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Microsoft rips off Plurk

blog.plurk.com

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Re: Microsoft rips off Plurk

#21

Post by ericb »

axod wrote: post #9
phreanix wrote: post #2

Incredible, I guess in their culture this is ok (or has become so commonplace as to be ok), but shouldn't Microsoft have some sort of measures against it in their own workplaces?

By "their culture' do you mean China, or Microsoft? I really don't think for example Google China would do this.

China has some odd laws in terms of how Chinese subsidiaries work from what I understand. It is isn't quite like opening a subsidiary in say, England. I think there is a rule about a local chinese partner company being involved where you get your employees through that chinese partner company. In the example I witnessed, it was difficult to dictate culture in the chinese office as they were working through an intermediary. Can anyone else with more experience on this comment?

Re: Microsoft rips off Plurk

#22

Post by Elepsis »

amix wrote: post #5

Being the co-founder and lead dev of Plurk I can tell you this sucks :-( But we are looking at our legal options, thought legal war with Microsoft and especially legal war at Microsoft in China would require a lot of resources. I think this will become a major concern for all startups that are doing lots of client-side stuff. If people have determination they can copy your code (even if all your code is obfuscated, w…

Just curious, have you guys tried reaching out to Microsoft at all to get this resolved before going public with it?

Re: Microsoft rips off Plurk

#23

Post by ideamonk »

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_vs._MikeRoweSoft

Plurk should sue and win. If M$ could have had issues over phonetically rhyming domain name and take the kid to court, why not plurk taking microsoft into court for something serious. You just can't excuse yourself by saying someone in my company's xyz office is responsible.

Re: Microsoft rips off Plurk

#24

Post by jamesjyu »

padmanabhan01 wrote: post #11
mustpax wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are clearly in the right. But a bit of advice: skip the whole look and feel issue* and stick to copyright infringement. Their code is exactly the same or highly derivative of Plurk code. This is pretty well-worn copyright territory, I don't think it would take much for Microsoft to back down. * Apple sued Microsoft back in the day for stealing the look and feel of Mac OS, and failed. So that argument can be very…

So, how does this work? Will everything be fine if they maintained the same look and feel and intentionally obfuscated/added more junk to their code to make the code look different?

Look and feel is really hard to pin down legally. It's similar to the fashion industry. You just can't copyright a design -- and that is why there are so many knockoffs.

But that's just how it is in the design industry -- new designs come out quickly, so it's usually not worth the effort to fight knockoffs.

Re: Microsoft rips off Plurk

#25

Post by jf »

mikeryan wrote: post #16
amix wrote: post #5

Being the co-founder and lead dev of Plurk I can tell you this sucks :-( But we are looking at our legal options, thought legal war with Microsoft and especially legal war at Microsoft in China would require a lot of resources. I think this will become a major concern for all startups that are doing lots of client-side stuff. If people have determination they can copy your code (even if all your code is obfuscated, w…

Look I doubt anyone very high up at MS knows of this and when they do you might be able to get some scratch out of this. They're really going to have 3 ways to deal with this. 1. pull down the existing site while they retool. 2. Pay you a licensing fee while the rewrite from scratch. 3. Do nothing and get a ton of bad press See if you can get 1 or 2 and maybe make some money off the deal.

I just started working for Microsoft so that I can be a voice inside the company for startups. I'm forwarding this thread to my legal contact.

Re: Microsoft rips off Plurk

#27

Post by mattmanser »

dschobel wrote: post #15
archon810 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've got to be kidding me. And this justifies Microsoft, right?

He does have a point (one which merits better than his -4 fate). If your biggest asset is your UI, not only do you have to appreciate you have a tenuous competitive advantage but you should have a battle plan, both technical and legal, for when the theft invariably does happen. They got lucky that it was a big operation like MS with a public reputation to maintain (laugh all you like) rather than some no-name. It's e…

Did you actually read the article? They ripped off the code as well as the UI.

Re: Microsoft rips off Plurk

#28

Post by mbreese »

mikeryan wrote: post #14
archon810 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My guess is the Chinese team was facing strict deadlines and in the act of desperation they ripped off the code and layout from Plurk. It's outrageous and MS needs to straight up get sued for this. Plurk has a very small team of less than 10 guys and in my eyes this is nothing less than MS bullying. This is not right.

I don't know if I can lay all the blame on Microsoft for this. The dev's knew what they were doing but I doubt the rip-off percolated very high up. As a SW manager I'm not sure how I'd know that this was ripped off wholesale if I wasn't very familiar with the ripped off site. Don't get me wrong, this is bad. But expose it to MS and let them clean house. I don't doubt that they will.

I'm fairly certain that the higher-ups probably weren't aware of this. However, the company is responsible for the actions of all of it's employees. I mean, sure, Balmer had no idea about any of this is, but that doesn't mean that Microsoft isn't responsible... even if it was done by subcontractors. They are responsible for what they publish on the web, just as anyone else is.

Re: Microsoft rips off Plurk

#29

Post by ratsbane »

This reminds me of the Kayak/Bing Travel issue from July and similar incidents before that. It's easy enough to blame some contractors at a distant outpost but the frequency with which these things happen around Microsoft certainly leads to the conclusion that they are bad actors and poor citizens.

Re: Microsoft rips off Plurk

#30

Post by socratees »

amix wrote: post #5

Being the co-founder and lead dev of Plurk I can tell you this sucks :-( But we are looking at our legal options, thought legal war with Microsoft and especially legal war at Microsoft in China would require a lot of resources. I think this will become a major concern for all startups that are doing lots of client-side stuff. If people have determination they can copy your code (even if all your code is obfuscated, w…

This sounds horrible. Microsoft shouldn't be blamed for this entirely though. Why wouldn't the team that created this think through before?

From what I know, people inside Microsoft make sure they don't get in to any legal trouble before they make use of any code or idea that's already available.

Anyways, this episode is a blatant disrespect for IP. Copying the code is something awful. I believe this case deserves the attention of authorities at Microsoft.

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