Kudos to Microsoft on acting fast on the Juku-Plurk fiasco: the company said Tuesday afternoon it would be suspending the Juku beta indefinitely, and has assumed responsibility for what is now a definite case of intellectual propery theft. According to a statement, the third party developer behind Microsoft’s service has acknowledged that it had indeed stolen code from Plurk to build Juku. Ouch.
Microsoft stressed that its contracts with its vendors expressly indicate that work provided must not infringe on the work of others (a no brainer, don’t you think?). “We are a company that respects intellectual property and it was never our intent to have a site that was not respectful of the work that others in the industry have done,” it said.
Officials with Microsoft will reach out to Plurk to explain what happened as well as update the affected paryy on what Redmond plans to do to resolve the situation. It also is launching an inquiry into its own practices surrounding code offered by third-party vendors. So far we haven’t seen anything publicly on what Plurk’s future moves, but you have to think that this might just prevent this from going to court. My guess is we’ll be hearing from Plurk real soon. But as everyone’s saying, this publicity can do nothing but help the service, don’t you think?
