Facebook Ownership Suit Came from Arrest

Talk about a lucky coincidence: Paul Ceglia’s recent lawsuit filed against Facebook Inc., in which the 37-year-old self-described environmentalist claims to own 84 percent of the world’s most-popular social networking service, wouldn’t have come to fruition if state troopers hadn’t arrested him in October for fraud. The arrest got him looking through old files, where he came across a forgotten 2003 contract with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, then an 18-year-old freshman at Harvard University. The alleged contract details a $1,000 investment by Ceglia in projects named “The Face Book” and “The Page Book.” In return, the alleged contract gives Ceglia a 50 percent interest in “the software, programming language and business interests derived from the expansion of that service to a larger audience,” among other ownership provisions. Facebook has acknowledged that Zuckerberg did sign a contract with Ceglia, but also said that “Ceglia’s claims are absurd and his lawsuit is frivolous, if not outright fraudulent,” deeming the contract “a forgery.”