Snapchat Settled Its Huge Copyright Lawsuit While We Ogled the iPhone
At 1 p.m. today, the known universe was staring at a stream of the Apple Live event. Well, some of us were staring at a color bar screen. Still, the digital world was preoccupied by Tim Cook, iPhone 6 and the promise of a really cool new piece of wrist candy. That's the moment Snapchat's public relations team picked to announce a settlement between the company and a former founder, Frank Reginald Brown. While Snapchat was obviously hoping to bury the news under a pile of iPhones, it still made the rounds.
Brown was one of the company's three original co-founders (the other two are Evan Spiegel and Robert Murphy) and The Verge believes he was vying for one third of the company's worth, over a billion dollars. He claimed that he invented the "ephemeral messaging" idea while he was a student at Stanford University. It is unclear how much the settlement was for, as it was settled outside of court and SnapChat has not returned a request for comment on the matter.
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Spiegel, a very fratty bro, had this to say, "We are pleased that we have been able to resolve this matter in a manner that is satisfactory to Mr. Brown and the Company. We acknowledge Reggie’s contribution to the creation of Snapchat and appreciate his work in getting the application off the ground."
This article was originally published at http://www.thewire.com/technology/2014/09/snapchat-settled-its-huge-copyright-lawsuit-while-we-ogled-the-iphone/379914/
