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Facebook Wants Ownership Case Thrown Out
crimeandpunishment writes "Attorneys for Facebook and a New York man claiming majority ownership of the site faced off in a Buffalo courtroom Tuesday, and if Facebook gets its way there won't be too many more days in court. The site wants to get Paul Ceglia's claim thrown out of court. He claims a seven-year-old agreement with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg entitles him to 84 percent of the company. Facebook acknowledges Ceglia and Zuckerberg worked together, but says the contract Ceglia submitted was full of 'things that don't make sense.'"
It's the chewbacca defense! look at the monkey, look at the silly monkey
well maybe not now, when it's "worth" so much, but back then when he was just a thieving punk kid with no money the relationship was beneficial to him. Contracts don't need to be written by lawyers to be legally binding.
Don't make sense, as in, someone putting up capital being entitled to a slice of the pie? Hmm.
I predict they are screwed.
Note how they are not denying the existence of the agreement or the authenticity of the signatures on that agreement.
What makes sense and what is legally binding are two different things.
In all my years of Microsoft hating, Oracle hating, IBM hating, closed-source hating, I have never wanted a company to fail so much as Facebook. It is quite surreal to me, a visceral, deep-set dislike of the company and everything it stands for. It is reflexive, not even intellectual. I just can't stand them.
I thought Microsoft would be the worst, because I went through years when they were truly evil, but even at that time I never really hated Bill Gates. He's still kind of a geek, and he did work hard, even if he had an over-burdened competitive streak. And Ballmer, while he is a gorilla, he is just a gorilla. He does plenty of things that are entertaining.
But Zuckerberg is just a douche. He is like the lowest of the low, he stole the idea for the company, he doesn't care about his customers, he doesn't care about his partners, he got lucky, and he has absolutely no redeeming qualities. If Bill Gates hadn't gotten lucky working with IBM, he would have started another company and been successful, although maybe not to the same degree. That's just what kind of person he is. Mark Zuckerberg is the kind of guy who takes everything that is bad about investment bankers and brings it into the programming world. He should go back to banking where he belongs. There are lots of douches there. He would fit right in.
Qxe4
The average user doesn't know how much of a dick Zuckerberg is. But this trial will expose that to more of the public, as will the upcoming Fincher movie.
And frankly Zuckerberg's history of screwing over other early partners, and intentionally screwing his users by constantly changing privacy settings to expose users will come out as evidence that he sought to exploit Ceglia and never honor the contract.
In the meantime, Google is putting together a Facebook killer. And the killer feature will be that your Mafia Wars and Farmville accounts will transfer over to this new social network, Google Me.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
It's a contract dispute between two individuals. The outcome will depend on the facts of the case and the judge's interpretation of the contract. No rights involved, except for the plaintiff's exercise of his right to sue.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
"Your Honor, I demand this contract be thrown out as evidence!"
"On what grounds?"
"On the grounds that it incriminates my client!"
By the taping of my glasses, something geeky this way passes
Holy Smokes. He's got them by the balls. Unless they can find a state specific reason to invalidate the contract they are smoked beyond belief. There is no way they could make a settlement offer. This guy has a standard work for hire contract for Facebook. Zuckerberg never owned it, he was hired to develop it for $1000 dollars. I'll type up the key paragraph here as the PDF is a bitch to read:
"2. Entire Agreement
The contract between the Purchaser and Seller as a purchase agreement and "work made for hire" reflects two separate business ventures, the first being the work to be performed directly for the StreetFax Database and the Programming language to be provided by the Seller.
Second it is for the continued development of the software, program and for the purchase and design of a suitable website for the project Seller has already initiated that is designed to offer the student of Harvard university access to a website similar to a live functioning yearbook with the working title of "The Face Book".
It is agreed that Purchaser will own a half Interest (50%) in the software, programing language and business interests derived from the expansion of that service to a larger audience."
It's a standard pull out of a book and make some modifications work for hire contract and it appears he had his lawyer review and modify before everyone signed. These things are generally pretty simple (the entire agreement is 2 pages long) and they are very legally binding generally as all the terms are previously tested and pulled from successfully litigated contracts. It's got everything from Patent indemnification to Liens to Subcontracting rights, it's a very thorough and succinct contract. This Ceglia guy is in a very very good position. From the terms he owns more than 80% of Facebook (due to a late opening). Any value that Zuckerberg sold came out of the percentage that Zuckerberg owned, not Ceglia's portion. IMO the reason there is no settlement is that Ceglia is in such a good legal position he has no reason to settle and Facebook either wins or loses the whole company. His company "StreetFax" owns Facebook lock stock and barrel. Zuckerberg was hired to develop it and manage it, that's it and all for $1000. Call that the best investment of all time.
All I can say is WOW. Zuckerberg is history. Might take a few years with all the Legal wrangling and Zuckerberg is going to get his ass sued for failing to disclose this contract when he took the VC money and he might even end up in Jail if the VC guys can convince the government to prosecute for fraud.
My question: why didn't this come out like, say, 5 years ago instead of a full 7 years after facebook's launch?
As people pointed out in a previous story: Ceglia apparently had no reason to believe Zuckerberg was acting in bad faith until Zuckerberg tried to sell something Zuckerberg didn't own. Once that occurred, Ceglia could pounce (and did, like a three toed sloth, but well within the statute of limitations).