A legal feud Kim Kardashian and Kanye West launched against one of the co-founders of YouTube has been settled. Chad Hurley, who in 2013 was accused of unlawfully filming KimYe’s engagement and uploading it to video site MixBit, has agreed to pay the power couple $440,000, according to TMZ.
Hurley, who co-founded YouTube in 2005 with Steve Chen and Jawed Karim, managed to snag an invite to KimYe’s 2013 engagement ceremony, which took place at AT&T Park in San Francisco. At the time, he was looking to drum up support for MixBit, a Vine-like online video service he and Chen had launched earlier that year. From his seat, Hurley shot footage of the ceremony and uploaded it to MixBit, where it quickly amassed several hundred thousand views.
The video’s existence did not sit well with the happy couple, who alleged Hurley had broken a confidentiality agreement he had previously signed. A lawsuit soon emerged, with Hurley contesting the charges. He reportedly claimed to have not been aware of any agreements preventing him from shooting the ceremony.
The engagement video is still MixBit’s greatest hit; the platform has floundered in the two years since its launch. In 2014, Hurley and Chen’s Avos Systems (the parent company of MixBit) experienced a massive wave of layoffs. A few months later, Chen himself departed the company. Most importantly, MixBit has failed to pick up any major traction among consumers. At this point, it would be extremely optimistic to project any sort of long-term viability for it.
The good news, however, is that Hurley, who profited from YouTube’s $1.65 billion sale to Google in 2006, can surely afford to pay the $440,000 settlement. As for KimYe, they will get to line their pockets. That’s fortunate, because we all know they didn’t have enough money already.
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