changed the procedure and RH took offense to the new procedure. I’m sure there’s more to it, lol.
I assume that means if someone takes their narrative, and simply changes a single (or two) words to make it different, thus not verbatim.
Just what you need for your HI reports. Copyright Infringement! LOL
"There are three basic elements that a work must possess in order to be protected by copyright in the US:
Originality: To get a copyright, a work must be the original work of the author. This doesn’t mean it has to be “novel” in the way an invention must be to get a patent. Instead, it basically means the work can’t be a copy of something else.
Creativity: The U.S. Supreme Court has said works only need to have a “modicum” of creativity to be creative enough for copyright.
Fixation: For works to have copyrights, they cannot be purely ephemeral. You can’t get a copyright just by speaking out loud. But, as soon as you record that speech in some way, then its “fixed” and you may have a copyright over it. Notably, courts have interpreted this to mean that something as temporary as being copied onto RAM memory can constitute fixation.
The bar to satisfy these three elements is very low and most works will easily do so."
Copyright Law Basics - Copyright Quick Reference Guide - Guides at University of North Texas.
Reporthost was 100% one of the original platforms, I remember them as far back as 20 years or so?
First I’ve heard of this and deleting reports . Reading what folks are saying here, if Reporthosts’ narratives i.e. their intellectual property was taken by Spectora, don’t throw all the shade at them, that also sounds like Spectora put their paid user’s in a precarious position as well, that’s also shameful.
Unfortunate all the way around.
Agreed, correct. An “in the box all you need and will ever need for $1000 a year” didn’t fix everyone’s problems. You should be able to stand on your own 2 feet as you stated Bob 
Spectora did.
My template was flagged back then (July 2020). I fixed EVERYTHING RH “claimed” was theirs.
Now 3 later, RH s back claiming an additional 17 comments they didn’t flagged 3 years are also theirs. Why didn’t they flagged them before??
As I was fixing the comments yesterday, I’m like, “wait I fixed this 3 years ago, why am I fixing this again?”
And some of the comments they flagged I know never came from RH in any way shape or form.
Also, 3 years ago, Nick offered RH a payoff to go away. RH turned Nick down.
Just to show how petty this is, I used RH for 6 months then switched to HIP for 5 years. Then I switched to Spectora. When I switched to Spectora, I imported my HIP template.
So if any comments in my Spectora template are owned by RH, they they would also be in my HIP template.
Yet RH isn’t suing HIP. They singled out Spectora because Spectora is Spectora is an easy target.
RH is just being petty because they suck as a software provider, and they have nothing better to do.
Back to the Future Part 500? 
Perhaps. And, perhaps, when they went to the other software providers with the same nonsense they were laughed out of the room and only Spectora caved. In a podcast a few days ago, an infamous lead broker who was defending Spectora’s decision to throw their customers under the bus spoke of how much more expedient it is to cave to such demands than to throw money into the litigation fire.
That’s been stated by others here, but no one has said why they are such "as easy target’.
Because they are currently one of the most successful software providers out there.
I’m not talking about individual inspectors using them, but large multi-inspector firms.
That makes no sense. I have not seen one line of factual evidence regarding these accusations that everyone is making, (aka, armchair quarterbacks)!!
You admit you have no dog in the fight, so of course you don’t.
Why would Spectora email you about the issue if you don’t use their product?
Why would you be paying attention to who else uses a platform that you have no interest in?
In my opinion, there are two main reasons Spectora was targeted.
They provided “starter” templates for inspectors to use and some of these templates include RH’s poor narratives.
Most Spectora customers have sample reports on their websites. RH claimed in the court documents that they monitored these sample reports.
Because if and when the FACTS play out… it WILL affect the entire Inspection Industry!
Jeff I love you, but since you have no idea what’s actually going on, you’re just making yourself look silly by trying to have an opinion on a race you admit you have no dog in.
And no one owes you an obligation to have to explain every email/thread/conversation that has happened over the years.
Once this subject was posted all over this MB, including YouTube, it became every members concern.
You can blame Nick for that, as he likes to blast information to the world as part of “his battleplan of attack”!