News 

As we reported the lawsuit alleges that the sale of Skype to eBay was made possible by the misappropriation of the FastTrack peer-to-peer technology that Streamcast claims to own.

'We're taking action because we believe the rights to the Skype and FastTrack technologies were swept out from under our

ADVERTISEMENT

feet, and our 28 million Morpheus users were stolen from us,' said StreamCast CEO Michael Weiss.

In addition to eBay, the lawsuit makes claims against 21 other defendants, including Skype founders Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis and adds a further allegation to all but eBay of antitrust practices.

It claims they 'profited handsomely from the sale of Skype to eBay only after they and others engaged in a conspiracy through which they, among other things, misappropriated assets and a customer base belonging to StreamCast and illegally and secretly transferred away the rights to the FastTrack technology.'

The suit was brought under the RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) Act: legislation originally aimed at tackling the mafia. If successful, such a suit would result in treble damages: a fact not lost on StreamCast - it has increased its damage claim to more than $4bn in the amendment.