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Facebook In Court
Posted by
CowboyNeal
on Sat Jul 14, 2007 08:53 AM
from the custody-battles dept.
from the custody-battles dept.
ScaredOfTheMan writes "'The lawsuit, filed by brothers Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, and Divya Narendra, accuses Zuckerberg, Facebook's 23-year-old C.E.O, of stealing the source code, design, and business plan for Facebook in 2003 when he briefly worked in the Harvard dorms as a programmer for their own fledgling social-networking site, now known as ConnectU.
The plaintiffs have demanded that Facebook be shut down and that full control of the site — and its profits — be turned over to them.'
I just wonder why they waited so long to sue? If he really stole their idea in 2003, why wait four years?"
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Why wait (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why wait (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Why wait (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:Why wait (Score:5, Insightful)
It's going to court, the submitter is not the judge or jury, and the comment space is the proper venue for opinions - not the summary.
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
you wonder why they waited this long.. (Score:5, Informative)
from the article
Editors, please edit! (Score:5, Insightful)
Shouldn't they at least be reading the submissions (titles and story) and then any linked articles as well to make sure that they've been accurately summarised (not to mention relevant)?
It seems the Firehose is catching most dupes (we get the occasional one but not 2-4 a day as we did a couple of years back) but typos, innacurate headlines, poorly worded summaries and even innacurate stories (such as this one) still abound.
Just looking at the current frontpage, I can see several stories that either have titles or summaries that need editing:
Facebook in Court [slashdot.org] : the summary, which fails to tell us that the legal fight has been going on for years, and implies that it's only been started now because of greed.
Gadgets Have Taken Over For Our Brains [slashdot.org] : the summary, which references Trinity College, but not which Trinity College. Is it the one in London, Cambridge, Washington DC, Toronto, Carmarthen, Florida, Melbourne...? No, it's the one in Dublin? So tell us.
Linux Creator Calls GPLv3 Authors 'Hypocrites' [slashdot.org] : Ridiculous story that takes quotes out of context to sensationalise the issue.
Gigabyte N680SLI-DQ6 - A Mother Of A Motherboard [slashdot.org] : At last! A motherboard with three full-length PCI Express x16 slots! Except it only has two.
CEO Questionably Used Pseudonym to Post Online [slashdot.org] : An ambiguous if not misleading headline. Read the comments for more, but one thing that's not in question is that he used a pseudonym.
One Laptop Per Child and Intel Join Forces [slashdot.org] : Another ambiguous title, which seems to imply a joint venture. As Intel has joined the OLPC project it would have been more accurate for the title to simply say "Intel joins OLPC Project".
Call me a pedant if you want to but there are editors for a reason, so they should edit. Their job isn't that hard, and now they even have people looking at the Firehose helping them out, so why are we still getting so many poor or poorly-presented stories?
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Re:Editors, please edit! (Score:5, Insightful)
I suspect that's because most people come here for the discussion, rather than the articles. Slashdot only posts around 10 articles a day, out of hundreds of possible stories. Many of these are so late that they are no longer topical. After a while, I started regarding the article as just a general topic; something akin to the subject in a chat room, which may be followed or ignored. Many of the most interesting threads here are wildly off-topic.
In short: We don't care about TFA, why should the editors?
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Not four years, suit filed 2003 (Score:5, Informative)
let them do all the hard work (Score:3, Insightful)
Then you come in and steal the fruits of their labors. Because the way they developed it and did it is not the way you would have done it.
and their way worked.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Difficult to check up on; not worth the bother. (Score:5, Informative)
B) to get full damages you normally have to try to resolve things equitably without the court. It probably takes a long time to prove he wasn't cooperating.
C) when you start suing, you have to be sure of your case. That means you have to get witnesses together and proof of your right to whatever you are suing over. He says / she says is not a good thing to risk the cost of an American lawsuit over.
Now I'm not saying they are right (I don't know and you also don't know) or have a moral right to this, but the reasons are pretty obvious.
Musta only stole the good bits (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Musta only stole the good bits (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Serendipity ? (Score:3, Interesting)
Facebook COUNTERSUED! (Score:4, Interesting)
However, it seems like Facebook's suit is more of a leverage to get the first case dismissed. Facebook is saying ConnectU damaged them somehow, but when asked, Facebook said they couldn't identify what the damages were. This is from a company worth billions, and rejected a $1 billion buy out offer.
And the defendent list includes new people, Winston Williams, Pacific Northwest Software, Wayne Chang, David Gucwa.
Let the battle of the titans begin!
Shutdown face book? (Score:5, Insightful)
You would have an agrngy horde on your hands very quickly.
precedent (Score:5, Funny)
Re:of course, sue now (Score:5, Insightful)
Hmm... IANAL, but the Crimson article is replent with indication that Zuckerberg was not part of their business-- "he never asked for compensation", "we would have been happy to pay for his services.", "his was not a paid position".
A contract is an offer plus an acceptance plus renumeration. Without renumeration, there's not as many teeth as one might think.
Key is "neither camp went so far as to label the partnership contractually binding." This could be in the same category as non-competes, i.e. can you limit what someone does in the future just because they worked with you in the past. And without compensation, the 'work' part is kinda iffy, more like 'talked with' or 'stopped by'.
This is where ethics (did Zuckerberg screw them over) divides with business (did Zuckerberg do something illegal). Law is murky there. Answer hazy, check again later.
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Re:of course, sue now (Score:5, Interesting)
If I look over your garden fence and see that you're building a giant widget and then you notice and offer me a tour of your giant widget do you have any legal recourse if I decide that I like the idea of having my own giant widget and then make one for myself?
My gut instinct in that scenario is that you're screwed, unless you got any form of agreement from me before you showed me it. No agreement, no case.
Is my copying your idea without at least getting your permission ethical? I'd say no but others would disagree. Is it legal? Well, if you didn't get me to sign anything then, unfortunately for you, the answer is probably yes.
Parent
Re:of course, sue now (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, if the guy stole their source code, that would be different. It still wouldn't be a matter "turning over the company" but it might be worth some damages. Odds are any code he ripped off isn't in service anymore anyway.
I've been through a few small business ventures (none of them made me millions, alas) and if there's one thing you learn early on it's a. find people that you trust and b. keep your trap shut. The worst enemy of a fledgling business is anyone or anything who will take what's been developed and clone it for their own profit. Secrecy is your best weapon, and until your product or service is launched and everyone knows about it, the most important secret is the central product idea itself.
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I'm not a lawyer, but the NDA/No-Comp angle is enlightening as to exactly why businesses are so meticulous about having people sign such clauses or contracts. This very fact indicates that actually nailing someone on these grounds is difficult.
1) Business plan/"Idea": Seems to me this would be classified as a trade secret. However, they did not attempt to protect themselves via contract. If you just told this guy, who might as well be your mother-in-law, a reporter or John Doe off the street, it's not a s
Re:You'd expect the poster to have read the articl (Score:5, Interesting)
Facebook went a step beyond just that, they are also suing the programmers that worked for ConnectU at the time. I am now looking at having to pay a potential $25,000 if Facebook wins because I coded for ConnectU, simply because of this countersuit. Talk about unethical lawsuits...
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
lack of diversity among parties = someone vandalized wikipedia.
Re:why wait four years? (Score:4, Interesting)
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