Man Claims To Own 84% Of Facebook

from the and-I-invented-google dept

Tue, Jul 13th 2010 4:21am — Mike Masnick

Has there ever been a company with more bizarre claims to ownership than Facebook? There have already been two high profile claims of others who say that Mark Zuckerberg "took" the idea of Facebook from them. The one involving the company ConnectU at least had a strong enough claim to get Facebook to pay up. Some of the details in that case suggest at least marginally underhanded activities on the part of Zuckerberg. Other claims have been more ridiculous, and there are a few former "co-founders" who clearly were not too happy about how things worked out.

But this latest claim may be the most bizarre of all. Some guy, who is currently fighting charges in New York State of taking $200,000 from customers for a wood-pellet fuel business (you can't make this stuff up), apparently claims to have come up with a contract from Zuckerberg that offered him 50% of Facebook for designing the company's website. The terms of the "deal" seem strange: a $1,000 fee and a 50 percent stake in the product plus an additional 1 percent interest in the business, per day, until the website was completed. This makes no sense, of course. First of all, why would Zuckerberg give away 50% of the site to the guy he hired to design it... and why would he offer the guy additional percentage points if the guy was slow in finishing? So, the whole thing sounds farfetched. Even if, somehow, this contract turns out to be real, some have pointed out that the statute of limitations in New York probably makes it meaningless.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: contracts, ownership
Companies: facebook

23 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

BearGriz72 (profile), 13 Jul 2010 @ 4:09am

???
This is so stupid I am not even sure where to start...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 13 Jul 2010 @ 5:06am

Well, he can't own 84% of it, because I own 65% of it. Zuckerberg ordered a burger where I work and said I could have part of his company if I got him a sandwich.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Paul Hobbs (profile), 13 Jul 2010 @ 5:50am

Seriously, who gives a rat's
I'm with George Clooney on the subject of Facebook:

"I would rather have a prostate exam on live television by a guy with very cold hands than have a Facebook page"
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Bushman, 13 Jul 2010 @ 5:51am

Perhaps it would explain why Facebook is so badly designed considering how many users it has.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 13 Jul 2010 @ 6:01am

Build it and they will sue you.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
average_joe (profile), 13 Jul 2010 @ 6:26am

LOL! How funny would it be if this contract was legit?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
NullOp, 13 Jul 2010 @ 6:32am

FB
Stealing ideas is more common than one believes. All it takes is to voice the idea and it floats away in the airwaves as vibrations and is picked up by some unscrupulous VC guy and boom...product. I know because I actually own 64.2% of Microsoft.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Danny, 13 Jul 2010 @ 6:45am

Re: Seriously, who gives a rat's
Well you see now that Facebook seems to be have some margin of profitability people are going to come out of the wookwork to get a piece of it.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
interval (profile), 13 Jul 2010 @ 7:31am

In other news: Steinbrenner's dead! Its the end of an era.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Phillip Vector (profile), 13 Jul 2010 @ 7:38am

Re:
Speaking as a web developer, I have been offered stranger contracts before. It's basically a way of people getting web developers, then probably never paying them.

So yes, the contract COULD be legit, but it's not likely.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
david, 13 Jul 2010 @ 7:46am

Why waste time writing such a pointless article
Come on! Who are you people who report and write this worthless information?

This blob of meaningless information could have stayed in your head or just kept between you and the senseless person who told you about this.

You even said you’re self towards the end of the article that because of New York states statute of limitations make this pointless.

Who hired you!? How did you get a job? You are one of those millions of worthless employed people who should be unemployed.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Rick, 13 Jul 2010 @ 8:00am

Re: Seriously, who gives a rat's
Yet, here's George's Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/Clooney

lol
[ link to this | view in thread ]
average_joe (profile), 13 Jul 2010 @ 8:05am

Re: Why waste time writing such a pointless article
The statute of limitations *might* make this pointless, but it might not. The judge *did* issue a temporary restraining order, so it's not that ridiculous. Not sure why you're hatin' so much...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 13 Jul 2010 @ 9:11am

Re: Why waste time writing such a pointless article
Looks someone needs to massage their prostate with their own penis... It'll be time spent more efficiently than by reading blogs you don't like.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Gwiz, 13 Jul 2010 @ 9:17am

Re: Why waste time writing such a pointless article
Come on! Who are you David who spends his time viewing and commenting on articles that you have deemed "worthless"?

