Updated The VSP Capital Memorial trophy is awarded each year to theventure capitalfirm that most effectively turns itself into a punching bag. The 2007 frontrunner is ComVentures.
First came the recent FilmLoop flap, in which ComVentures engineered the sale of one portfolio company to another. Now comes another troubling development: While ComVentures was working to sell FilmLoop last December, it also was being sued by Sequoia Capital for copyright infringement. ComVentures says the case has since been resolved amicably, even though no resolution has yet appeared in the courts online records system. Neither Sequoia nor its attorney returned request for comment or confirmation (download all relevant court filings after the jump).
This is a bizarre story for two reasons. First, because of how dumb ComVentures seems to have been. Second, because such cases generally get resolved long before they reach litigation.
According to court documents, both Sequoia and ComVentures redesigned their websites last year. Sequoia went first with an August 30 launch, and even took the unusual step of registering the site as an original work of authorship with the U.S. Copyright Office. Soon after, the firms servers began to detect significant and prolonged access to the site from someone sharing the IP address for, and presumably within, the ComVentures network. A printout of Sequoias server logs were filed with the court, and can be downloaded below as Docs 2. In all there were 373 recorded visits.
Six weeks later, ComVentures unveiled its own redesign. The new site had a number of striking similarities to the Sequoia site, in terms of both setup and style. For example, check out this ComVentures page and this Sequoia Capital page. (Update: ComVentures has now removed the aforementioned page). Pay particular attention to the geography and company-stage navigation bars.
Had the complaint stopped here, I would have assumed that some ComVentures lackey/designer had simply made a mistake in not knowing that you cant rip off someone elses site. He/she was told that the ComVentures brain-trust admired the Sequoia site, and took that to mean copy it. After all, the first question any web designer asks when building a new site is: What other sites do you like?
And maybe thats exactly what happened. But what happened next is bizarre. Sequoias Mike Moritz called ComVentures chief Roland van der Meer to complain on at least two separate occasions. Sequoias outside counsel also formalized the request in a letter to ComVentures outside counsel. The complaint alleges that ComVentures agreed to make certain changes, but then that the only real changes made were that the offending pages were not directly linkable from the ComVentures homepage. In other words, the alleged copyright infringement remained, but was just a bit harder to find.
Again, I would like to think this was a slip up (sometimes hard to find all legacy pages) except that the offending pages STILL are online nearly three months after the suit was filed. Maybe there was concern that full retreat would be perceived as admittance of guilt, but ComVentures isnt willing to get into that level of detail with me (not that I blame them).
Sequoia had been seeking both real and punitive damages, and I do not know if any money changed hands via the apparent settlement. But I do know that this is just one more headache ComVentures did not need right now
Two other quick thoughts: (1) It is important to note that it is difficult to judge a legal complaint’s allegations without also getting the defendant’s point-of-view. In this case, ComVentures does not seem to have filed any documents. (2) Sequoia picking on ComVentures is a bit like Iron Mike picking on King Hippo, and I’d certainly agree that Sequoiaseems to takeitself a bit too seriously. But, that said, no one knows the value of copyright — or patent — protection better than a VC firm, and it makes total sense that they’d want to protect what they feel is theirs.
Downloadthe complaint: Sequoia_vs_ComVentures.pdf
Supporting documents:
Docs_1.pdf
If you do not receive this within five minutes, please try and sign in again. If the problem persists, please
email: