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Creators of ‘Room’ say Facebook copied their chatroom app, threaten legal action

Facebook’s new ‘Rooms’ app                              Room Inc’s ‘Room’ app

Following the launch of Facebook’s new “Rooms” app for iPhone, the company behind a similar piece of software called “Room” is claiming the social media outlet copied its intellectual property. The Room application, which like Facebook’s app allows users to create and invite others to chatrooms while remaining anonymous, was first released on the App Store back in September.

The company’s Damien Rottemberg, Co-Founder and CTO of Room, sent over the following statement on the situation:

“We don’t know what happened, if something was leaked from VCs we were talking to that are very connected with Facebook, if it’s from high Facebook executives that we have on our Facebook friend’s list, friends of friends working at Facebook, or someone at Facebook that saw our app and thought it was cool enough to copy,” stated Damien Rottemberg, Co-Founder and CTO of Room. “We’re sure this is not a coincidence. We don’t understand how Facebook, with all their lawyers, could have released an app with the same name and features. We won’t let this happen and we want to defend all entrepreneurs with great ideas and great visions.”

It isn’t the first time Facebook has been accused of copying another company’s software. Developers FiftyThree weren’t too happy when Facebook decided to release Paper, an app that now shares a name with FiftyThree’s popular drawing application. A similar situation happened when Facebook’s Instagram decided to release a product with the same name as an existing app called Bolt.

A spokesperson for Room Inc. said its founders Damien Rottemberg and Frank-David Cohen are “debating legal action.”

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Comments

  1. chrisl84 - 9 years ago

    That doesn’t sounds like something Mark Zuckerburg would do….oh wait.

  2. accdla - 9 years ago

    you snooze you lose…..

    • That’s what they are calling theft these days?

      • Is it really theft? I know nothing about the code used (it would be definite theft if they used the same) but should the concept of an anonymous chatroom be protected? Will any website having chatrooms without usernames be accused of stealing from them? I have no doubt Facebook saw the other app and copied the concept but I am conflicted if that should be considered theft/copyright infringement…

  3. He fits in well in China?

  4. Oflife (@oflife) - 9 years ago

    FB are one of the most despicable unoriginal unethical companies out there, only big pharma and big oil come close. They have been copying other companies ideas since formation, their UX is awful, (the tech behind the whole site is way behind many other companies, my own included), the founders don’t have creative minds at all and their business model is as uncertain and lacking in imagination as a Soviet era auto manufacturer. And let’s not discuss the effect FB has on young people.

    Here’s wishing Mr. Rottemberg Godspeed with his legal action.

  5. calisurfboy - 9 years ago

    Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

  6. totencough - 9 years ago

    It’s Paper all over again…

  7. Bill Goodman - 9 years ago

    This is how Facebook will get away with it, they’ll pay them a lot of money, call it buying them out and own it. FB knows very well what they’re doing and know they have the cash on hand to buy off the lawyers and own the app outright.

    • Mr. Grey (@mister_grey) - 9 years ago

      Either that, or just rename it “Hallway” and change a few things around.

      Creative people have pretty much no protection under the law when it comes down to it. Copyright law has been gutted and made to dance to the corporate tune.

  8. leifashley - 9 years ago

    Baseless and laughable.

    Chat rooms have existed in mass since IRC…

  9. Nina See - 9 years ago

    This is ok but the mingle app dose this much better (mingle.com/apps)

  10. CharZarBar (@CharZarBar) - 9 years ago

    It’s not copyright theft — it’s trademark theft. Creating a product or company using the name of an existing/established company or product, especially one in the same market, has been proven to be trademark infringement, and there are many example legal cases out there related to this – just Google it.

    FB understands this concept well. It’s the reason why Instagram not all that long ago threatened legal action against a bunch of companies that used company or product names ending in ‘gram’ (especially those related to photography and/or image filters.)

    It’s the same reason you would get a letter from FB legal if you created a social network and named it Facebooks (notice plural name.) So it’s just as wrong for FB to create a product named Rooms with the same functionality as an existing/established product named Room.

  11. energivorace - 9 years ago

    Rottemberg, Cohen and Zuckerberg ? They’ll find a way out of it between jews.

Author

Avatar for Jordan Kahn Jordan Kahn

Jordan writes about all things Apple as Senior Editor of 9to5Mac, & contributes to 9to5Google, 9to5Toys, & Electrek.co. He also co-authors 9to5Mac’s Logic Pros series.