Facebook Sues German Company, Claims Ripoff

azuredrake writes "Facebook, the largest social networking site in the US, has sued German social networking site studiVZ on the grounds that studiVZ has copied the look and feel of Facebook in order to piggyback off their success. According to the article, 'The German company sued by Facebook for running a "knockoff" of the social networking Web site said on Sunday it asked a German court to declare that Facebook's claims are without merit.' However, a simple glance at the two sites' homepages seems to tell a different story — studiVZ copies many things from Facebook, from their button layout down to the font they're using."

Comments

Their initial name: Fakebook

[the grace of R'hllor]

Their first version of the site was called Fakebook. Seems pretty obvious.

Re:Their initial name: Fakebook

[ratbag]

and from that page:

The site's most common criticism is its astounding similarity to Facebook and Dariani admits that it is based on it. Except from some additional features such as seeing who most recently visited one's profile, the differences are in name only to be strictly German. Facebook's "poke" has been named "gruscheln" for example Some of the error messages reveal that one of the folders on the site is called "Fakebook", indicating that the developers were well aware of the similarities.

Re:Their initial name: Fakebook

[kaos07]

It wasn't called "Fakebook". That was the name of a sub-folder somewhere in the directory where error messages came from. Not sure how it's any different to say an Orkut developer poking (Mind the bad pun) a bit of fun at Myspace by labelling a folder "Cryspace".

Re:Their initial name: Fakebook

[mr_matticus]

Not sure how it's different?

It's a re-use of code, functionality, layout, and features...and it's a conscious ripoff of the name.

It's not a joke taking a crack at a competitor. Orkut didn't rip off Myspace more or less verbatim.

Re:Their initial name: Fakebook

[kaos07]

Let's deal with these one by one.

Code? So you've seen the source for both these sites? And they're the same? I didn't think so.

Functionality? It's like any other social networking site... You login, you add friends, you write blogs, you post comments, you upload photo's and videos etc. Nothing unique to Facebook.

Layout? They both have a login screen on the left. Ohno! And Facebook hasn't actually trademarked their layout or font, which TFA says are two of things their case is based on.

Features? Essentially the same as functionality. Facebook doesn't over much unique things over other social networking sites, you can hardly call this a rip-off of one and not the other.

The name is an abbreviation for the German "Studentenverzeichnis" or "Studienverzeichnis", which means "Students' Directory". Which is pretty much what it is. Not sure how Students Directory = Facebook.

Re:Their initial name: Fakebook

[mr_matticus]

Code? So you've seen the source for both these sites?

Server side, no. But take a look at the source presented in the browser.

Functionality? It's like any other social networking site

They're not all the same. The functionality of MySpace is considerably different from that of LinkedIn, and likewise from Orkut, and likewise from Facebook. Further, TFA makes reference to the Facebook-specific "poke" feature.

Layout? They both have a login screen on the left.

They also have the same arrangement of top and bottom links, boxed in. The curved top bar is from an earlier layout of Facebook's homepage, and the text area and dimensions of the interface elements are the same. How do you know whether or not Facebook has filed a look and feel trademark? It seems they have, based on their legal policies online.

Features? Essentially the same as functionality.

Features are not the same as functionality. Features are the on-screen graphical elements (i.e. the content inside a layout), functionality is the underlying mechanics. Again, Facebook is distinctive in its home page, profile, and other elements, as compared to other social networking sites.

Not sure how Students Directory = Facebook.

Now it's clear to me. You are some combination of an idiot or a troll.

A facebook is exactly a student directory. It is a publication of contact information, interests, activities, and the like distributed to students or members of an organization.

Re:Their initial name: Fakebook

[Rocketship Underpant]

But what seems obvious, exactly? That they're similar? That StudiVZ is inspired by Facebook? That's hardly a crime. Every function and layout concept found on either site can be found on hundreds of other social networking sites around the Internet. And of the millions of websites in the world, you'll have trouble finding even one that doesn't borrow nearly every element of design and functionality sites that came before.

