When Giants Face Off: Ooyala Files Lawsuit Against Brightcove
Has Brightcove been fighting dirty in Latin America? That's what online video platform Ooyala asserts in a lawsuit filed yesterday in Boston. The main charge is that video cloud services company Brightcove deliberately and willfully misappropriated trade secrets belonging to Ooyala. These secrets include customer contact lists, sales pitches, pricing materials, and marketing strategies. The reason for the misappropriation, Ooyala says, is undermining its business plans in Latin America.
Ooyala filed a six-count filing accusing Brightcove of deceptive business practices, tortious interference (the intentional damaging of third-party business relationships), and breach of contract. It's asking that all misappropriated proprietary materials be returned and all customer information be destroyed.
According to Ooyala, this lawsuit isn't the first time it tried to remedy the situation, as it gave notice of the problems to Brightcove when it first learned of them. After that, Ooyala says Brightcove knowingly and intentionally continued using Ooyala's proprietary information to approach current and prospective Ooyala customers.
Ooyala filed Civil Action Number 1:17-cv-10943 in the Federal District Court of Massachusetts. Multiple Brightcove employees are named in the suit.
In a statement, Ooyala said, "We have no choice but to defend our technology, customers, relationships, and commercial interests in Latin America, as well as the good work of our employees. It represents one of the fastest growing regions in the world and we cannot allow our well-invested and hard-earned trade secrets be misappropriated and compromised. The evidence is overwhelming. Ooyala continuously engaged with Brightcove, providing them ample opportunity to take meaningful action. They never did. We're disappointed it had to come to this."
In return, Brightcove issued this statement: "We are aware of Ooyala's assertions concerning the alleged misappropriation of trade secrets. When first alerted to these assertions by Ooyala, we reviewed them in good faith and reached out to Ooyala in an effort to address its concerns. Ooyala disengaged from that conversation and then filed this suit. Brightcove believes that this lawsuit is entirely without merit. We are working to resolve the matter, which is narrowly focused on a particular region and does not concern our products, services, or technology."
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