Facebook sues German clone StudiVZ
Attorneys representing Facebook have filed a lawsuit against a German-based social networking web site that has a user interface that is virtually identical to Facebook. StudiVZ, the most popular social networking site in Germany, has 10 million regular users and also is the most popular networking site in German. Even though Facebook has a German language web site, it has had a hard time trying to get new users due to sites like StudiVZ and others. The English Facebook web site reportedly has as many as 80 million users spread across the world. Facebook claims the slight changes were “nominal” and the German site simply replaced “Facebook’s blue color scheme with a red one.” Also in the lawsuit, the German site also copied the Facebook wall, groups, friend feed, and other features used in Facebook.
A quick glimpse of the web site does reveal that even from the sign-up page onward, it is almost 100 percent identical to the English version Facebook web site, except in a different color. Facebook could launch lawsuits to stop at least nine other Facebook clone web sites to get shut down, with Xiaonei, operating in China, likely Facebook’s next target. Xiaonei closely mimics Facebook and its user interface, and is the most popular social networking site in China.
Source: Dailytech
Comments(58)
Crazy Germans .
i hope they fail, sure they are very similar, but they aren’t a complete copy, it’s not just the color like the text says, it’s just the structure that is the same, so now every blog host site must face some kind lawsuit because they all share the same structure only different colors :rolleyes:
…
@2 wrong..
If I wrote a blog, and everyone made the same one, I would be pissed, and I will have the right to do so..
Try re-painting Mona Lisa… it’s the same principle.. they invented the website.. you make a similar one (another painting), but you have to make it different (not Mona Lisa).
studiVZ sucked sowieso derbe!
@2, u have no idea.
when a design is copyrighted,it is not to be even partially copied.
Blogs software are owned by respective company,,where u downloaded it for free or paid for the license. Another company can not make same blog software and claim money from it….. So that’s the reason for the lawsuit.
anyone is free to copy the mona lisa – the problem is if they try to claim it is the original and profit from it.
i gotta agree studivz is a weak facebook rip off.
germans are to stupid to realize this.
hope facebook gets the right.
studivz soooo lame compared to facebook.
though those students who “act” like they developed it made out like bandits and got filthy rich by selling it to bertelmann.
hillarity ensues. I#m so bored of these c()ck – nobblers like facebook not having a million enough.
It’s not like StudiVZ stole facebook’s source code. They built it themselves. They’re allowed to do so. Fvcking Americvnts.
Sounds more like Facebook just tries to eliminate any competition because StudiVZ is more popular in Germany.
yeah you guys oughtta sue every site that “logs” “releases” as it’s obviously your very own trade mark!
Law 101. If you’re going to copy something, and masquerade it as your own, atleast change the look of it.
You could achieve similar functionality by making it look different (if not better) and be left alone.
The Germans might have changed the colour scheme, but the layout is similar. But Xiaonei is the same colour scheme!
All of this could be irrelevant though, because the guy who set up facebook is being hassled by former classmates about him allegedly stealing their code for a social networking website they had planned… Hmm…
STUDIVZ IS A COPY!!!!
At the beginning StudiVZ had a glitch, which revealed some source code of the site/db, there where many “Facebook” references in it…
They stole the source code!
habs noch nie benutzt, geschweige davon gehoert.
Kenn ich gar nicht…
Gibts das schon im Netz?
What I want to know is how to see pictures of people who aren’t my friends. The only way I know how is tricking them into adding me. But that takes work. I have to make my profile look believable first.
who cares,facebook sucks
BEING SUED FOR A &*^$’ing website template jesus christ almighty, soon we will have to pay royalties for using certain colors. what are *&^%’ing americans going to copyright next? alphavet letters and numbers?!?!?
alphabet letters^
I think what needs to be looked at in this case, and potentially the China site’s case is whether or not the code of the website is stolen.
Sure the sites may all look similar, but if the code belongs to each of the respective companies they should be able to make their software’s look and layout any way they want.
People copied your money making scheme? Cry more, Facebook — it happens and it’s going to keep happening.
I seriously hope this garbage does not hold up in court. (Unless software theft is at issue)
finally, annoyed me from the first day that I had to use something used just in Germany, and then have a facebook account for friends from GB and the US
das ist ja grosse luge dass sie es nocht nicht gehört haben… ich benutze es fast jeden tag und 90% von studenten mit mir… ist facebook und studivz identisch? ja
D aber ich mag studi viel mehr.. 
