Facebook Loses Infringement Lawsuit In Germany Over Copycat Site

from the competition-ain't-bad dept

This is a bit of a surprise, as it appears that Facebook has lost a lawsuit in Germany against a site it accuses of copying Facebook (but in German). It's certainly true that the sites look quite similar, but the German court basically says that looking close is meaningless. If there's no confusion in what site people are on, there's really not much of an issue. And while the sites do have a lot of similarities, being on StudiVZ it's clear that the site is different from Facebook. While this may just be a German court protecting a local company against an American competitor, it seems like a good ruling from a policy perspective. Let the sites compete in the marketplace, rather than worrying about who copied what from whom.

Filed Under: copycat, germany, social networking
Companies: facebook, studivz

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.

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