[dbllxr]

First of all, good luck to the newly launched YC China.

I'm shocked with that much funding, this startup would choose to either or both a) plagiarize, b) falsely advertise, and they didn't even do it well. I'd say the effort is worth $36 without the million.

Both of these actions (plagiarism, fraud) have ethical and legal implications, but it sounds like they are getting away with this by admitting to the public what they did.. That makes me think the investors were already aware/supportive of the whole stunt.

Is this what the startup scene is like in China? I certainly hope not.. but still, it will take heck a lot more innovation from this company for people to ever trust them again.

[adventured]

Someone did the same thing during the dotcom bubble with Microsoft's media player. They pretended to have a new, revolutionary media player technology (which was actually just a skin), and raised ~$18m on the back of that. It all got vaporized, there never was a real product underneath.

I wouldn't chalk this particular instance up to anything more than loose capital ending up in fraudster hands, as occasionally happens when it's sloshing around to such a degree as it is these days.