Facebook and StudiVZ have reached a settlement in the alleged plagiarism case, with the German social network operator paying Zuckerberg and co an undisclosed sum as part of the deal. Both companies will be withdrawing their respective claims both in the United States and Germany and continue to operate their business as before (statement in German).
StudiVZ and Facebook have agreed not to disclose any more details about the settlement.
Facebook filed suit against StudiVZ in California in July last year, alleging that the German company had infringed on Facebook’s “look, feel, features and services” (which clearly was very much the case from the get-go). The International Herald Tribune later revealed that Facebook had been negotiating for months to try to buy StudiVZ, citing a former executive of the German company as its source. That never happened because parent company Georg von Holtzbrinck was reportedly not satisfied with what Facebook was willing to pay for StudiVZ, which it had acquired for the equivalent of $134 million in early 2007.
A second suit was subsequently filed in Germany in November 2008, but two months ago the County Court in Cologne actually ruled against Facebook, also claiming the U.S. company’s lawyers had been ’sloppy’ with their preparations. Facebook immediately announced it would be appealing the court’s decision.
Now that both parties have finally reached a settlement after over a year of lawsuits and failed acquisition attempts, the case is now part of history. You could say Facebook won because the German company is paying an undisclosed sum to the U.S. social networking operator as part of the deal, but at the same time StudiVZ can freely continue to market its services to the German public with an almost identical copy of Facebook’s website (see screenshot below).
(Thanks to Tilman Drerup for the tip)
What was Facebook’s charge here?
Apple v Microsoft established long ago (1994) that merely the layout of interface elements is not copyrightable. A blog that puts its columns and widgets in the same place as TechCrunch is not violating any copyright held by TC.
Something like using the TechCrunch logo would clearly violate copyright (and perhaps a trademark too), but studiVZ isn’t using the Facebook logo or anything else that’s protected.
So… what was the case?
It wasn’t merely the design, but also the alleged copying of features and services. Part of the initial claim was that StudiVZ even took some of the original PHP code and CSS files from Facebook to cut some corners.
i dont think they got hold of any php code cause you cant just copy & paste that like css…
but the first css files where indeed taken from facebook
“Features and services” are not automagically owned by anyone. A patent might be able to cover something unique, but most of what Facebook does can’t be patented — there’s prior art, it’s been done before elsewhere. I don’t think Facebook even has any patents.
So that can’t be what they sued for.
Stealing software code would be copyright infringement, but it sounds like from the judge’s chastisement that Facebook had no evidence that actually happened, and was just guessing.
It’s no wonder they lost their case, and I wonder why studiVZ settled this time.
They have ended their dispute and came to a conclusion that Both companies will be withdrawing their respective claims both in the United States and Germany and they have continued to operate their business as before.This is the important turn in this long problem.
Anyway being a no 1social network in the globe,Facebook won and the German company is paying an undisclosed sum for the deal.
layout appearance is an art, that is copyrighted by itself. it clearly old fb copy and color change, anybody can tell with eyes closed.
lawyers need work too?
here (http://www.flickr.com/photos/bumi/285541845/) is a screenshot of error messages on StudiVZ reporting an undefined index in /usr/www/users/fakebook/index.php
so what would u say?
That they named their Linux account “facebook” when they decided to clone the site. That’s not evidence they ever had access to FB code; it’s doubtful they did.
Actually, it’s named ‘fakebook’. Also make a distinction between the court case in the U.S. and Germany.
Mark Z. must get familiar with this “undisclosed details” process.
Remember his former fellows from ConnectU?
Its all about gaining publicity . Anything which is similar to facebook would sure attrach lot of attention and with STudiVZ facebook for sure will get lot of users. In the coming month StudiVZ will get conected with Facebook …………after that everyone can guess
what was the dispute among them?
German law is very difficult
I am sure the owner Holtzbrinck offered some money to continue their business.
Well – I bet some money now that StudiVZ will be bought by Faccebook soon. And I would bet some more that It will be a shares only deal.
The owners of StudiVZ are quite unhappy about their investment and for Facebook it would be the right move. Since Facebook´s evaluation is so incredible above the roof right now it would cost themsome (stock) paper only and not a lot of money …
BTW: There are no software patents in Europe. (Thank god for that.)
Facebook is already growing like hell in Germany. Organic growth just makes more sense to themnow