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Against Monopoly

defending the right to innovate

Monopoly corrupts. Absolute monopoly corrupts absolutely.





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A new face claims Facebook

We have a new contender in the dispute over who originated the idea behind the website, Facebook. John Markoff reports in the NYTimes link here that Aaron Greenspan, while a student at Harvard, had the idea first, created a web service called houseSystem, and labeled a new feature of it as "the Face Book".

While he may have got the idea and/or put it into practice first, he seems to have no real claim to owning any intellectual property that would be recognized by a court. All of those claiming the idea knew each other and apparently worked together part of the time, but just as William's post of 08/12/2007 suggested, the legal claims remain vanishingly weak. Still, who knows what a smart lawyer can dig up.


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