Instagram CEO On Allegations That His App Has Copied Snapchat (foxbusiness.com)

It's no secret that Facebook has taken inspiration from Snapchat, an app it couldn't purchase. The flagship features of Snapchat are now available across all of Facebook's owned services. But how do Facebook executives address the accusations that Facebook is copying Snapchat? In a Q&A with WSJ, Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom said: Stories is definitely similar to Snapchat. I think anyone would say that. The first time you see a product show up somewhere else it feels a lot like copying but imagine a world where the only car was the Ford Model T. I'm really glad there are a lot of car companies producing different cars. Just because they have wheels and windows and AC doesn't mean that you're copying. You've got DreamWorks and Pixar and Disney, they're all doing computer-animated film. That doesn't mean they're copying each other. They're building upon a technology. I would just judge [Stories] based on how many people use it actively, which is over 200 million every day. It clearly provides unique value to people that they're not getting elsewhere.

Comments

Difference...

[Anonymous Coward]

Difference between cars and these internet tech is obviously that copyright of car designs have already lost their intellectual property protection, since it was invented in 1900's or somewhere, and copyright only lasts 70 years. These internet technologies are completely different ballgame, since all the tech in these products still have patents and copyright protections still ongoing...

Obviously if you company is accused of copying the competitor's products, the best course of action is to deny it -- but can't they figure out better concepts than cars which already lost their protection long ago?

Re:real first post, not a copycat

[TWX]

All first posts in this thread are copies.

Apparently yours included.

Copyright

[houghi]

Unfortunately that is how copyright works. If copyright where as it was now, Benz would have been suing the hell out of Ford for copying their car.

Re:Copyright

[Anubis IV]

Unfortunately that is how copyright works.

No, that is not at all how copyright works. Maybe you confused them with patents?

Copyright's role is more or less to protect expressions of ideas. You can't copyright facts, but you can copyright the way you displayed those facts. You can't copyright putting paint on a canvas, but you can copyright a particular painting done on canvas. You can't copyright a feature in software, but you can copyright the code comprising your implementation for that feature.

In the case of software, copyright is what keeps someone from selling your code as their own, but it does nothing to keep them from implementing a feature you thought of first. Registering a trademark (or design patent, which functions similarly to a trademark) may keep someone else from making software that's indistinguishable from yours, but it can't be used to protect features that do anything useful (i.e. provide utility), so it basically only be used to protect eye candy features. Utility patents can be used to keep someone else from implementing your invention, but given that math is disallowed from being patented (it can only be discovered, not invented), most of us would contend that software patents are invalid, simply because software = algorithms = math.

Dreamworks and Pixar and Disney?

[93 Escort Wagon]

Two of those are the same company...