StreamCast Networks, maker of the Morpheus file-swapping software,
filed charges against the founders of Skype and developers
of Kazaa, alleging the defendants engaged in numerous violations of
the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.
The company also claims it owns the software used by the
peer-to-peer Internet phone service.
StreamCast is asking a jury in the U.S. District Court in the
Central District of California to award the company $4.1 billion in
damages and to make Skype founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis turn over
their profits from the $2.6 billion sale of the peer-to-peer VoIP
company to EBay.
EBay is not named among the defendants, which include Kazaa’s new
owner, Sharman Networks.
Skype, Kazaa and several other defendants, “orchestrated an elaborate
overseas shell game in an attempt to steal and wrongfully profit from
technology that rightfully belongs to StreamCast,” according to the
court papers obtained by internetnews.com.
Before
forming Skype, Zennstrom and Friis developed Kazaa, file-exchange software
that competed with StreamCast’s Morpheus. After a dispute over
licensing the underlying FastTrack software, Morpheus shut down and
Kazaa was sold to Sharman Networks.
The FastTrack software was sold to Sharman even though Kazaa had
agreed earlier StreamCast would get the first chance to buy the
technology, according to court papers.
StreamCast charges the Kazaa
developers and others used a Trojan horse to turn off access to
FastTrack and “funneled” 28 million Morpheus users to Kazaa/Sharman.
Sharman could not be reached for comment. And according to a Skype spokesperson, the company “does not comment on pending or
ongoing litigation.”
First filed Jan. 20, the case was reassigned earlier this month to
U.S. District Court Judge Steven V. Wilson who presided over MGM Studios v. Grokster.
That case eventually reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled against Grokster and StreamCast. James Baker,
the lead attorney for StreamCast in that case, is heading up the lawsuit
against Skype and Kazaa.
Beyond confirming a lawsuit had been filed, Baker told
internetnews.com that StreamCast intends a vigorous case.
