After they had lost to Zuckerberg? The fight was still ongoing at that point. That was when they decided to sue him. They went through other channels before that, and then used the court system as their last resort. The "battle" was hardly over at that point. They were alright with losing a race fair and square, but they weren't ok with being cheated.



Sumner? The guy comes off as a dismissive idiot. He's clueless. He's dismissive and condescending the entire time, even blatantly saying the meeting is beneath him (which begs the question, why did he take the meeting in the first place?). They came to him with a legitimate issue that they had already put through the proper channels. He basically said he didn't care and that it was beneath him. Then he insulted the idea and claimed since he had been Treasurer, that he was correct. Well, he wasn't. Honestly, he seemed to not understand the concept of intellectual property theft more than anything. I'm sure that's not an accurate representation of who he is, but that's how he comes off in the film.



The sites themselves aren't what Zuckerberg stole. He stole the idea of exclusivity. The film goes to great lengths to put this idea all over the production. That's because it's important, both legally and within the psychology of Zuckerberg's character. The end product of each site is largely irrelevant in this context. The exclusivity is why Facebook exploded. That wasn't Zuckerberg's idea. In the grand scheme it was a small part of the entire operation, but it was the initial spark for Zuckerberg. Without that, there's no telling if Facebook would have ever existed.



If you'll kindly reread my initial post, I was commenting on how the movie characterizes the Winklevoss'. Not the differences between the film and what really happened. I'm talking more about the film not falling into cliches.

That said, Facebook is just a variation of the social networking model. No one is arguing that. However, the exclusivity, again, is what initially separated Facebook from the rest. Not only was Facebook not an original idea, but the reason behind its popularity was blatantly stolen. It's an intellectual property issue, so your example of an automobile, or the movie's example of a chair, doesn't hold any weight. That's not intellectual property. It's a completely different discussion.



Again, it's intellectual property, not the site itself, or the Model T. The fact is, Zuckerberg's inspiration was the intellectual property of the Winklevoss'. He did steal that from them. He just did.



Oh, yeah mean the president of Harvard who couldn't have been more wrong about what he was talking about? That guy? The condescending, dissmissive guy who was about as wrong as someone could be about the specific topic? The guy who seemed to have little to no understand of intellectual property?

They came to him with an issue that was legitimate (whether you agree or not, theft is a legitimate issue) and he dissmissed it without really considering the situation. He was also incredibly wrong about his assessment.



Well, you're just plain wrong here, Ken. Their sense of fairness kicked in as soon as they saw Zuckerberg's site went live. They sent a cease and desist order, went to their housemaster, and even tried going through the president of Harvard. They were trying to handle the issue without suing. The move across the Atlantic was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back, but it was still motivated out of a sense of fairness. Your reading presupposes that their motivation for all actions against Zuckerberg were executed out of vengeance, and, based on what the film shows, that is false. Like you said, Zuckerberg's transgression against them didn't grow anymore unfair or illegal by the move across the Atlantic. Therefore, why would their motivation change?

Plain wrong, my ass.

To give the Winklevii a fair shake, let's go over the part of their case against Zuckerberg that was motivated out of fairness and had merit.

The Winklevii wanted to develop a service, and they had an agreement with Zuckerberg that he would do a certain amount of work for them on that service. Rather than do the work, he strung them along, apparently to give himself time to develop a competing service--if a service can be said to compete with something that doesn't exist, but I digress. What Zuckerberg did was unfair and underhanded, and the Winklevii were right to feel that they'd been burned by him.

We'll call this the "breach of contract" portion of the case. (This assumes that they could prove that they had a contract to begin with.) If they made the case that Zuckerberg violated a binding agreement by doing what he did, then they would have a reasonable claim--a fair claim. Not over intellectual property, but over a legal contract.

Of course, this wasn't a simple breach of contract suit. $65 million in damages is a little high for a matter involving a few college kids and their dating website. One might call it excessive, Draconian, or maybe even vengeful.

It is clear that the Winklevii were not just suing for breach of contract. They were suing for Facebook itself. But, as you yourself pointed out, the Winklevii's only contribution--such as it was--was the idea of Harvard exclusivity.