Reuters doesn't even mention any specific legal complaint by Facebook, just that it's a "knockoff" and Facebook wants daddy to make the big bad German site stop. It seems to me, though, that if the German site is popular, it's because it's reaching a user-base that Facebook was either unable or too slow to reach.

Facebook hasn't lost anything. They're still growing in popularity and users worldwide. What's there to complain about? The world owes them even more than the wild success they've already achieved?

Re:Their initial name: Fakebook

[mr_matticus]

At the expense of feeding the incompetent troll...

So according to you, if I wanted to make another social networking site aimed at college students I'd have to call it something random, otherwise I'd be a plagiarist?

Yes, you'd have to come up with something other than a translation of "facebook" (which is neither narrow nor slang, regardless of whether or not you've encountered the term before), if in addition to copying the name, you lifted entire sections of code, layout, features, and functionality.

It's not any one thing. It's not the name alone. It's not the layout alone. It's not the font family alone. It's the combination of those and the others. There was no need to duplicate so carefully--it was either intentional wagon-hitching or malicious sloth. Neither is acceptable. Plenty of other social networking sites manage to get started without being complete ripoffs.

Re:Their initial name: Fakebook

[TheLink]

So what if they've called it fakebook. It doesn't mean they are the same or a ripoff.

Sure they look similar, but so do most things that try to do the same thing.

Does the javascript and other code look the same?

If it does then maybe it's a ripoff. If it looks different, then it's probably different.

I haven't tried it but if it doesn't require javascript to work, then it most certainly is different from facebook.

Re:Their initial name: Fakebook

[mischi_amnesiac]

Facebook can not be translated into german as Studendenverzeichnis. It literally means Gesichtsbuch and as I understand it, it is a play on the english word yearbook. So it's a neologism and has nothing to do with the german word Studentenverzeichnis.

Re:Their initial name: Fakebook

[alex4u2nv]

lol: he saw that they both started with ""

Re:Their initial name: Fakebook

[TractorBarry]

Should really have been called "Tracebook".

The Worlds premier datamining website :)

Re:Their initial name: Fakebook

[alex4u2nv]

I lose, edit chomped my html. Repeating a joke sucks.

But It was supposed to say, it started with <!DOCTYPE... and ended with .../html>

Re:Their initial name: Fakebook

[kaos07]

And and the other poster who was modded into oblivion are making essentially the same point that because they both have names explicitly stating what the site is for, the second one must be a copy. That's incorrect and a tad silly.

Look at Netscape Navigator. It came out in 1994. The name makes it pretty simple to understand what it's about. It allows you "Navigate" the internet. Next year, Internet Explorer was released. It's name was similarly mundane. It allows you to "Explore" the internet. They were both fundamentally different programs but their purpose and audience was the same. Hence, so was their name.

The similarities to this case don't stop there.

The "layout" was the same. Address bar at the top, logo in the top right corner and similar bookmarking functionality. These are just the things I can remember off the top of my head. So just as it would have been stupid for Netscape to sue Microsoft on that basis, it's equally stupid for Facebook to sue StudiVZ.

Re:Their initial name: Fakebook

[mr_matticus]

Your post does not make sense. The literal translation of "facebook" would indeed be Gesichtsbuch, but that word has no meaning in German. The German lexical equivalent is 'Studendenverzeichnis'. Facebook is not a neologism, nor is Studendenverzeichnis.

Re:Their initial name: Fakebook

[mischi_amnesiac]

Yes, it does have a meaning. Gesichtsbuch or Buch der Gesichter (The first noun would be in the genitiv case) means book of faces, a book that contains faces of people. In german you can virtually create absurd long words simply by combining nouns. Example: Dampfschifffahrtskäpitänsvereinigungsgewerkschaft. Translation: Union of the coalition of captains of steam navigation. So Gesichtsbuch has a meaning in german.

Re:Their initial name: Fakebook

[moronoxyd]

Well, actually, they do, in some way.

Facebook started a German website some time ago, after ignoring the world outside of the United States for years.
But they are very unsuccessful, while StudiVZ is one of the biggest community site of that kind in Germany.

So most people over here believe that Facebook went to court to get rid of a competitor.

