

Plurk’s official response to Microsoft’s apology - pkrumins
http://blog.plurk.com/2009/12/17/plurks-response-to-microsofts-apology/

======
anigbrowl
_Even I, as a co-founder of Plurk, have to write this press release myself._

You poor dear. Look guys, quit while you're ahead. Everyone knows you are not
going to sue Microsoft because the legal fees would be bigger than your market
cap.

The smart thing would be to take this down and say only that you're
'discussing it with them. Let MS takes you out on a date and give them some
room to make it up to you. Sometimes the best negotiation strategy is to keep
your mouth shut and let the other side do all the talking. This missive sounds
petulant.

~~~
ryanelkins
I'm just glad to see that most of HN isn't riding the conspiracy train with
them. It's like they imagine Bill Gates personally copying their code while
cackling maniacally. I think it was fairly obvious that the whole thing was an
accident (meaning it was not Microsoft's intention to have developer's steal
Plurk's code). Microsoft gave a surprisingly refreshing apology and took the
site down.

This is quickly becoming an object lesson in how crowds can turn against you.

~~~
stse
I think most people here agree that your business should be based on making
innovative products, not imitation nor litigation.

~~~
jimmybot
I'm not a legal expert, but like others, I don't think they have much of a
legal argument. But isn't "your business should be based on making innovative
products" exactly what Plurk is complaining about?

Although Microsoft was caught lifting code, what if they didn't copy so
exactly? Their intention was clearly reimplementing Plurk for China, probably
without all the Taiwan users that would make it a sure thing that Plurk is
banned. How is that really any better from an _ethos_ perspective?

Plurk is very clearly satisfying some kind of niche in parts of the world that
Twitter does not (maybe its the emoticons or easy way for viewing replies in
the web interface? or the idea of karma?).

I suppose not innovating is one way of running a business, but it's one I say
"boo" to.

------
michael_dorfman
Not good.

First of all, sending out a press release saying that you are still
considering all your options is a bit silly. "We're thinking about it" isn't
really news.

But more importantly, that fact that they are still considering legal options
is a bad sign. The fact that Microsoft responded with a quick and unequivocal
apology bought them a lot of good will. Even if Plurk were to succeed in a
lawsuit, it will be a big distraction and might possibly hurt the brand.

If I were in Plurk's shoes, I'd be sitting down with the Microsoft China folks
to discuss acquisition/partnership. Clearly Plurk has something Microsoft
wants, and now might be the best time to get them to pay for it. But you're
not going to do that by holding the threat of a lawsuit over their heads.

~~~
ivenkys
Absolutely.

I wonder if any of these guys have ever done any business before. This is
business (startup, technology or otherwise) 101 , you have the crowd
support/goodwill, you have the apology from the bigger party, they obviously
like what you do.

Shut up,sit down and talk money.

------
edmccaffrey
What an idiotic statement. A judge would look at the actual damages; launching
the site for an extremely short time in a country that they are not allowed to
operate in just couldn't have caused them much actual financial damage.

How much are the actual damages? Zero (what seems likely without more
information) times whatever punitive multiplier you can think of isn't much at
all.

I'd say they fully deserve to lose a legal battle that drains tons of money,
so that MS can buy their then nearly-bankrupt company for pennies on the
dollar, if they aren't smart enough to drop it when they have already
benefited from the situation.

~~~
micks56
This is an inaccurate statement of the law. Chapter 17 of the United States
Code goes into voluminous detail of that actual law. Actual damages includes
costs saved by the infringer. Courts can also impose punitive damages, which
is not necessarily a multiplier, as well as costs and attorney's fees.

All of this assumes that US jurisdiction applies.

~~~
houseabsolute
The infringer hasn't exactly saved any costs, now, has he?

~~~
micks56
If the infringer did not have to incur development costs, or reduced
development costs, those would be saved costs and included as part of the
damage award.

I will also add that the plaintiff only needs to enter the infringer's gross
revenues of the entire company into evidence. It is up to the infringer to
justify deductible expenses from non-infringing business in order to arrive at
the profits gained from infringement.

Once again, this is assuming the US has jurisdiction.

------
icey
With all eyes on you, the right move would have been to accept Microsoft's
apology, and thank them for seeing how great Plurk is - after all, imitation
is the best form of flattery. Then it would have been a good chance to mention
how to sign up for Plurk.

What a wasted marketing opportunity.

------
thaumaturgy
...right. They're too poor to afford a copyeditor for their press releases
(freelancers do this for _cheap_ ), but they're gonna sue Microsoft?

This has just gotten embarrassing now.

------
ErrantX
This isn't a smart move at all.

I can empathize with his "pain"; and it certainly leaves a bad taste to let
this just slide straight off.

But the problem is I think that there are considerations: such as the fact it
was ripped off by a Chinese contractor (which as has already been discussed at
length, is something not uncommon), the fact that Microsoft obviously screwed
up - but dont appear to have done this maliciously.

If anything I would approach it with discussions to license to code; MS now
have a user base in a market that Plurk is banned. That is commercially viable
for both parties.

------
hubb
hah these guys are burning through their sympathy pretty damn quickly.

