Skype sale in cloud as Joltid files lawsuit
17 Sep 2009
Joltid, the company owned by founders of Skype, yesterday filed a lawsuit against eBay and its consortium partners planning to acquire the internet-calling company for violating copyright law by altering and sharing the software that runs Skype.
Owned by Skype founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, Joltid is ramping up pressure on eBay, the owners of Skype, just two weeks after the American online auction company announced that it was selling 65 per of Skype to a consortium of private investors for $1.9 billion. (See: eBay to sell Skype to a consortium of private investors)
In a lawsuit filed in San Francisco Federal Court on Wednesday, Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis allege eBay of violating copyright laws by altering and sharing its Global Index Software, the software that runs Skype and allows users use the free Internet calling service.
In the lawsuit, they also claim that Skype is infringing Joltid's copyright software since users in the US download and use Skype at least 100,000 times a day.
Joldit said in the lawsuit that the copyrighted Global Index software is being downloaded by Skype users globally, approximately six times per second and eBay continues to offer the software for download.
Joltid is seeking damages of more than $75 million a day, an additional $150,000 for each direct infringement by a Skype user and wants eBay to be barred from sharing the software codes.
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