Microsoft admits Juku code was copied

Microsoft has admitted that a Chinese micro-blogging site it launched last month was in fact a nearly identical copy of a small start-up company, a clear breach of intellectual property rights by the world’s largest software company.

The site, MSN Juku, was developed by a Chinese vendor for Microsoft’s MSN China joint venture. It launched last month and drew attention because it provided a micro-blogging platform for Chinese citizens. Other similar sites, including Facebook and Twitter, have been blocked by Chinese authorities.

But on Monday a small start-up called Plurk accused Microsoft of plagiarising its code.

Plurk, launched in 2008, published a long post on its company blog that detailed uncanny similarities between its site and MSN Juku.

The post included screen-shots of both services that appeared nearly identical, and lines of code that looked alike.

“Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but blatant theft of code, design and [user interface] elements is just not cool, especially when the infringing party is the biggest software company in the world,” wrote Plurk. It also said that it thought about 80 per cent of the codebase on MSN Juku was copied.

Plurk has attracted a following in the Philippines and Taiwan, but is among the internet communication services blocked by Chinese authorities.

On Monday, Plurk said that it did not want to get into a legal tangle with Microsoft. Instead, it only asked that MSN Juku be taken down.

After Plurk published its blog post, Microsoft shut down MSN Juku and said it was investigating the matter. On Tuesday, Microsoft acknowledged that the code for the site had been copied from Plurk.

“The vendor [that developed MSN Juku] has now acknowledged that a portion of the code they provided was indeed copied,” Microsoft said

“This was in clear violation of the vendor’s contract with the MSN China joint venture, and equally inconsistent with Microsoft’s policies respecting intellectual property.”

In the wake of this incident, Microsoft said it would “be taking a look at our practices around applications code provided by third-party vendors”.

Microsoft said that MSN Juku would be suspended indefinitely.

“We are obviously very disappointed, but we assume responsibility for this situation,” Microsoft said.

“We apologise to Plurk and we will be reaching out to them directly to explain what happened and the steps we have taken to resolve the situation.”