So Plurk should roll over and forget anything happened just because Microsoft said they are very sorry? You see such benevolence from big corporations in the same situation almost never. Why should Plurk do any differently?

As for Microsoft's swift reaction, it was not necessarily a result of Microsoft's kindness of hart and honest remorse. It probably is more of an attempt on Microsoft's part to not get themselves into a deeper hole than they already are in. And no mater how expert or well paid their lawyers are it won't change the fact that they are in the wrong here. There is very little chance Plurk will end up being chewed up and spat out.

And lastly, this is big business, not preschool - the excuse "but a contractor did it, it's not my fault" doesn't work. Microsoft are (one of) the legal entity (-ies) behind that service. They are ultimately responsible for things like this copyright violation. They are free to seek compensation for the damages from the contractor, but legally speaking (well, not really, I'm not a lawyer and this is not legal advice, but still), as far as Plurk are concerned Microsoft are the offender. And don't feel bad about Microsoft, there is a good chance they'll end up with a net positive, at least financially.

    So Plurk should roll over and forget anything happened
    just because Microsoft said they are very sorry?

That's exactly it.

    You see such benevolence from big corporations in the
    same situation almost never. Why should Plurk do any
    differently?

What other people do is irrelevant. I suppose it could be something if you were talking about a patent troll, but you're talking about Microsoft.

Microsoft focuses on building software that corners markets. That's a legitimate mode of operation for a company.

MS did the right thing in their response to this issue. Plurk has suffered no damage, and indeed has won press. Plurk should now also do the right thing and get on with trying to build software, and avoid the martydom track.

    And lastly, this is big business, not preschool - the
    excuse "but a contractor did it, it's not my fault"
    doesn't work. 

But that's not what they said. They accepted responsibility for it.

It's also not in their Plurk's interest to go legal as it will be a distraction from building software.

> It's also not in their Plurk's interest to go legal as it will be a distraction from building software.

I think it's your last point that's the most important one here. From a purely pragmatic standpoint, lawsuits are a massive, massive distraction. The startup landscape is littered with the carcasses of startups that got distracted by things other than building and selling their core product, and who thus ran out of cash before achieving any kind of revenue stability. Distractions like this can easily be the death of a startup, and they should be avoided wherever possible. Even if you win the lawsuit, by the time it's all over you'll be far behind where you should be in terms of product development, which will probably more than offset any net win in terms of a legal settlement.

I'm always frustrated when some bigshot "accepts responsibility" for some bad action and then faces no consequences, in some cases because of their words: "I 'accepted responsibility', what more do you want?" News flash: 'responsibility' is a word that has a meaning. If you were responsible for something bad, that means you get to pay the consequences for it.

You seem to imply that if the situation was reversed, if someone had ripped off Microsoft's code and when caught they stopped the service and apologized, Microsoft wouldn't sue them up the wazoo. How realistic do you think is such statement?

And yes, it probably is in Plurk's best interest to either seek settlement or sue Microsoft over this - for one it will show that they wont tolerate being ripped off (otherwise what's stopping someone else doing it again tomorrow and when caught "sincerely" apologizing) and for two, for a small and relatively unknown company it makes perfect financial sense to do so, they will probably make more money this way than they'll be able to make in 10 years "building software".

There are three different approaches to evaluating whether or not Plurk should go ahead with a lawsuit.

There's the ethical approach: is this a matter which, ethically, is worth pursuing? In this case, we might answer by examining the nature and amount of harm done, and the intentions of the parties involved. The harm was limited by unusually quick action, and by the fact that it occurred in a market in which Plurk had no influence or prospective customers to begin with. Microsoft has given a plausible statement denying any intention on its part. Comments suggesting that a lawsuit should be pursued simply because that's the action expected from Microsoft in the case of a role reversal belie a prejudice against Microsoft which doesn't provide a strong ethical basis for a lawsuit.

There's the approach from law: Plurk must demonstrate which laws were violated, in which country, and to what extent. Has Plurk taken any actions to protect its intellectual property prior to this case? Does it hold any patents? Has it copyrighted its publicly readable code or released it under a license? And, if indeed there is a law which has been violated, to what extent would the damages be assessed? If Plurk can't point to some clear loss of revenue from the event, then they must establish an intrinsic value for their intellectual property. From a legal standpoint, that can be difficult.

Finally, there's the approach from likely outcome: statements like, "And no mater how expert or well paid their lawyers are it won't change the fact that they are in the wrong here" belie an extreme naivete in terms of the law and legal proceedings. Legal battles between companies are less often resolved by establishing the "rightness" and "wrongness" of the parties; more often, they are resolved in terms of resources: the company with the most resources wins.

"Hackers" have a peculiar tendency to believe that their expertise in generalized systems means that they can dive into a legal battle and understand the arena well enough to have an outcome in their favor. The term "IANAL" is almost always followed by a layman's legal advice. However, legal proceedings have little to do with programming. Microsoft's legal team for example could simply choose to bury Plurk in onerous discovery, and it would cost Plurk far too much money to even enter the courtroom, while costing Microsoft relatively nothing.

I don't see a winning scenario for Plurk from any of those standpoints.

There's one point though you're discounting, Plurk was used in China, it's known there and it's completely possible that they are thinking of reentering the Chinese market.

Exactly. By doing the right thing, Microsoft didn't erase their liability in this. What they did do though was limit that liability and stop them from getting deeper in a hole.

By acting quickly, they gained some important PR points, but that doesn't erase the offense. This is especially true since they admitted their offense. My guess is that all is left is to negotiate the level of compensation.

IT may or may not be in Plurk's best interests to litigate. Not my call. But I believe it is in everyone's best interests for Microsoft to have negative consequences.

The reason I advance is that we don't want large companies taking the following line of thought: "Instead of buying a smaller competitor or replicating their functionality from scratch in a clean room, let's just use an arms-length contractor to rip them off directly. If we get caught, we'll just apologise and settle quietly..."

I believe it is in everyone's best interests that companies be strongly discouraged from this kind of theft, to the point where they will be insanely scrupulous about code developed both in house and at arm's length.

The contrition after the fact certainly should limit further negative consequences, but does nothing to erase the initial crime.

I don't know anyone at Plurk, but from here it looks like a bit of posturing to see if they can elicit some sort of swift settlement from MSFT. They got a fast response from MSFT on the original claim. Maybe they want to see if momentum is on their side. Either way, an appology was made and the code was removed. IMO they should focus on moving forward and not waste time and energy chasing rainbows.

Totally agree with you here. Microsoft acted swiftly and aplogized. If plurk's try to litigate here, it would lose major points with me and hopefully with others also. They should be happy that they got some attention and should let their code/business do the rest of the talking instead of the legal team.

I agree. The optimal outcome would be for MS to license Plurk's code. Failing that, some kind of cash settlement...but a lawsuit would be stupid, both strategically and from a publicity standpoint. Plurk can't afford and probably doesn't want to spend years in court.

> I'd much rather see Plurk issue a press release stating simply the matter has been resolved and they appreciate Microsoft's swift action.

Agree with everything except this last sentence. I reckon they could get a bigger win out of this. Maybe a partnership (I heard they're censored from mainland China, no?), some sort of licensing, or even a token settlement of a little bit of cash so that "Microsoft settled for an undisclosed amount." Going to war with someone who doesn't want it and apologized is a bad play, but they should at least see if they can get a little further with this. Since the China market is blocked to them, this could be a massive win if they get some sort of joint venture, partnership, or licensing going.

I doubt it. A company the size of Microsoft keeps a lot of attorneys on salary, and others on retainer. If Plurk pursues a lawsuit, then the smart thing for Microsoft would be to simply drive Plurk out of business in the courtroom, and then either buy them for nickels on the dollar, or release the product anyway as Plurk disintegrates.

If Plurk is hoping for a Microsoft-funded exit, this is probably not the way to go about it.