Skype founders Janus Friis and Niklas Zenstrom filed a copyright infringement suit against current owner eBay and the members of an investment group who recently agreed to acquire a majority stake in Skype.

Through their company Joltid, a peer-to-peer software company, the suitors are seeking for an injunction against Skype and statutory damages, which are reportedly amassing at a rate of more than $75 million daily.

Also listed as defendants are Skype's current owner eBay, as well as investors in a consortium that earlier this month signed a deal with eBay to acquire a 65 percent stake in Skype, with eBay retaining 35 percent.

Skype has infringed Joltid's copyrights, a company spokesman said in a statement. Joltid will vigorously enforce its copyrights and other intellectual property rights in all of the technologies it has innovated.

Their allegations and claims are without merit and are founded on fundamental legal and factual errors, eBay spokesman John Pluhowski said in a statement.

In 2006, eBay bought Skype for $2.6 billion, but co-founders Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom retained the rights to Skype's key peer-to-peer technology--Global Index Software--via the Joltid company they formed.

Joltid terminated its license for the software after learning that Skype had allegedly acquired unauthorized versions of the source code, made unauthorized modifications, and disclosed the software to third persons, according to the lawsuit.

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