The founders of ConnectU, who attended Harvard University concurrently with Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, have filed a lawsuit in federal district court in Boston claiming fraud and copyright infringement on the part of Zuckerberg. They contend that Zuckerberg, who agreed to write some code for their site, never finished coding and subsequently launched Facebook, which at the time of this writing has over 31 million users.
Although attorneys for Facebook are arguing that the founders of ConnectU have no evidence and the case should be dismissed, ConnectU is moving forward with the case in hopes of attaining a court order to shut down the site, hand over control and pay company profits.
A hearing on the motion set forth by Facebook attorneys to dismiss is set for tomorrow.
OK, setting the ludicrous nature of this case aside, the burning question to the ConnectU founders has got to be: why on Earth did you wait so long? I’m not sure of the exact date that Facebook launched, but I know that my university got it in November 2004, and that it was already a big success before that time at scores of universities around the United States. So why wait 3-4+ years and sue, when Facebook has gathered tens of millions of users and it would be much more difficult to win?
Now that the timing issue has been addressed, let’s consider the evidence issue. If the Facebook attorneys are right that ConnectU has no proof, then this case will most likely get dismissed tomorrow at the hearing. But, if they can show some evidence to the judge that can create some sort of “reasonable doubt” for lack of a better term, this thing could possibly go to trial.
Assuming — and this is a big assumption as if it got this far Facebook would look to settle with a monetary value — this case went to trial, my guess is that Facebook has the better change of winning, but there would be an outside shot for ConnectU. And how awesome would that be if ConnectU could actually prove what they’re claiming against Zuckerberg. I for one would certainly pull for them against Facebook. Anyone sitting on a Web site getting buyout offers worth hundreds of millions of dollars, but holding out for $2 billion is greedy and selfish and should be forced to live in the projects for a year. That would certainly change his/her perspective on life and wealth.
Good luck ConnectU!
3 Comments
I’m sure Facebook- if they wanted to- could afford to settle for some nominal fee just to get Connect U off their backs. Maybe that’s all Connect U is expecting in the first place, to just milk them for a little bit and be done with it.
According to them (ConnectU) it’s not about the money, but that remains to be see. It seems, though, that at least one goal they have is to try and expose Zuckerberg as a fraud. Will be interesting to see how it pans out.
several years later…. they put their claim in? Lame.