I have been using Studivz for a while since it is very popular here in Germany. But from the first time on I have seen that site I was amazed how they could copy everything from Facebook. As someone mentioned above they didn’t steal the actual code, but they did worse: Adding a whole lot of security holes.
I would be so glad if they get sued pretty bad! They really deserve it.
studiVZ for the win!
after 3 months of using facebook I didn’t found anything usefull exept of the frind list. I’ve got dozens of stupid invites, hundreds of spam massages on the seven different walls, for what? studiVZ perhaps copied some prime functions, but has a totaly different audience! It’s for students, and I like it that way.
http://flickr.com/photos/bumi/285541845/sizes/o/
CHECK THIS Flickr PIC!! IT SHOW THE GLITCH ON STUDIVZ WHICH REVEALD THAT THEY MASSIVLY STOLE FROM FACEBOOK!!!!!!
http://flickr.com/photos/bumi/285541845/sizes/o/
I found this via Spiegel.de which is a respected German Paper…
Shut down the site and 10 Mio. (my guess is this is VERY overestimated, they “doubled” their members by creating a similar site “meinvz” and persuaded the studivz-members to register there as well) users will be pissed, including me.
If they want to set foot in germany, just buy the damn thing.
http://www.whocansearch.com/searchblue.aspx
http://www.whocansearch.com/searchblack.aspx
http://www.whocansearch.com/searchpurple.aspx
http://www.whocansearch.com/searchbrown.aspx
http://www.whocansearch.com/searchorange.aspx
http://www.whocansearch.com/searchpinred.aspx
http://www.whocansearch.com/searchyellow.aspx
http://www.whocansearch.com/searchred.aspx
http://www.whocansearch.com/searchgreen.aspx
http://www.whocansearch.com/searchpink.aspx
Guess they sue them to buy it cheaper later this year. Looks a little bit like what ebay did with alando a few years ago. Alando (owned by some brothers..Samwer I think, who lent money to studivz, later got money from Holzbring, now owner of studivz, and bought themselves into facebook now) was a 100% copy of ebay. Same with studivz an several others like Mr.Wong (German copy of Digg) or OpenBc/Xing (copy of Linked, although xing might be better).
LOL, hoffentlich machen sie die Seite zu.
Wie die meisten Leute dort mit ihren privaten Daten umgehen ist echt nicht zu fassen. Selbst Unternehmen suchen vorher nach ihren Bewerbern und entscheiden schon anhand der Bilder und Gruppen ob sie nicht doch einen anderen Kandidaten nehmen.
Naja, im Endeffekt muss es jeder selbst wissen.
Euch allen schöne Semesterferien!
LOL, hopefully they’ll close down the page.
I can’t believe how most people handle their most private secrets and stuff in a community like that.
Even companies go their to look for applicants, to decide whether or not they’ll take em or not.
After all, everyone has to decide for his own good.
Wish you all a nice semester break.
I live in germany. StudivZ is a clone the student who copied the site sold StudiVz for 30 Mio Euro to another company. What a fraud…i hope the will be sued to hell.
@30 wtf u talkin about. studivz has reportedly been sold for 85 Mio. Euros in january 2007 to HOLTZBRINK. While there is no official statemenet, speculations rose of HOLTZBRINK that had even paid 100 Mio Eur or more. http://www.ftd.de/technik/medien_internet/146735.html
…speculations rose that HOLTZBRINK had paid 100 Mio Eur or more. sorry
i hope they shut it down and make all user data public… stupid facebook/studivz/myspace users
@25 “I found this via Spiegel.de which is a respected German Paper…” lol…its like “Bild” or in usa “national inquirer” just for wannabe clever clogs
well, studivz definitely stole the layout and features, but im happy its “made” by germans, just because of teh general terms and conditions act and a few other things. facebook is crap
I admire the students that created StudiVz..
Copy the Facebook idea.. sell it and get enormously rich, and NOW Holtzbrink, the new owner, has the problems with the lawsuits..
try this, its stolen too)))
http://www.vkontakte.ru
@25: you seeing the name “fakebook” there just doesn’t mean that it’s a copy. come on kids, you know nothing about web sites do you?
facebook runs on php. the only way one can copy facebook’s source code is to hack into facebook’s servers and download actual php files. but there is no way to do it, for anybody outside facebook staff, so the clones you see out there are not “copies”. their owners wrote them by themselves. oh, the german developers renamed their folder to “fakebook”, so what?