Is the idea of Harvard exclusivity worth $65 million? Is it even worth $65 hundred? Is there even substantial evidence to support the hypothesis that exclusivity alone was overwhelmingly responsible for Facebook's success, with no account for its collection of other distinctive features? And wasn't abandoning Harvard exclusivity the very thing that allowed Facebook to begin flourishing on a large scale? The more you stake your argument purely on exclusivity, the flimsier it becomes. Remember, Zuckerberg forked over $65 million in damages, and that's just what the Winklevii got for settling. They weren't suing him for taking their idea of exclusivity. They were suing him for taking their idea, period. They were suing because, in their eyes, Zuckerberg took their site and wrote his name on it.

But Zuckerberg did not steal anything concrete or substantial from them. He didn't steal any code. He didn't steal any patented ideas. He didn't steal a developed plan. He didn't steal a secret weapon.

The Winklevii did not build Facebook. They did not write a single line of its code. They did not finance any of it. Absolutely none of their design or interface ideas--such as they were--are used in Facebook. It wasn't their social insight that guided Facebook's set of features. They didn't put in unknowable hours of work to get the network up and keep it that way. They didn't promote it. They didn't nurture it. They did nothing to earn any of the billions of dollars it would eventually generate.

The fact that they view Facebook as theirs in any sense is not only unfair and not admirable, but frighteningly absurd. It is frighteningly absurd that they would sue over the ownership of something that cannot be honestly or logically described as belonging to them. And it is frighteningly absurd that our legal system is never hesitant to comply in this kind of shenanigans.

Unless the Winkelvii have a misunderstanding of intellectual property that borders on delusional fantasy, the only motive that makes a lick of sense is revenge, with a good amount of entitlement swirled in for flavor. They got screwed by some punk kid--some peon--and he went on to found one of the most successful businesses of the decade. The fact that his company has practically nothing in common with the kernel of an idea that they presented to him in the first place did not deter them in the slightest. Did not deter them from exercising their clout to pursue Zuckerberg. Did not deter them from ignoring their own culpability and naivete in placing their trust in a total stranger. Did not deter them from hiring complicit, money-hungry lawyers to punish Zuckerberg for his successful entrepreneurship, as the legal system is so often used for by people chewing on their own hurt feelings and a mouthful of somebody else's dust.

Again, Zuckerberg is not necessarily the innocent hero being impinged upon by the cold-hearted, villainous Winklevii. He did wrong them. But the Winklevii should have came away from it with a valuable lesson about knowing that with which they deal. Instead, they came away from it with 65 million unearned and undeserved dollars.

(And no, the settlement they got was not an admission of guilt on Zuckerberg's part by any stretch of the imagination. The money they were given was intended to appease them and shut them up. Zuckerberg's lawyers would have never advised it if the legal system weren't akin to a crazy hobo waving a gun around on a public bus.)

For the record, as I've been saying, and what I'll continue to say, I'm basing all of this on what the film showed, not anything in real life. A quick bit of research will show anyone who cares that neither party are what you would call "good guys".



You're approaching this from the wrong angle. The lawsuit was used as a last resort. Jumping straight to the legal proceedings ignores the fact that the Winklevoss' initially weren't interested in taking Zuckerberg's money. They just wanted his site taken down.



Or one might not.

Again, it's not like the movie shows the twins reaction when they first see Facebook as, "Hey, let's sue this guy for $65 million!" Their initial anger, which you call warranted, is the motivation for everything after. Why were they angry? Because Zuckerberg dicked them over and led them on to get a head start. Something one may call unfair.



Exclusivity, at least in the movie, is shown as overwhelmingly responsible to Facebook's success. That idea was taken by Zuckerberg from the Winklevoss'.

The fact that Facebook later abandoned the exclusivity concept has no bearing on the issue. It was shown as the driving force behind Facebook's popularity. The fact that the site became even bigger when it was dropped doesn't do anything to discount that it was the concept that initially caused it to explode in popularity. What would have happened without it is unknown, what is known is that it contributed to the site's success and that Zuckerberg took that idea from the Winklevoss'.



Intellectual property is what he stole. Suing for everything is a common legal practice, similar to police charging a person with as many crimes as possible, then later having those all plead down to lesser charges. It's a common practice. The Winklevoss' suing for all of Facebook doesn't discount that Zuckerberg stole their idea.



