Popular photo sharing app Snapchat was founded by two Stanford University fraternity brothers, Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy.
Right now, they're facing a Zuckerberg-Saverin like lawsuit; fellow classmate Frank Reginald Brown IV alleges the pair stole his idea.
And if you read the case, it's compelling.
Snapchat allows its millions of users to send quick picture messages to friends, sort of like a visual text message. But moments after the recipient opens the photo, it disappears. No images can be saved on the app, so some have called it the perfect platform for sexting.
Betabeat obtained a copy of the law suit and summed it up nicely:
- Brown says he approached Spiegel, his dorm mate, with the idea for Snapchat.
- Spiegel allegedly told Brown it was brilliant, calling it a "million-dollar idea."
- They verbally agreed to work on Snapchat together and hunted for a technical cofounder. That's when Murphy came into the picture.
- Brown became the company's CMO, Murphy was the CTO, and Spiegel was the CEO.
- The app was initially called Picaboo, and Brown says he designed the ghost icon, Ghostface Chilla.
- There's a photo in the lawsuit that shows a photo of Brown, Spiegel and Murphy the day Picaboo launched in the iTunes store. They're all smiling around a cake that has the ghost icon on it (above).
- Things went south in August 2011, alleges Brown. Brown says there was an argument about the app's future, after which Spiegel and Murphy stopped returning his calls. They allegedly changed passwords so Brown could no longer access the app. Then, they changed the app's name to SnapChat.
Spiegel and Murphy say the lawsuit is baseless. They told TechCrunch:
We are aware of the allegations, believe them to be utterly devoid of merit, and will vigorously defend ourselves against this frivolous suit. It would be inappropriate to comment further on this pending legal matter.
Maybe Mark Zuckerberg can visit the pair again and give them some advice. He already reached out to the founders once, shortly before launching Facebook's Snapchat clone, Poke.
Here's a copy of the lawsuit:
Frank Reginald Brown vs. Snapchat by
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