What was the value of Skype when it was acquired by eBay? USD 2.6 billion, isn’t it? But now it faces a lawsuit which is almost double the worth of the company itself that many including yours truly though was ‘a bit too high’.
Anyway, the story is that the makers of Morpheus, StreamCast Networks, has filed a lawsuit against Skype and developers of Kazaa have filed a lawsuit against Skype seeking damages for an astronomical sum of $4.1 billion plus profits from the $2.6 billion sale of Skype to eBay! StreamCast has levied racketeering charges against Skype saying that it violated the RICO Act (Racketeer Influences and Corrupt Organizations Act). It doesn’t stop there. StreamCast says that it also owns the software used by the peer-to-peer Internet phone service!
According to the complaint, it says that Skype, Kazaa and few other defendants planned an intricate overseas covering game in order to steal and wrongfully profit from technology that rightfully belongs to StreamCast.
No, this isn’t a patent violation case as it might look suddenly. However, StreamCast claims that p2p client maker, Kazaa B.V. (which was also founded by the Skype founders Zennstrom and Friis) violated the company’s exclusive rights to the p2p technology behind Kazaa, known as FastTrack P2P, by selling it to a shell company.
This is some fresh and exciting news after quite a few days involving Skype. I am in the opinion that the runway success of Kazaa leaving behind Morpheus light-years behind is the reason for the Morpheus makers to come up with something like this. Kazaa has been around for quite a few years now. It was once the most downloaded software from the net. Where was StreamCast then? There is no way I can see this is a winning case for them.
Anyway, let’s see where the jury decides to roll the ball.
News: TMCNet.com
Skype faces $4.1 billion lawsuit
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Comments
4.1 billion USD is huge. It sounds almost ironical that a company is sued for a price completely double its value.
creating a secret shell firm in order to steal away some peer-to-peer technology developed by Stream cast, then use it to build the Skye service, according to a lawsuit Stream cast filed in January
Stream cast claiming US$4.1 billion in unspecified damages plus a court order blocking eBay from selling Skye services–revolved around the involvement of the Skye pair and a long list of other defendants in the development of both Kazaa and VoIP software. Zennström and Fri’s were active in developing Kazan shortly after the end of the dot-com boom.
What a great reply.Bravo!
The complaint seeks $4.1 billion in damages, and demands that Skype stop using the Streamcast features. Streamcast’s complaint was first reported upon the week of March 27 by Andy Abramson of the Web site
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Nice post, Thanks for sharing it.
That’s huge…..! great for people who get them.
Gorgeous! nice work. Keep it!
It is a wonderful information to share in the cyber word. Thank you.
nice post, thanks for this info.