14 DAY TRIAL // Skype's legal troubles may finally be getting closer to an end, as Skype's founders and eBay are apparently in talks for a settlement. According to the GigaOm blog, sources close to the talks say that the two parties are going over their differences, but the discussions could still go either way and are far from close to being finished. Skype has been involved in a couple of lawsuits with its former owners and their companies over the rights to use an underlying technology licensed by the VoIP service.
There aren't any other details at the time, the settlement isn't close to having any kind of terms put in place, but, if it goes through, it should give Skype's new buyers some much-needed piece of mind. The troubles at Skype go back a few years and can be traced to the initial deal between eBay and Skype's founders, Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom.
The two sold Skype for a fair bit of money but, in a move that eBay most likely really regrets, a piece of core peer-to-peer technology fundamental to Skype's operation was not acquired along with the service, but rather licensed from JoltID, another company owned by the two entrepreneurs.
Earlier this year, though, JoltID sued eBay over a breach of contract jeopardizing Skype's entire operation and eBay's plans for a spin-off. Things took a turn a couple of months ago, when eBay announced that it had agreed to sell a majority stake in Skype to several private investment companies. The deal was rather lucrative for eBay, which retained a 35-percent share in the company and got $1.9 billion for the rest.
The deal, though, is blocked at the time thanks to another lawsuit filed by Joost, a company also owned by Skype's founders. And, to complicate things even further, Skype got hit with another suit from JoltID claiming copyright infringement. eBay is in a tight spot at the moment, with very little options, not that it isn't considering any of them, and a settlement would be the easiest way to get out of trouble, though probably not the cheapest.