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Skype Founders File Copyright Suit Against eBay

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the leggo-my-eggo dept.

Saif writes to let us know that Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, the founders of Skype, have filed a copyright suit against eBay for altering and sharing the peer-to-peer source code behind the calling service. The founders managed to maintain ownership of the source and licensed it to eBay in their 2005 deal and are now seeking an injunction and statutory damages which could total more than $75 million per day. "Mr. Zennstrom and Mr. Friis have developed a reputation for litigiousness in some legal circles. They filed three separate lawsuits against Pamela Colburn, an investment banker who represented them in the original sale of Skype, in the United States, the Netherlands and Britain. In May, a British judge dismissed the case and said the two men's reason for pursuing the matter in his country 'remains inexplicable.' The buyers of Skype have not publicly addressed the founders' lawsuit against eBay in Britain or their potential legal liability."

20 of 107 comments (clear)

  1. Basically by sexconker · · Score: 5, Interesting

    They sold Skype to eBay.
    But managed to maintain ownership of a chunk of code because eBay's lawyers were fucking retarded.
    They now claim eBay has altered that code, thus infringing on their copyrights.

    Why are now suing for damages that could be up $75,000,000. Per day.

    My question - how do they know the source doe was altered?

    1. Re:Basically by Anonymous+McCartneyf · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Because eBay, in a fit of insanity equal to failing to obtain the copyright to that code in the first place, shared the altered code. eBay distributed it. Did they really think the founders of Skype wouldn't see?
      Copyright law -- is there any chaos it can't cause?

      --
      There is a fine line between recklessness and courage... -- Paul McCartney
    2. Re:Basically by sopssa · · Score: 4, Informative

      My question - how do they know the source doe was altered?

      You dont need the source code to see changes. Assembly code is always available via debugger like ollydbg or others. Also, these guys are the ones who created kazaa/fasttrack and skype's algorithm, they probably have the technical intelligence to check it themself too or just hire someone to do it.

      Its pretty hard, one could say almost impossible, to hide the algorithm changes since all the code is available as assembly.

      This is just about eBay's stupidity on the point of purchase, because they didnt buy the whole thing.

    3. Re:Basically by Bigjeff5 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Changing the code was perfectly legal, so long as they only used it internally or developed a compiled product with it. That's why they licensed the source code in the first place.

      However, distributing the code is not legal. It sounds to me like someone at Ebay was dumbass enough to think that minor changes would be enough to alter the copyright, making it theirs and therefore distributable. In fact, depending on the license they agreed to, it may have legal to distribute the altered portions only, or not at all. Either way, to make re-distributing the code legal would have required a substantial re-write, basically just using the Skype code as a guide and not much more than that.

      The Skype founders may be overly-litigeous bastards, but on the surface it sounds like they are in the right on this one.

      --
      Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
    4. Re:Basically by coolsnowmen · · Score: 5, Interesting

      you've clearly never tried to look at skype's code then. It has multiple levels of code obfuscation.

      Last I checked the majority of the program's contents are encrypted. The loader decrypts it into memory, and also deletes the boot-loader from memory. Additionally, the the program will try and detect if you are running it in a debugging environment and jump into random pages. This in turn is hard to detect because seemingly random jumps are all over the code from checking checksum's on itself (to make sure you didn't put in software debugging).

      I'm not even explaining this fully-
      from: http://blogs.securiteam.com/index.php/archives/355
      read: http://www.blackhat.com/presentations/bh-europe-06/bh-eu-06-biondi/bh-eu-06-biondi-up.pdf

    5. Re:Basically by Jah-Wren+Ryel · · Score: 5, Interesting

      With all the shit ebay has pulled over the years, and I'm not just referring to ridiculous fee increase, but all the ways they have given third parties veto power over auctions (e.g. try selling a copy MS windows on ebay and watch the auction be disappeared because MS thinks all copies of windows sold by individuals are pirated and ebay just lets them cancel auctions independently) its basically a case of ebay getting hoisted by their own petard (live by arbitrary and unfriendly contracts, die by arbitrary and unfriendly contracts).

