Facebook sues German rival

Social-networking giant Facebook has filed a copyright infringement suit against a German counterpart, according to the Financial Times.

StudiVZ is accused of "copying the look, feel, features and services" of Facebook, including its "wall" feature, according to the complaint filed Friday in California, the Financial Times reported.

The suit asserts that the sites are so similar that StudiVZ simply replaced Facebook's "blue color scheme with a red one."

According to StudiVZ's site, the Berlin-based company has 10 million users. The site was purchased last year by German publisher Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck.

Facebook launched its own German language version in March.

CNET News could not immediately reach StudiVZ for comment.

[Collin1000]

I'll admit, it does look alot like facebook. But not anymore with the new site redesign. That is going to cost them credibility big time. In fact, this site looks exactly like all those other facebook clone sites that use a different color scheme.

[LetThereBeNick]

"Facebook stole the idea"
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1558275/Facebook-founder-in-court-over-%27stolen-idea%27.html

Smells like irony.

[luckymikerocks]

That just looks like a website, with login fields on the left and some language choices on the right. If Facebook can claim copyright on that, we're truly f***ed.

[nicholasbray]

Facebook is just a blog with nice social links. They are copy cats BIG TIME, but that is OK.

Who do they think they are accusing someone else of copying "their" idea.

[llannor1]

facebook suing other firm,makes me laugh,what exactly does facebook do exept to copy everything past a present ,look at all the games apps "retro games"......facebook over crowded with ****** that doesnt work ,some viruses ,some things that you dont even agree to but still get them............how about taking facebook to courts for copy rights charges,"oh of course the developers of facebook dont do work they just sit back and let others(the public)create the apps..so face book creators ,what right do you have on taking others to court when in fact you make money on others ideas.you hypocritical *****....

[random3910940123048234018]

If you look at the tour section of their site, it looks exactly like Facebook...down to the "(this is you)" on the Profile picture page. (check it out here: http://www.meinvz.net/l/Tour/2/ )
I don't think studiVZ will have much to stand on, they really have copied the look and feel of Facebook. If you look at the other pages, they've copied other features of Facebook almost exactly too. Facebook is NOT suing them because they've created another similar social networking site, Facebook's suing them because their site looks almost exactly the same.

Additionally, why not include a picture from studiVZ's site? You could have at least put up a picture from the tour page, given people some context...

[random3910940123048234018]

If you look at the tour section of their site, it looks exactly like Facebook...down to the "(this is you)" on the Profile picture page. (check it out here: http://www.meinvz.net/l/Tour/2/ )
I don't think studiVZ will have much to stand on, they really have copied the look and feel of Facebook. If you look at the other pages, they've copied other features of Facebook almost exactly too. Facebook is NOT suing them because they've created another similar social networking site, Facebook's suing them because their site looks almost exactly the same.

Additionally, why not include a picture from studiVZ's site? You could have at least put up a picture from the tour page, given people some context...

[lovepuppy85]

Rather than suing the clones facebook would do well to pay for some decent quality translations rather than the "crowdsourced" gibberish they have at the moment (which their users wrote for free). I used the Spanish version of facebook for a month before switching back to English out of frustration becaue the translations were such bad quality. Americans " wouldn't website use if wrote English it did like this." Likewise, most people in other countries appreciate things being written coherently in their native tounge. Aside from a few who have learnt to speak English properly and have English speaking friends, I think the clones will continue to be more popular than facebook in their respective countries until facebook gets some proper translations done.