Creators of “The Billion Dollar Code” about the inventors of Google Earth

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Based on real events, the Netflix miniseries “The Billion Dollar Code” – created by Oliver Ziegenbalg and Robert Thalheim, and which will be released exclusively on Netflix on Thursday – shows the German inventors of 1994 Terravision and their struggle to be recognized as creators of the Google Earth algorithm. In 2014, Berlin-based ART + COM sued Google for patent infringement, claiming the system bore notable similarities to Google Earth.

‘The Social Network’ was told from the point of view of the winner, or the antagonist: Mark Zuckerberg. We tell our story from the perspective of the Winklevoss brothers, the beautiful losers, ”Ziegenbalg tells Variety at the Zurich Film Festival after the show’s world premiere, referring to David Fincher’s 2010 version of Facebook’s troubled origins.

“Also, in that movie, you don’t really love that guy. You look at it from the outside. We wanted to have characters that you wanted to accompany throughout the whole process, ”adds Thalheim.

Going back and forth between the process, the early days of Silicon Valley and the first wave of the internet revolution in the 1990s, the duo initially envisioned the story as a feature film, quickly embracing the opportunities offered by a much longer format.

“In a feature, everything should be greatly reduced. Now, we could devote the entire episode just to the trial, citing every technical and financial expert. We have always cited ‘Chernobyl’ as an example, where in one episode this boy shows up because he has to kill all the dogs and then disappears again. It would never have worked in a movie, “says Ziegenbalg.

The bitter fight for Terravision has given them a chance to tell a broader story about what people thought the internet could be and what it has become today, they said, justice in the digital age and the “Wild West” of the boom. technician in the 90s.

“We lived in Berlin at that time. We remember that time: we were there! In stories set in the Wild West, there is always a good side and a bad side, but there are no rules either. The strongest invent themselves, as has happened here too, ”adds Thalheim.

“The most powerful cattle baron takes the law into his own hands and this is basically Google. These guys were like these poor farmers, who said: ‘But this is our land!’ ”, Says Ziegenbalg, calling the miniseries“ the final episode ”of the 20-year struggle.

With the help of their protagonists, the artist and hacker played by Leonard Scheicher and Marius Ahrendt, as well as Mark Waschke and Mišel Matičević as their eldest incarnations, also wanted to show the ever-changing nature of friendship.

“Just like in any love relationship, sometimes one is stronger and then it’s up to the other. You only see it transform, “says Thalheim, also citing the men behind it all, some of whom – such as Axel Schmidt, Pavel Mayer or Gerd Grueneis – attended the premiere in Zurich.

“They didn’t come to us, saying, ‘Please tell our story.’ I just talked to Axel yesterday and he told me that after the trial, where they struggled to finally be recognized as entrepreneurs, he took all these papers back to the basement, saying, ‘I’m done. I don’t want to think about it ever again. ‘ When we came to interview them, everything came back up, “he says.

“I think it’s a new beginning. They are not part of our history, but we are part of their history now. ”

“When they asked Mark Zuckerberg if ‘The Social Network’ was his story, he said, ‘It’s all a lie, it’s a fabrication.’ It didn’t support it and Google isn’t supporting us either, “adds Ziegenbalg, wondering about the possible ramifications in the future.

“We have never approached them. They would never get on board anyway, because these big tech companies want to control and protect their company’s image. We just took the risk, deciding to name them, and now we’ll see. We do not know how they will react or if they will denounce us “.

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