Are you one of those millions of worthless people who think they know what everyone else is interested in?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
BigKeithO (profile), 13 Jul 2010 @ 9:54am

Re: Why waste time writing such a pointless article
I'm pretty sure Mike hired himself. You are helping to pay his wages by visiting his site. You are one of those worthless people who help to support other worthless peoples endeavors!! For shame.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Josh, 13 Jul 2010 @ 1:16pm

Uhm that's nothing Microsoft owes me money because "Windows 7 Was My Idea"....dumbest commercials ever...Seriously you Microsoft can send the money to 123 Main st...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Andrew D. Todd, 13 Jul 2010 @ 1:46pm

Howard Hughes' Will
This case reminds me of Melvin Dummar. Back in April, 1976, A gas station attendant named Melvin Dummar produced a will purporting to have been written by Howard Hughes, who had just died. Dummar would have received about a hundred and fifty million dollars under this will. It eventually transpired that Dummar's wife had worked for a magazine, and had had access to papers signed by Howard Hughes. Dummar didn't get any money, but he didn't go to prison either.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melvin_Dummar

As I recall, when the news broke, one of my prep school teachers, my home room teacher if I recall rightly, said, in class, "OK, class, let's write a will..." and there was much laughter. So one cannot exclude the possibility that Zuckerberg's signature was forged.

The text of the purported agreement, supposedly dates, April 28, 2003, quoted in the Wall Street Journal (below), seems to be very mangled: "for the purchase and design of a suitable website for the project Seller [Mr. Zuckerberg] has already initiated that is designed to offer the students of Harvard university [sic] access to a wesite [sic] similar to a live functioning yearbook with the working title of 'The Face Book.'"

The apparent sense would appear to be that Paul D. Ceglia purchases a half share in Facebook from Mark Zuckerberg for a thousand dollars, with penalties if the project is not completed within eight months. That makes sense in its own terms, though the chronology is still suspect. Obviously, Zuckerberg, a former child programmer, would not have needed to hire anyone to do the job of building the site. However, if I understand correctly, Ceglia merely claims to have grubstaked him on advantageous terms.

http://www.wellsvilledaily.com/news/x1609360879/Does-Wellsville-man-own-Facebook
http://o nline.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703283004575363330101240888.html?mod=rss_whats_news_us&utm _source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+wsj/xml/rss/3_7011+%28WSJ.com:+What%27 s+News+US%29&utm_content=Google+Reader
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/12/paul-ceglia-fac ebook-owne_n_643550.html
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Paul Hobbs (profile), 13 Jul 2010 @ 4:47pm

Re: Re: Seriously, who gives a rat's
I'm going to go out on a limb and say that it isn't really George's page. Call me crazy, but after looking at the content of that Facebook page, I'm going to go with "obsessed fan". (Or fans).
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Todd, 13 Jul 2010 @ 6:22pm

Isn't this possible fodder for the coming movie?
Hey it's not far fetched.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 15 Jul 2010 @ 5:54am

If it tuens out to be a real contract, that just shows zucker is a sucker and an idiot.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Andrew D. Todd, 16 Jul 2010 @ 8:55am

A Copy of The Complaint.
http://i.cdn.turner.com/money/2010/07/13/technology/facebook_lawsuit/facebook_filing.pdf

The complaint states that Ceglia purchased a half share in Facebook for $1000, with performance penalties. The evidence of payment seems to be a carbon copy of a check, rather than a returned and canceled check.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
annonymous YNITER, 29 Jul 2010 @ 7:28pm

FACEBOOK IS GONNA BE A DINOSAUR SOON!!
who cares ...facebook now has a competitor who is going to take whoever owns it to a facebook funeral...in the very near future
http://www.yournight.com/TLRAE
klik on the link and see it for yourself!! ;0 ) join me !! ;) and we can make it happen !! ;) have a great day all !!
[ link to this | view in thread ]