      --
      When information is power, privacy is freedom.
    6. Re:Basically by coolsnowmen · · Score: 4, Informative

      You are probably right about the originators being able to tell. I should have quoted what is different about this animal.

      When you said, "Assembly code is always available via debugger like ollydbg or others."

      I thought to myself: yeah, for my programs, but skype is a different animal.

      But if you already know this, then I can only hope someone else on /. found it interesting (I know I did when I first read it).

    7. Re:Basically by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 4, Funny

      Copyright law -- is there any chaos it can't cause?

      There's plenty, but don't you worry - it's covered by patent law.

  2. KaZaaM! by JackSpratts · · Score: 5, Funny

    kazaa/fasttrack founders suing for copyright violation? it's hard to know just where to begin...

    - js.

  3. They should have left negative feedback... by VinylRecords · · Score: 4, Funny

    They should have just left negative feedback. Isn't that the policy for a bad transaction on eBay anyways?

    1. Re:They should have left negative feedback... by nemui-chan · · Score: 3, Funny

      Right, but then eBay could have filed with Paypal saying that they didn't get what they paid for...

  4. Summary must have been written by a lawyer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    You can see he has a key with "(TM)" on it

  5. Damn unicode... by clone53421 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If we can't get it working, can we at least have the editors strip the unicode out of the summaries?

    --
    Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
  6. $75 million per day since 2005? by CannonballHead · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'll be generous... 2006 to 2009, 365 days per year minus about 100 days for the remainder of 2009, at $75 million per day. That's $102 billion...

    eBay bought them for $2.6 billion in 2005. Revenue, according to a quick google lookup, has been about $1.1 billion in the years 2006 to 2009.

    This seems ridiculous? Or am I reading this wrong?

  7. Re:what a horseship contract by cryfreedomlove · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Why did EBay agree to the terms where they did not get control of the source when they bought Skype? Shame on Ebay for making this possible when they bought Skype with a bajillion of their shareholders money. I predict that this will lead to a class action suit by Ebay shareholders against Ebay.

  8. Brilliant Hack by Elwood+P+Dowd · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis were clearly not content to hack compelling software. Their travails sound like a Gibson novel. As far as I can tell, they made themselves the monarchs of Skype. One day, some enterprising journalist will tell us how the fuck they managed to sell Ebay an empty XBOX 360 box for billions of dollars.

    --

    There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
  9. Re:Some people. by z4ce · · Score: 3, Funny

    Can I suggest you contact your local ACORN office? They can help you set up a tax dodge for the island and probably arrange women through their contacts in Tijuana...

  10. Re:Some people. by coolsnowmen · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If I wanted to buy a person. I would take the amount of money they would need in a life time to support a family, and multiply it by 10. That should allow you to find a naked woman to by. Beauty is subjective. Let's say for here: http://www.livingwage.geog.psu.edu/counties/12086 (Miami-Dade, Florida). So about 3 million dollars. For 2.6 billion, you could have about 867 naked women MAX

    For a minimum, I'ld look at what porn stars get paid. A good porn start can make about 750K/year. Assuming that you want top quality women for the rest of your life (50 years), you could have 69 women minimum (rotating the old ones out and new ones in as they age and your preferences change).

  11. Gotta love the irony. by bobdotorg · · Score: 4, Insightful

    eBay / PayPal routinely shaft sellers out of PayPal payments, sweetly telling the post-coital shaftees to, "Read your user agreement, you explicitly agreed to accommodate our shaft."

    Apparently those Kazaa guys' lawyers were skilled at placing a StealthShaft(TM) in the contract.

    Take it eBay. Take it.

    --
    __ Someday, but not this morning, I'll finally learn to use the preview button.
  12. Genius! by Jerrry · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The Skype founders must be genius negotiators if they managed to sell their company to eBay for billions of dollars yet keep rights to the source code that runs the business. Either that or eBay's lawyers must be the world's biggest idiots.