The Samwer Brothers are the new Bill Gates!
First they copied eBay (named it Alando), then SEVERAL other plattforms.
StudiVZ used stolen code from Facebook (e.g. poke.php).
But they are the thieves of the 21st century…so they not only sold StudiVZ but bought facebook stocks to earn money twice with ONE THEFT.
Also they stole the idea of http://titletrader.com and made a very lame copy http://www.hitflip.co.uk
Same idea: copy good idea, capture market shares on another continent, get away with it.
THE SAMWERS SERIOUSLY NEED TO BE SENT TO JAIL!
Read more about the criminal careers here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Samwer
Is it me, or has no one heard of http://www.hatebook.org?
As halarious and suprisingly genuine a site it is, surely facebook should be looking to file some sort of law suit against them.
Though saying that, I have nothing against hatebook.org! In fact I find it seriously entertaining with the alternative links names reflecting what is known as, hatebook!
i love how Americans come up with something build the groundwork and the effort and some german pukes come along and take credit.
what good is Germany?
Ha, this is funny
Yeah & who/where did Facebook (creators) steal their ideas from? Hmmm…
rico: “YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO? GET IN THERE AND KILL’EM ALL!”
studiVZ is crap. why? because it’s a copy of crap.
why cant people come up with ideas themselves…just copycopycopy…what idiots…
THE PROVE THAN STUDIVZ STOLE CODE
http://flickr.com/photos/bumi/285541845/sizes/o/
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THE PROVE THAN STUDIVZ STOLE CODE
http://flickr.com/photos/bumi/285541845/sizes/o/
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THE PROVE THAN STUDIVZ STOLE CODE
http://flickr.com/photos/bumi/285541845/sizes/o/
@ 37 dash
you’re right, but I doubt sueddeutsche would write about something like that…
http://www.studivz.net
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StudiVZ
better yet, jump right to the juicy part:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StudiVZ#Criticism
Facebook is a bit late with that lawsuit. That site used to look exactly like Facebook except for being red.
What was no surprise at all, because most of the stylesheets and templates were exact copies of the original
Facebook ones, down to file names and entity IDs. PHP errors visible to users contained a path “…/fakebook/…” until not
too long ago. Their equivalent verb for “poke” is “gruscheln” (a completely made up and rather ridiculous word) – and the
PHP script to do it was called… wait for it… poke.php.
This list could go on for quite some time.
They basically copied everything they could from facebook (and I mean copy as in “use wget to download everything” and tried
to replicate the backend. If a ripoff lawsuit was ever justified, it is this one. It just comes too late, or the copy would
have been completely obvious to even a casual observer.
No problem for the original con artists though: They sold to a big german media house for an undisclosed two-digit million sum.
for more check:
http://flickr.com/photos/bumi/285541845/sizes/o/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StudiVZ#Criticism
yes yes and rslog is completely orginal idea… besides facebook is ripoff as well
STUDIVZ SUKKKS….facebook is crap 2…..like all the clones…
good to see you guys get your news from techcrunch.com
they’re afraid of losing the european market… that’s why they’re sueing.
this is just nonsense. facebook earned millions and they already launched a site in germany. why do they even bother? its not about their users anymore, its just the money, beause users can easily have accounts on both sites. i dont know if studiVZ was fist, but thats the industry around the internet: if you dont do it, someone else will. i hope studiVZ survives, because it is MY perfered social site in germany.
PS: great site, love it =D
http://flickr.com/photos/bumi/285541845/sizes/o/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StudiVZ#Criticism
@ Heinrich van Schnitzel, its just the money
as oppose to a business where it is about… well… about what?
If your high morals collide with Facebooks persuade of money,
what are you think when realize that your precious StudiVZ stole the idea, the code and want else they could get from Facebook, and then sold their little Fankenstein for a sh!tload of money…
not all hope is lost 4 you, perhaps they… ahhh who am I kidding, VZ suxxx and that’s it…
I´m just happy that we don´t have such a screwed up justice system in Germany, where lawsuits like these win.
Even if the page was copied – they wrote the php-files themselves and gave it their own name. They can make it as similar as they want, as long as they don´t call in facebook or myspace.
If facebook wants to reach more Germans – buy it. They have enough money.
about time….