Agreed. It was the idea of exclusivity that gave their case a leg to stand on.



The only place any of this is shown in the film is from different lines Zuckerberg has. The movie hates Zuckerberg. It's his worldview and he's shown as a borderline social retard, and borderline sociopath. There's really no reason to take anything he says as fact, or correct.



Ken, it's beyond hypocritical to use the legal system and the concept of legality to support your side of the debate, and then decry the way the legal system works when it refutes what you've said. The settlement is an admission of guilt. That's precisely and exactly what it is. In the film the female junior lawyer says as much. The lawyers know they'll lose the case if they go to court. He may have never been found guilty in a court of law, but when your lawyer tells you that you'll lose in court, there isn't really any way around it being an admission of guilt. But, of course, that doesn't coincide with your stance, so the legal system must be flawed....even though your entire stance is based on that legal system

Beyond hypocritical, my ass. You're conflating two separate issues, which are 1. the things that are legal, things that are not, and why, and 2. the way practitioners of law knowingly exploit weaknesses, inconsistencies, and inefficiencies in the system to their own advantage.

It was the fear of this kind of bullshit that motivated Zuckerberg's lawyers to settle. This kind of cost-benefit analysis happens a lot in court cases like the one in the movie. To put it another way, people clean up on insubstantial lawsuits all the time. Lawyers don't defend their clients so much as "apply the formula," as they say in that other David Fincher movie.

The only other part of your reply that I care to address is your certainty that Zuckerberg stole intellectual property. Believe it or not, it isn't quite as simple as one person coming up with an idea and accusing somebody else of using it unfairly. There are different kinds of intellectual property, each with a set of criteria that must be met. It needs to be proven that something specific and definable was stolen, and that it's something that couldn't have come from anywhere but the accuser.

Zuckerberg had already invented a Harvard-specific website just prior to Facebook, which--the movie makes quite clear--is what motivates the Winklevii to discuss their own idea for a Harvard-specific dating site with him in the first place. This alone might indicate that the Harvard Connection idea was never far enough in development nor unique enough to be substantially stolen from in the first place.

Like talking about your ass much?

But it is hypocritical. You're using the legal system as the backbone of your argument, then when a legitimate counterpoint can be made (seeing settlement as an admission of guilt) your defense is that it can only be such because the legal system doesn't work correctly. If the system doesn't work correctly, then who cares if what anyone has done is legal or not? Either you have faith in the legal system or you don't. You seem to want it both ways to suit your argument. It's not a conflation of issues, it's the same issue.



You have absolutely no way of knowing that. The movie doesn't indicate that, and I highly doubt you've spoken to Zuckerberg or his lawyers on the matter.

Most of your points in this debate have been of the same manner. You're taking opinions and trying to apply facts to them to give them credibility. Instead, you should be looking at the facts and drawing your opinions from them.

Lastly, he did steal their intellectual property according to the film. They had an idea, he strung them along, he used the idea as a jumping off point for his own idea, and he got his site up first. If he didn't steal from them, then there was no reason to lead them on. If he wasn't striving for the same, or a similar goal, then he wouldn't have needed to string them along to get a head start. It's really that simple.

But since you don't care to address my reply, we'll just have to move on, I suppose.

Talking out of my ass, my ass. This thread just got a little more po-mo.

I'm isolating these sentences, because it's a very interesting proposition. If anybody cares to comment, please answer these two questions: 1. Have you ever found yourself caring about whether or not something that somebody has done is legal? 2. Do you believe that lawyers have never, ever manipulated the uncertain and often capricious elements of the legal process to stack the cards in favor of their clients?

I called his house and managed to get through to his housekeeper. Consuela assured me personally that, as far as she knows, Zuckerberg settled because his lawyers foresaw a protracted and ugly legal battle if he didn't. She also pointed out that jurors don't take kindly to dirty business tactics, even within the bounds of the law, which I thought was a weird bit of unsolicited editorializing.

