p2pnet news view | Products:- Facebook recently settled a lawsuit with ConnectU, a site launched at Harvard and whose owners, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss and Divya Narendra, claimed Facebook owner Mark Zuckerberg stole their idea.

Now Facebook is laying the same claim against StudiVZ in Germany.

It claims any differences between the two sites are “nominal” and accuseS StudiVZ of merely “replacing Facebook’s blue colour scheme with a red one,” says the Financial Times, going on:

“In a complaint filed in a California court, Facebook accused StudiVZ – a German company that claims 10m users and calls itself  ‘the most successful social network in Germany, Austria and Switzerland’ – of ‘copying the look, feel, features and services’ of the Facebook site.”

It also says StudiVZ copied, “entire portions of the site’s design, including features such as Facebook’s distinctive ‘wall’, which allows users to leave messages on each other’s profile pages.”

The site, based in Berlin, was bought last year by Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck, a German publishing company, which could not be reached, adds the FT.

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stole their idea -What’s originality got to do with it?, Jube 28, 2008
Financial Times – Facebook sues ‘knock-off’ German site, July 19, 2008

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This entry was posted on Monday, July 21st, 2008 at 12:13 pm and is filed under Product News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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