~~~
chaosmachine
It's a bit of a train wreck. They're snatching defeat from the jaws of
victory.

~~~
dagw
I don't know about anybody else, but I hadn't ever heard of plurk before this.
They could have leveraged this for some great PR ("come see the site that is
so awesome that even Microsoft wants to rip it off"), instead they throw a fit
and destroy any PR and goodwill options they might have had.

------
Tichy
They should consider paying Microsoft instead, for the free marketing they
received. I had all but forgotten about Plurk before this, and for many
people, this incident might be the first time they heard about Plurk.

~~~
sree_nair
Totally agree. This is the first time I have heard of them. And They could use
this publicity to good use rather than hanging on to the issue.

------
DrJokepu
I've got the feeling that this is going to be one of those David vs Goliath
battles where Goliath breaks the neck of David after five seconds without
breaking a sweat and then everyone goes home with a sad face.

~~~
ebrenes
I'm not even sure about the sad face part given the other comments so far.
Seems Goliath didn't want to make a fight of it, but David insisted on having
his satisfaction.

~~~
DrJokepu
Exactly. They're in the very rare position of enjoying the goodwill of
Microsoft. This is like winning the lottery for a start-up, only better. But
no, they charge instead. Incredible.

------
whalesalad
First of all, like most of the people on HN I too agree these guys are getting
a little sappy. Give it a rest and stop crying. This all sounds like the new
American dream to me, wait for someone to create an accident and take
advantage of it by suing the pants off of them. Your company is worthless, so
you're going to sue Microsoft to make your millions?

Second... Plurk won't let me sign up with a MobileMe email address =( -
<http://grab.by/1fum>

~~~
srj532
I agree. The new American dream... I hope that I am a victim someday... er...
wait, according to society we are all already victims... let me start over. I
hope and dream that someday I am the victim of a wealthy perpetrator so that I
can sue them and become rich.

~~~
sfk
I questioned your 2 hour old account elsewhere in this thread, but this
settles it: flagged for trolling or possibly even astroturfing.

------
motters
It seems strange to me that although Microsoft is the company at fault here
many of the commentators seem to be basically praising Microsoft and
blaming/deriding the guys whose code was plagiarized.

~~~
srj532
Microsoft did not steal the code. an Employee or contractor did. They, the
individual(s) that stole the code is who is guilty here. As soon as Microsoft
was made aware of the situation they pulled the offending code/software
immediately.

~~~
mbreese
Wrong Wrong Wrong.

Microsoft is guilty of it because they are the ones who published the
code/product as their own. They hired someone to do the work. Yes, that person
ripped of Plurk, but Microsoft failed to verify their contractor's work. That
makes them culpable.

Plurk was ripped off by Microsoft. Full Stop.

Now, Microsoft has it's own options with respect to that contractor, but their
swift response doesn't erase Microsoft's liability.

~~~
palish
Are you kidding? If I hire a contractor to do work, and that work is done
(meaning I can look at and interact with the product) then I'm not going to
waste valuable time "verifying" that product against every other product on
the market. Especially against other "beta" products that only a niche few
(relatively speaking) have heard about. That would be a dumb use of time. Why?
Because even if the contractor _did_ rip off the code, (which should be so
unthinkable as to not even be an issue,) all I have to do is say "hey, the
contractor did this, not me -- I've pulled the plug and fired the contractor."
End of discussion. That's exactly what Microsoft did, and now Plurk is pushing
the issue too far.

Plurk _did_ get a ton of free PR from this. For thousands or tens of thousands
of people, this will be the first time they've heard of Plurk. To claim that
Plurk was somehow "damaged" amidst all of this is just stupid. Yeah, they were
ripped off. But nobody got rich off of it. There is no money to chase down.
Plurk could net themselves way more money (or rather, any money at all) by
trying to _generate new profits_ by taking advantage of all the free PR they
got. But they're throwing a hissy fit after Microsoft has done their part in
fixing the issue (pulling the plug on a product that wasn't even released yet
anyway). As others here have said: what a waste.

~~~
mbreese
This is the risk you take with using contractors. When you hire someone to do
the work, you are the legal owner. This includes the good and the bad. The
good being you can make money from it. The bad being that you now have a
potential legal liability. When something is done work-for-hire, it is legally
just like you produced the work in-house. So from the outside world, Microsoft
is the entity that is legally responsible. The contractor is responsible to
only Microsoft (and I'm sure their contract includes a provision to deal with
this).

What you're describing is a legal nightmare. In this case, imagine that
Microsoft didn't pull the plug. What would happen then? Would Microsoft say
"Oops, sorry, it was the contractor's fault. But we paid him, and got our
code, so we're going to keep using it." They didn't pull the plug out of the
goodness of their hearts. They did it because they are legally liable for it,
and the longer it was in the wild, the worse their liability.