Re:Their initial name: Fakebook

[Jesus_666]

I don't think that they reuse the code. Facebook doesn't have nearly as bad a reputation as StudiVZ, which is a data mining goldmine. If you submit ANY data to the website you can be sure that someone can extract it from their database with minimal effort.

Re:Their initial name: Fakebook

[mr_matticus]

Yes, you can create the word, but it does not have the meaning that 'facebook' has in English. It would be a neologism.

The German word for 'facebook' (NOT 'Facebook') is Studendenverzeichnis. Studendenverzeichnis does not mean yearbook, which is a different, but similar, type of publication.

Re:Their initial name: Fakebook

[mr_matticus]

Nothing you said says anything about reusing code. Adding datamining is a copy and paste operation, which they've plainly already mastered:
http://flickr.com/photos/bumi/285541845/sizes/o/

Also note that their "poke" function is named...poke.php. Most of their functions and libraries, in fact, are written in English...and named identically to their Facebook counterparts. The rest of the code, however, is in German (i.e. what they added or bothered to rename).

Re:Their initial name: Fakebook

[Anonymous Coward]

Just a few clicks confirms that it lets users register without requiring script be enabled. In other words, if I got invites from studiVZ I could register whereas if I got invites from Facebook I could not (Well I could fire up a VM but I'd probably reverse engineer the javascript). That isn't to say that I would ever register for either but at least it's technically possible for me to do so on studiVZ without compromising my security.

Re:Their initial name: Fakebook

[Jesus_666]

I have never heard the word "Gesichtsbuch" (indeed a neologism in German) and it would certainly not be translated into "Studentenverzeichnis" (not a neologism). A Verzeichnis is a directory, something you can search through to get current information on something. A yearbook serves a different purpose and wouldn't be called a Verzeichnis. The proper term here would indeed be Jahrbuch.

IAAGUS (I Am A German University Student).


Oh, and don't forget that it's difficult to claim rights to generic terms. The site is called "StudiVZ" because "Studentenverzeichnis" is generic enough to be difficult to defend. So even if "Facebook" translated into "Studentenverzeichnis" Facebook would have a hard time claiming that their name was ripped off because a) it's a generic term used by lots of people (a quick google shows the sites FriendScout24, CampusNet.de, StudentenNet.de, pruefungsgeil.de, LINKSILO.DE and LinkARENA.com all using the term - and that's just the first page) and b) the site's name is different; even though it's a contraction of the term it is quite different.

Re:Their initial name: Fakebook

[mr_matticus]

I have never heard the word "Gesichtsbuch" (indeed a neologism in German) and it would certainly not be translated into "Studentenverzeichnis" (not a neologism).

Exactly my point.

A facebook is not a yearbook. It is a student directory--literally, a 'Studentenverzeichnis'. Neither 'Gesichtsbuch' nor 'Jahrbuch' would be appropriate translations of 'facebook'.

Oh, and don't forget that it's difficult to claim rights to generic terms.

No one is making any such claim. Perhaps you are not familiar with the concept of trade dress, nor the steps involved in defending it.

It is not any one element of duplication that is dispositive; it is the replication of an entire ambiance. A translation of the name, coupled with the lifting of code, the extensive similarity in layout (even outright duplication of CSS in previous versions of the site) all combine to constitute more than sufficient grounds for a trademark claim.

Re:Their initial name: Fakebook

[Arancaytar]

> Not sure how Students Directory = Facebook.

Well, admittedly, Facebook used to be strictly for students too before they sold out and decided to become Myspace 2.0.

The irony of Facebook suing someone else for plagiarism is hopefully not lost on everyone.

The second irony here is that whether or not anything was ripped off, the alleged perpetrators of said rip-off have made their big .com (or rather Web 2.0) winnings and moved on. The original coders of StudiVZ have sold it for a ton of money, and I doubt they're the ones in court now.

