Facebook law suit - surely no case to answer?!
Discussion
If I ask someone who can write code to implement my brilliant web-based idea, and then instead of doing it for me - they just go ahead and do it without me - effectively of course 'stealing' the idea - surely in law there is absolutely no recourse here?
You can't 'own' an idea.
It's a question of trust - and if that gets betrayed - then tough, surely?
You can't 'own' an idea.
It's a question of trust - and if that gets betrayed - then tough, surely?
I don't know the details, but I would guess that the issue could be a breach of confidence. The originator provided the coder with some confidential information in relation to the idea and the coder has breach an implied duty of confidence through a disclosure.
I would guess that what was disclosed to the coder must have constituted more than a simple 'idea' as social networking sites are not new, but vary in content and style. The coder muct have received details about how the site was to be put together, the 'feel' of the site and some of the functionality - if this is the case then there could be a case to answer.
If the coder was simply instructed to build another networking site and he came up with Facebook then there would be no case.
As I said I don't know the details, but it's likely to be more complex than that the coder simply took a basic idea.
Alex
I would guess that what was disclosed to the coder must have constituted more than a simple 'idea' as social networking sites are not new, but vary in content and style. The coder muct have received details about how the site was to be put together, the 'feel' of the site and some of the functionality - if this is the case then there could be a case to answer.
If the coder was simply instructed to build another networking site and he came up with Facebook then there would be no case.
As I said I don't know the details, but it's likely to be more complex than that the coder simply took a basic idea.
Alex
AlexB said:
I don't know the details, but I would guess that the issue could be a breach of confidence. The originator provided the coder with some confidential information in relation to the idea and the coder has breach an implied duty of confidence through a disclosure.
I would guess that what was disclosed to the coder must have constituted more than a simple 'idea' as social networking sites are not new, but vary in content and style. The coder muct have received details about how the site was to be put together, the 'feel' of the site and some of the functionality - if this is the case then there could be a case to answer.
If the coder was simply instructed to build another networking site and he came up with Facebook then there would be no case.
As I said I don't know the details, but it's likely to be more complex than that the coder simply took a basic idea.
Alex
Agreed.I would guess that what was disclosed to the coder must have constituted more than a simple 'idea' as social networking sites are not new, but vary in content and style. The coder muct have received details about how the site was to be put together, the 'feel' of the site and some of the functionality - if this is the case then there could be a case to answer.
If the coder was simply instructed to build another networking site and he came up with Facebook then there would be no case.
As I said I don't know the details, but it's likely to be more complex than that the coder simply took a basic idea.
Alex
These type of cases are long and somehow only occur once the aggrieved party thinks they have been deprived of millions!
Intellectual Property is an old idea, certainly in the arts but is is also applied to other areas including business. Again, I dont know about the ins and out of the Facebook case, but the basic idea is used by a number of sites, but the way that it works and the reason *why* it works is new and the way that the ideas work together hasnt been used before.
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