Joost Sues Volpi and Index for Taking Tech to Make a Web Version of Skype

By Liz Gannes | Friday, September 18, 2009 | 9:45 AM PT | 1 comment | 25 tweets retweet »

Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom’s Joost and Joltid today announced and filed a lawsuit against Michaelangelo Volpi, Joost’s former president, CEO and chairman; and his current private equity firm and Joost investor, Index Ventures. The suit claims that Volpi and Index breached fiduciary duty, interfered with prospective business advantage, misappropriated trade secrets, breached contracts, breached confidence, and committed civil conspiracy.

The gist of the lawsuit is that Volpi learned how to modify Joltid’s proprietary software to run on the web without the aid of a peer-to-peer software when he was transitioning Joost from a peer-to-peer service to a web-based Hulu clone. And with this knowledge, he was able to pitch a version of Skype that buyers could take over from eBay while side-stepping ongoing litigation.

Continue reading the full story on NewTeeVee.

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[...] venture investor that had cashed out big time when eBay snapped up Skype for billions of dollars. As Liz reported earlier: The gist of the lawsuit is that Volpi learned how to modify Joltid’s proprietary software to run [...]

Is The Clock Ticking on Skype? — 6:10 PM on September 18, 2009

[...] Joost Sues Volpi and Index for Taking Tech to Make a Web Version of Skype Found 3 hours, 19 minutes ago Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom’s Joost and Joltid today announced and filed a lawsuit against Michaelangelo Volpi, Joost’s former president, CEO and chairman; and his current private equity firm and Joost investor, Index Ventures. The suit claims that Volpi and Index breached fiduciary duty, interfered with prospective business advantage, misappropriated trade secrets, breached contracts, breached [...] From: gigaom.com [...]