Microsoft admits plagiarism in Plurk/Juku debacle – pulls Chinese site indefinitely
Microsoft is a company that is dead set against copyright theft, piracy, and plagiarism. So why has it been caught stealing from Plurk in order to launch its own microblogging service in Asia?
Plurk is a Canadian-based startup which offers a microblogging service for users to post 140-character messages. Yes, that’s right, it’s Twitter in a frock. MSN Juku is/was an attempt by Microsoft to launch a similar product in China. Unfortunately, the similarities were a little too close for comfort, with the Plurk crew accusing Microsoft of blatantly ripping off its design and code.
Plurk was apparently tipped off by bloggers and members of its community that there was a reason to question the origins of Juku. And in a blog post yesterday the company did just that. It said:
Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but blatant theft of code, design, and UI elements is just not cool, especially when the infringing party is the biggest software company in the world.
The story broke in the middle of the night and Microsoft was slow to respond to the charges. But SeattlePI did squeeze the following statement out of the company:
Here’s what we know at this point. Our MSN China joint venture contracted with an independent vendor to create a feature called MSN Juku that allowed MSN users to find friends via microblogging and online games. This MSN Juku feature was made available to MSN China users in November and is still in beta.
Because questions have been raised about the code base comprising the service, MSN China will be suspending access to the Juku beta feature temporarily while we investigate the matter fully.
A temporary suspension happened quickly, but that didn’t let Microsoft off the hook. And now, according to CNet, Microsoft has announced that Juku has been pulled indefinitely, with the company admitting it was responsible for plagiarism.
The vendor has now acknowledged that a portion of the code they provided was indeed copied. This was in clear violation of the vendor’s contract with the MSN China joint venture, and equally inconsistent with Microsoft’s policies respecting intellectual property.
We are obviously very disappointed, but we assume responsibility for this situation. We apologize to Plurk and we will be reaching out to them directly to explain what happened and the steps we have taken to resolve the situation.
This is a pretty shameful situation because the plagiarism of design and source code was so blatant that it was always going to be discovered. Microsoft is clearly indicating that a third-party vendor is to blame for the issue but that it is taking the responsibility for it. As it had to, really.
Plurk is now said to be considering its next move.
Related Posts:
