Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, the creators of Harvard’s ConnectU who claimed Mark Zuckerberg stole their idea for a social networking website, saw their appeal against the Facebook creator rejected Monday. Bloomberg reports an 11-judge panel upheld a previous ruling, which stated that the Winklevoss twins (or, as Jesse Eisenberg’s Zuckerberg famously called them in The Social Network, “the Winklevi”) must accept their $65 million settlement reached in 2008. UPDATE: The Winklevoss twins intend to bring the case in front of the Supreme Court. According to a statement from their lawyer, Jerome B. Falk, Jr., “Settlements should be based on honest dealing, and courts have wisely refused to enforce a settlement obtained by fraudulent means. The Court’s decision shut the courthouse door to a solid claim that Facebook obtained this settlement by committing securities fraud. Our Petition to the Supreme Court will ask the high court to decide whether that door should be reopened.”
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That’s justice. If the Winklevi had created Facebook, they would have created Facebook. Take your $65 million and go away.
These are some greedy losers! Did they blow through 65mill already?
Greedy? The film actually admits Zucker stole the idea. They settled for 65 mill, no small amount, and they’re rich anyway, but FB’s primary owners are all worth billions.
its a film that doesnt mean it was fully based on that.
Social Networking already existed and all that Facebook did was introduce the preferred site by users. At the end of the day it was because of Zuckerberg and his group and not the Winklevii.
They said “Hey we got this great idea to do this..” MZ said “I’ll do it myself, and make it a little better” and oiula… billions.
Funny how people have no problem with a skinny jewish geek doing it, but they FLIP out if it’s some old white guy.
I’d take $65 mil over a website any day. Can I have it?
Winklevi are not some old guy. They accepted the deal in 2008 and the value of their stock-plus deal has only increased. They did not challenge the settlement until the movie. Which, by the way, did NOT admit to stealing FB. Sure social networking was around but both Winklevi and the Zook were looking for something specific to their college. It wasn’t until Zook ran with it that FB as we know it today was created. The Winklevi didn’t know the value of FB and therefore should be suing their family, advisors and lawyers who represented them in the settlement phase. The more they challenge the Zook, the more powerful the Zook becomes and the more valuable FB is. IF the SCOTUS takes the case, Winklevi will be embarrassed even more. Me and my legal friends love the Winklevi for drawing attention to the personal elements of the legal system and turning a valid and just system into a soap opera. Who needs “All My Children”? ;-]P
The “idea” they claim was theirs had already been done before in Myspace and Friendster. This was never the Winklevoss twins idea to begin with. They just copied an idea that already had been put to use.
Then they settled for $65 million (which IMO, they were lucky to get, as I didn’t think they were even entitled to that).
The settlement closed the door for good. Cae closed, have a nice day
Stop wasting taxpeyer money and court time with frivolous lawsuits, please. thanks
I live on less then 25000 per year. I would be happy with 3 million and figure I have about 25 years to go. Thats 120,000 a year. I can handle that.