Skype Founders Sue eBay for Copyright Infringement

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on September 17, 2009 - 9:41am.

San Francisco - Joltid, the company operated by Skype and Kazaa creators Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom, has filed a copyright infringement suit against Skype parent company eBay (NASD: EBAY), which could have an adverse affect on eBay's $2 billion sale of the Internet telephone company to a group of investors, The Wall Street Journal reported. The pair left Skype two years after eBay acquired the company from them for $2.6 billion in 2005, but retained the rights to the service's underlying peer-to-peer technology.

Their lawsuit seeks an injunction against further use of its technology, and damages that are estimated to be "amassing at a rate of $75 million daily."

Along with eBay, Joltid also named the investors that agreed to acquire Skype from eBay in the lawsuit, including Silver Lake Partners, Index Ventures Management, Michaelangelo Volpi, Andreessen Horowitz, and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board.

"Their allegations and claims are without merit and are founded on fundamental legal and factual errors," eBay spokesman John Pluhowski told PaidContent.

http://snipurl.com/ry3bq (PaidContent)

http://joltid.com