What I'm doing is assuming, as a default position, that any and all positive statements are false unless proven otherwise. Positive statement: Mark Zuckerberg stole Facebook from the Winklevii. This is fairly extraordinary. When you consider the evidence, as relayed by the movie, Zuckerberg certainly undercut them and probably even welshed out of a binding agreement, but it much more incredible that what the Winklevii brought to Zuckerberg can be construed as Facebook in any meaningful way.

Here is the logical chain: I am thoroughly unconvinced, based on the movie, that what the Winklevii were claiming was true. Following that, I am left thinking that the Winklevii went after Zuckerberg on poor grounds. Following that, I am left thinking that they pressured their way into a massive settlement in spite of not having the grounds to do so. Following that, I am left thinking that what they did was basically extortion--an attempt to acquire somebody else's money through intimidation.

That said, I can see that we have read the movie very differently, and perhaps I'm even missing something that you caught. If you're prepared to gather specific evidence from the movie--quotes, scenes whatever--to try to convince me otherwise, I'm prepared to entertain the argument further.

It's actually not that simple. At no point does the film ever come right out and indisputably demonstrate that Zuckerberg stole legitimate, bona-fide, substantial intellectual property from anybody. I found that it mostly skirted the issue. And bear in mind, again, that intellectual property is a specific term. The controversy--and there is one--is over whether or not Facebook includes anything that indisputably could not have come from anywhere but Zuckerberg's meeting with the Winklevii.

Those are both inferences that you've drawn, rather than evidence from the movie. While each is a plausible explanation, neither one of them is necessarily true, and the movie does not confirm them.

Incidentally, I just noticed in all my quote-chopping that you put two spaces between sentences instead of one, which is a nasty habit that I've only recently attempted to get rid of myself.

No way, god damn it. Maybe you've seen a kid poke a beehive with a stick, but you never see two beehives in a stick-poking battle. Don't you understand? This is that battle.

Worthy of sig.

1. Yes
2. Yes

I'm fairly sure I know where you're going here, but go right ahead and I'll respond as I see fit.



Well, I guess the debate is yours. How can I compete with you being on a first name basis with his housekeeper?



That's definitely the crux of the issue. I see the twins as coming off as decent guys because I don't feel they were extorting Zuckerberg. You feel the opposite way. Really, we each see a role reversal in terms of who is the victim in the scenario.

I will say that the $65 million settlement is somewhat relative. Sure, it's an incredibly large amount of money. However, when put into context (Facebook is worth $25 billion!), it's chump change. Granted, the phrase chump change should never be used when talking about $65 million, but that's around one quarter of one percent of the company's worth. To me, that's a fair price to pay considering I believe Zuckerberg stole the concept of exclusivity (which is at least partly responsible for Facebook's explosion) from the twins.

I can't quote certain scenes or lines right now, but once the DVD is released I will (of course, that begs the question of, why would we care to come back to this debate in a few months?). The movie does make a huge deal about exclusivity, both in terms of what it meant to Facebook and how the concept drove Zuckerberg internally both professionally and personally. I could even raise the possibility that given Zuckerberg's personality, maybe the perceived slight and elitism from the Winklevii (I hate you for making me type that by the way, but it fits too damn perfectly not to) is exactly what drove him to be successful with Facebook in the first place. Similar to how the conversation at the beginning of the film with his soon to be exgirlfriend spurred him on to creating Facemash or whatever it was called. Obviously, that isn't a reason for a lawsuit, but it goes a long way in explaining how Mark Zuckerberg is...or who David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin want us to think he is.



You know, you're right here. It isn't indisputable, I just believe it to be true.



Again true. It is speculation, and the movie does not explicitly confirm that to be the case. However, I think it's pretty clear during the meetings that that is what the Winklevii lawyer is inferring by reading Zuckerberg's emails over and over. That doesn't prove it to be true, but it's not exactly a leap in logic to draw that conclusion. It would likely be damaging in court for a jury to hear. That could be construed as manipulating the justice system, but that requires turning a blind eye to how the justice system works in practice, not only in theory.



I had no idea until about 2 or 3 months ago that one space after sentences had become the norm. I learned to use 2 spaces when I was in high school and that's not something you really seek out to see if the rule has changed or not. It was actually kind of shocking to find out. I've tried to use 1 space, but just can't seem to do it.



It's kind of flattering that you think highly enough of me to consider me a beehive. I'm honored to poke sticks with you. To poke sticks in as heterosexual a manner as possible, that is.

