Is Microsoft China’s MSN Juku a straight theft of code and design from Plurk, the microblogging service which has had major success in the Asian world?

Despite fading after initial interest in the West, Plurk now claims to be ten times bigger than Twitter in Taiwan alone, and the preferred method of microblogging in many Asian countries, despite access to the site being banned by China in April 2009. At the time, Plurk’s top five countries were Indonesia, Taiwan, the Philippines, the U.S and China, so it was a big issue.

Now the issue has got even bigger, as described in a blog post by Plurk co-founder and lead developer, Amir, which states what they think has happened:

• Microsoft China officially launched its own microblogging service, MSN Juku/Hompy/Mclub, some time in November, 2009.
• The service’s design and UI is by and large an EXACT copy of Plurk’s innovative left-right timeline scrolling navigation system.
• Some 80% of the client and product codebase appears to be stolen directly from Plurk!
• Plurk was never approached nor collaborated in any capacity with MS on this service.
• As a young startup, we’re stunned, shocked, and unsure what to do next and need your support and suggestions.

And judging by the images and code displayed on the Plurk blog, it seems far too suspicious to be a mere coincidence.

Spot the difference:

And again…

And once more with feeling:

It’s pretty amazing that a company of the size of Microsoft China would even think about stealing code to power a new launch, and that it’s gone this far if so. The only logical reason could be that China’s internet laws and lack of access to the outside world could lead to people thinking no-one would notice.

The question the Plurk team is asking is how to tackle the problem?

My guess is that the bad publicity wouldn’t necessarily worry Microsoft China, but might worry Microsoft itself a little more, particularly given all the efforts to fight Chinese piracy and protect intellectual property that Microsoft has supported. It’s a big harder to do that when you’ve got a clone of a reasonably well-established and successful company sitting there for all to see.

Techcrunch has also covered the story, and I’m looking forward to seeing what, if any, response they get from Microsoft.

My guess will be that MSN Juku will go quiet for a while, before perhaps reappearing with a slightly more unique codebase and design. If not, perhaps the only other option will be for Microsoft to get into acquisition mode – something that didn’t work out well for Google and Jaiku, and isn’t likely to work when the starting point is a complete rip-off!

Update: The outcome is that yes it’s a clone, but apparently done by a third party developer when everyone else was obviously on holiday or in a meeting. The site has been taken offline indefinitely, and the only remaining question is whether Plurk, which is a pretty small and young startup, will bother to try and take matters further, which given the legal resources MSN has, is probably unlikely…