Instagram CEO On Allegations That His App Has Copied Snapchat

It's no secret that Facebook has taken inspiration from Snapchat, an app it couldn't purchase. The flagship features of Snapchat are now available across all of Facebook's owned services. But how do Facebook executives address the accusations that Facebook is copying Snapchat? In a Q&A with WSJ, Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom said: Stories is definitely similar to Snapchat. I think anyone would say that. The first time you see a product show up somewhere else it feels a lot like copying but imagine a world where the only car was the Ford Model T. I'm really glad there are a lot of car companies producing different cars. Just because they have wheels and windows and AC doesn't mean that you're copying. You've got DreamWorks and Pixar and Disney, they're all doing computer-animated film. That doesn't mean they're copying each other. They're building upon a technology. I would just judge [Stories] based on how many people use it actively, which is over 200 million every day. It clearly provides unique value to people that they're not getting elsewhere.

Difference...

[Anonymous Coward]

Difference between cars and these internet tech is obviously that copyright of car designs have already lost their intellectual property protection, since it was invented in 1900's or somewhere, and copyright only lasts 70 years. These internet technologies are completely different ballgame, since all the tech in these products still have patents and copyright protections still ongoing...

Obviously if you company is accused of copying the competitor's products, the best course of action is to deny it -- but can't they figure out better concepts than cars which already lost their protection long ago?

Re:

[TWX]

I guess that if I see any complaint, it should not be due to the reimplemented function, but due to Facebook's status as effectively being a monopoly.

A good comparison is probably looking at Microsoft through its history. Microsoft was sought to effectively be a horizontal monopoly with its OS in that they worked very hard to dominate the OS market to the near-exclusion of just about every other OS from the average consumer's point of view, and to be a vertical monopoly in that every time some third-party

Re:

[phantomfive]

The thing that Microsoft did that was really annoying was to prevent computer manufacturers from installing anything other than Windows on their computers. Although the focus was heavily on Netscape in the trial, in my mind their deals with manufacturers were worse.

Global monopoly regulated by national regulator

[Britz]

Microsoft could have easily been properly regulated. They could have simply forced them to brake up and isolate the companies that have monopolies from other parts. It would have resulted in three companies. Windows, Office and the rest (XBox, for example).

Same with Facebook. You could acknowledge the social monopoly and split other parts like messengers or picture apps off from the main company. Or Google.

But those are all international monopolies. The US government obviously sees more benefit in letting U

Re:

[Colin Castro]

Why break them up, they provide all the info the NSA and others want in just a handful of neat little bundles.

Re:

[TWX]

All first posts in this thread are copies.

Apparently yours included.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:

[fluffernutter]

Round wheels! You can't use round wheels!

Re:

[Anubis IV]

Unfortunately that is how copyright works.

No, that is not at all how copyright works. Maybe you confused them with patents?

Copyright's role is more or less to protect expressions of ideas. You can't copyright facts, but you can copyright the way you displayed those facts. You can't copyright putting paint on a canvas, but you can copyright a particular painting done on canvas. You can't copyright a feature in software, but you can copyright the code comprising your implementation for that feature.

In the case of software, copyright is what keeps som

Re:

[gnick]

Utility patents can be used to keep someone else from implementing your invention, but given that math is disallowed from being patented (it can only be discovered, not invented), most of us would contend that software patents are invalid, simply because software = algorithms = math.

Are you suggesting that all code has existed forever but was waiting to be discovered? I'm not sure I agree.

With some of the code I've written, it would have been better left "undiscovered." I'd call these failures "failed inventions" rather than "worthless discoveries."

Re:

[Anubis IV]

Are you suggesting that all code has existed forever but was waiting to be discovered?

Nope. There's a distinction between algorithms, which are ideas that are discovered, and code, which are expressions of those ideas.

Algorithms are just a series of mathematical steps, so whether we're talking about the algorithm for integration in calculus or the algorithm for the search of a binary tree, they are indeed discovered. So far as utility patent law is concerned, software is merely a collection of algorithms, so there's no basis for thinking we should be able to use utility patents to protect so

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:

[Anubis IV]

I wish, But Apple disagrees with you. Round corners.

You've been misinformed if you think that's copyright. That rounded corners thing is a design patent. Not a utility patent and certainly not a copyright.

Re:

[bill_mcgonigle]

Snapchat copied Wechat.

So Snapcat started out as an app for kids to send nudes to each other but once the "disappearing messages" feature was found out to be entirely marketing, they copied Wechat instead and then did an IPO?

Re:

[AvitarX]

It wasn't entirely marketing.

It required active malice to defeat. It was a great way to send messages to people without risk that the entire trove of everything you ever sent shows up years later.

True, someone acting with malice could save them, but it wasn't really to protect against that, it did a great job of making conversations in the moment and ephemeral.

Someone with malice can record every conversation you have with them in person too.

I don't think Snapchat ever marketed itself as secure, it marketed

No!

[phantomfive]

"No!" said Snapchat CEO Kevin Systrom. "Our app has so many features. Just in identification of viewers alone, our databases can target age and income better than anyone else around except Google. We can divide the market up by interest and gender and our product placement.......I mean narrative tools are the best around so you can get your story out. Our analytics are the best"

After an aid came up and whispered in Systrom's ear, he spoke again with a slightly more bashful look. "I mean......take pictures

Interesting.

[Jack Zombie]

So many words, and yet they're all half-lies.

He reminds me of the Iraqi Information Minister Muhammad Saeed al-Sahhaf, but then again what guy with a PR team preparing their words doesn't?

Dreamworks and Pixar and Disney?

[93 Escort Wagon]

Two of those are the same company...

Re:

[im_thatoneguy]

Same parent company but Disney Animation is a different subsidiary from Pixar Animation.

Why do you keep singling out this company?

[chispito]

Of all the copycat software, why does Snapchat copying keep hitting the front page? Does it really matter? If the Snapchat version of Snapchat isn't compelling enough for people to prefer, why should people care?

Snapchat copied Facebook's Poke app.

[sixsixtysix]

I'm pretty sure that Facebook's short-lived Poke app was out before SnapChat and it did the same thing: one-view text, pics and video, so who is really copying who here?