Pirate Party Banned From German Site That 'Pirated' Facebook

from the funny-that... dept

A bunch of folks have sent in the story on TorrentFreak about how the German social networking site, StudiVZ, has refused to allow The Pirate Party to create a campaign site, despite setting up campaign groups for every other political party campaigning for office. Chances are that this is just a screwup, where someone at StudiVZ was unfamiliar with the fact that The Pirate Party is a legitimate political party. However, what seems exceptionally ironic is the fact that StudiVZ is involved in a long and ongoing lawsuit with Facebook for copying Facebook's look and feel. Not only that, but StudiVZ's founder "freely admits that he took some of the basic ideas of Facebook and simply improved them." Thus, in the parlance of copyright maximalists, StudiVZ "pirated" Facebook. And, yet, now, it's shut down The Pirate Party's own site.
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: germany, pirate party
Companies: facebook, studivz


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  1. identicon
    Red Beard, 1 May 2009 @ 6:58pm

    AAR MATEY

    Aar them there swashbucklers don't need a site until they get their plank set on a solid deck. I say run 'em through with the cutlass...aar..

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 1 May 2009 @ 7:38pm

    ha..ha...suck my balls!!!!

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. identicon
    Tgeigs, 3 May 2009 @ 4:29am

    Come on

    This is GERMANY! What else do you expect? They are just going after the "software pirates" now because the world gave them a beat down when they tried to go after the "Jesus pirates". Bad innocent Jewish people! Stop stealing all our Jesus.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  4. identicon
    Pest Control, 8 Nov 2010 @ 2:55am

    pest control

    I agree with this article completely this subject is very important to me.


    pest control The Affordable Pest Control Company!

    link to this | view in thread ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.