Hold up!

When the hell were we supposed to use one space after a period instead of two!

There's a backlash against the two space theory, which is apparently a vestige of typewriters and has no place in the modern world. I still use it, however.

Me too, sadly. It's ingrained, but I learned on a manual typewriter. I have, however, gotten away from using correction tape.

And? I think that Jon Faverau is a better director than Guy Richie and that Roberty Downey Jnr is a better actor than Nick Moran... perhaps he should remake LS&TSM just for this reason?

I'm going to be totally honest and express my absolute honest feeling about the issue and that is the Scandinavian link. It's not commercial enough state-side, what with Swedish cinema being too slow-paced for the 24 loving fools that populate the multiplexes of America. Maybe it could be to do with the fact that some people are dumb enough to feel that Swedish is too much like German however I don't want to bring ignorance of the masses into this.

Just to clarify, as I feel like I should, LS&TSM is among my favourite movies, 24 is a great show and people leave two spaces after a full-stop because that's how grammar works. Thank-you.

Wow, I didn't realize that one comment would cause such a hubbub. Apparently, people are more interested in the way they use their space bar than in the way Pete and I poke our sticks at each other.

Story time, kids. Way back before cars and shit, the common printing convention was to put small spaces between words and large spaces between sentences. The theory was that the text was more readable that way.

Then typewriters got invented, and typewriters couldn't do the different space sizes. The best they could do was imitate the effect by putting two spaces after a sentence. Most people who learned to type on a typewriter learned to do this.

The problem that people have with double spaces in this day and age is (and this is how my professor explained it) that it causes "rivers" on the page. In other words, sometimes the double spaces align vertically on the page, which causes problems with the way the eye scans over the text. You're reading along just fine, then BAM. You run into a vertical white line that blots out the middle of the paragraph.

Why now? My personal assumption is that it has to do with the computer screen. Rivers are okay when you're looking at black ink on paper. They aren't as tolerable when you're looking at a brightly lit screen, which peeks around the edges of the letters like a light bulb. It really makes the extra white space stick out.

My mom taught me to type when I was a wee youngster, which is where I picked up the double spacing habit. I'm not sure why I just recently decided to make the change.

And that is the beef with double spacing.

When I was in grade school, a teacher tried to get the class to type with two spaces after the sentence. I never did. It seems unnatural and counterintuitive to me. Of course, the Chinese writing language is more logical than ours anyway.

Ken, not everyone has seen the movie so we, hopefully, can't comment on what you and Pete are talking about even though it's interesting. But everyone uses the spacebar.

On a believability scale of 1-10, with 10 being high, I put this movie at a 1. When I say believable I don’t mean accurate regarding the real story of the creation of Facebook, I mean are the actions of the characters and progression of the story, believable. To that I say NFW.

What are the chances that two hot chicks would want to have sex with computer geeks because they have 4,000 members? It costs $40,000 to go to Harvard; do you really think $1,000 would mean anything to Zuckerberg? How does one move out to California, rent an apartment/office, hire programmers, and pay for computer equipment with $18,000? What hot chicks aspire to be groupies of a bunch of broke computer geeks?
This movie is getting way too many accolades. It made no sense from a believability standpoint and it was way too repetitive.

If you want to see a great rags to riches type of movie that was believable with a deep meaningful story I suggest watching The Doors.

On a side note, I can’t name a movie that had a more demeaning attitude towards women.

That's manifestly untrue

Exactly my thoughts! Thanks

Only if you haven't studied Chinese

Apparently I can't add Chinese text here

Am I really the only one who was disappointed in the movie? Sure, as a story and actors etc etc of course I agree with 3 and a half stars with James. But what I don't like at all is that the topic advertised (social network, 500 friends ...) - nothing in the movie responded to it.
Maybe it was my fault that I didn't make my homework before and didn't read what it actually was about.
But in any case the titles didn't fit with the content.

I was expecting finally to see a movie about the threats of social networks, some tricky things that come up even when you might be an experienced internet-user not to speak about those who expose themselves naively too much to the world. But it wasn't the case and I see that I must wait and who knows how long. Which is very surprising, as we live already long time in this i-world...