The rest of this is PR. Plurk maybe pushing this a bit far, but that is a PR
decision, not a legal one. From a legal perspective, they might have been
injured enough for a lawsuit.

------
elblanco
Maybe this is a good opportunity to discuss being acquired by MS. Apparently
they like your idea so much they want to have something like. Just buying the
technology would be a reasonable move for them.

------
grellas
The logic behind this might mean that Plurk is aiming to force Microsoft into
some form of settlement by which MS stipulates to certain restrictions on its
future activities as a condition to obtaining a release, the spirit of which
would be along the following lines: "you, as a willful infringer caught red-
handed already, agree that, in the event you should ever again use any code or
interface remotely resembling ours, we can apply to a court for immediate
injunctive relief."

Obviously, I am speculating but the last paragraph of the press release tends
in my view to support this theme, implying that these founders have a
perception this was not at all innocent on Microsoft's part but instead
something quite calculated.

This also may constitute gamesmanship by which Plurk is trying to create
enough of a nuisance to force Microsoft to consider acquiring it as a way of
clearing the way for it to enter this market in the future.

This may indeed be nothing more than bad judgment by these founders, as the
comments here suggest, but it must have some logic behind it (wise or not) and
that logic may well run along the above lines.

------
marsmatrix
I suspect the company was immediately inundated with "helpful" legal advice
when this went to press.

While everyone at HN (and probably the Plurk founders) would settle and go
back to writing tech, suing Microsoft is every trial lawyer's dream. I think
it's only fair for Microsoft to settle since they did have the service up for
a few days but a full lawsuit is clearly OTL.

That said, I'm sure both companies will come out unscathed. The one group I
see being hurt by this incident are the Chinese contractors. There were a
large number of posts here and on /. stereotyping Chinese hackers as cheaters
immediately after this incident.

Really, people, think about what you're saying.

------
kyro
Ah, I was rooting for you guys. I really was. But you played this in the most
unwise way. You are nothing more than a speck on the bottom of Microsoft's
foot. You're not even a gnat causing them the tiniest bit of annoyance. It's
harsh, but reality. And what could have turned out to be an amazing
opportunity to potentially strike a deal with MS will end up with you perhaps
with a bit more publicity, but severed ties because you're trying to be
sharks. You've got to bite your tongue and subdue your emotions at times to
get ahead. That's a general life lesson.

------
jsz0
Sounds like Plurk should taken the horrible burden off the CEO from doing
public relations all by himself. He's not very good at it. They've gone from
exploited underdog to greedy lawsuit trolls pretty quickly here. Whatever
small amount of traffic Microsoft's regional site took away from Plurk was
totally offset by the free publicity. They should have sent Microsoft a Thank
You card.

------
orblivion
The open source projects I see on their site aren't under AGPL, they're not
even GPL, they're BSD. What's the issue with using it?

Also, unless they're following a different credo than the rest of the open
source world, why are they complaining about "stealing" UI? I thought people
in Open Source didn't believe in software patents?

~~~
freetard
I don't think Plurk is open source.

------
srj532
Plurk should settle down, Microsoft helped them! Microsoft gave Plurk a lot of
free marketing and exposure from this incident and Microsoft has pulled their
product and won't be competing now.

------
jongraehl
"I want my two dollars!"

------
jorsh
Wow HN, talk about blaming the victim here. I guess Plurk was totally asking
for it?

~~~
dschobel
The consensus position seems to be that they should accept MS' apology and
move forward with their world-domination plans with their obviously desirable
UI rather than moaning about some vague notion of damage done to them for the
brief time that MS had a clone of their UI up.

They either need to sue MS if they really think they've been aggrieved or get
over it.

Moaning on their blog accomplishes absolutely nothing positive and has started
to lose them sympathy.

See the series which ran on steveblank.com about a competitor stealing their
IP which was prominently featured here as an example about how to use
adversity in a constructive manner.

part1: [http://steveblank.com/2009/12/03/someone-stole-my-startup-
id...](http://steveblank.com/2009/12/03/someone-stole-my-startup-
idea-%E2%80%93-part-1-are-those-my-initials/)

part2: [http://steveblank.com/2009/12/07/someone-stole-my-startup-
id...](http://steveblank.com/2009/12/07/someone-stole-my-startup-
idea-%E2%80%93-part-2-they-raised-money-with-my-slides/)

part3: [http://steveblank.com/2009/12/10/someone-stole-my-startup-
id...](http://steveblank.com/2009/12/10/someone-stole-my-startup-
idea-%E2%80%93-part-3-the-best-defense-is-a-good-strategy/)

Dwelling on adversity with a "woe is me" attitude is fundamentally
antithetical to the entrepreneur/startup mentality as evidenced by the
hostility they're starting to encounter in these comments.

------
sree_nair
So, What do you guys want microsoft to do now?. Can you tell us what is the
ideal response you expect from microsoft ?.