Re:Their initial name: Fakebook

[Jesus_666]

Adding datamining is a copy and paste operation, which they've plainly already mastered:

I'm not talking about some function they offer; I'm taking about ridiculously bad security. Last semester one of the members of my student project wrote a little crawler during the lunch breaks that would crawl StudiVZ and extract the personal data of as many users as possible for future application in spam mails. It took him what, two weeks? While he was eating and chatting with the rest of us. (We could finally talk him out of spamming, however. Now he wants to use the data for targetted advertising.)

StudiVZ is simply badly written. If the same applies to Facebook I can see the ripoff, but I haven't heard much about Facebook being extensively mined against their own will so far.

Re:Their initial name: Fakebook

[mr_matticus]

That's indicative of their idiocy and evidence of their literal copying. They can ripoff the files with wget, but they still had to put together some form of backend--that would be their failure. If they had any skill whatsoever, they'd have a more original layout.

It's just a bad copy by talentless hacks. It doesn't have anything to do with whether or not they lifted the frontend web code.

It's the database that would be targetted by the crawler, not the web pages.

Re:Their initial name: Fakebook

[nospam007]

>Let's deal with these one by one. ...

They are more successful in Germany than Facebook, hence the lawsuit.

Re:Their initial name: Fakebook

[Jesus_666]

I don't contest that much of StudiVZ was copied off Facebook. However, I doubt that the name claim goes very far. "Facebook" is not a synonym for "student directory", it is a specific instance of a student directory. And even if "facebook" were a synonym for "student directory" that still would not give Facebook an automatic claim to any term that describes student directories. "StudiVZ" is a very distinct name that is unlikely to be confused with "Facebook", especially not by the intended audience.

It's also unlikely that someone will think "hey, 'StudiVZ' means 'Studentenverzeichnis', which is the same as a 'facebook'" as StudiVZ operates in Germany where - surprise - everyone speaks German and simply doesn't encounter the term "facebook" anywhere escept the name of the social networking site.

Again, I don't contest Facebook's case per se but I do contest the claim that the name was ripped off. "Studentenverzeichnis" is a rather obvious name choice for a student directory and a contraction that makes it both easier to type and is a non-generic term is the obvious next step. Facebook didn't come up with the term "student directory" so I fail to see why they should get exclusive rights to the term and any derived terms.

Re:Their initial name: Fakebook

[drsmithy]

(We could finally talk him out of spamming, however. Now he wants to use the data for targetted advertising.)

So you talked him out of spamming, but now he wants to use it for... spamming ? :)

Re:Their initial name: Fakebook

[Carewolf]

Facebook is very US-centric. As a non-american you always end up with mental questions like: What highschool did I go too? Hmm, I didn't go to high-school, the high-school equivalent education I took, is halfway college-equivalent too. So what is college did you go too? Hmm, I didn't go to college I went straight to university... What did I major in? We don't have majors, what are they talking about?.. Minor? what the hell is a minor? The site sucks.

Re:Their initial name: Fakebook

[Jesus_666]

We talked him out of unsolicited ads. I don't really know what his current model is or if he even intends to use the data he gathered. I think the latest idea was to see if someone who has already opted in to email ads is registered with StudiVZ and to use the data gathered from them to make the mails sent to him more relevant.

Re:Their initial name: Fakebook

[tubapro12]

I'll bite the flamebait. You say the soruce presented in the browser by the two sites is similar?

• studiVZ's homepage is linked to just over 1000 lines of CSS, while Facebook's homepage includes over 2000.
• studiVZ validates as valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional, Facebook fails trying to call itself XHTML 1.0 Strict.

If the markup is this different, imagine how different the underlining server scripts probably could be. Facebook appears to be powered by PHP (/*.php) but studiVZ is hiding extension and doesn't expose its PHP if that's what it is even using.

Re:Their initial name: Fakebook

[civilizedINTENSITY]

If it is true that "look and feel" are now protected intellectual property, its time to change the law. Thats just *wrong*.

Re:Their initial name: Fakebook

[civilizedINTENSITY]

Agreed: else we'd have the case where the second or third spreadsheet ever made would start suing whoever came next.

Re:Their initial name: Fakebook

[civilizedINTENSITY]

So the real crux to this matter is that Facebook (like Walmart?) has done well in the USA and found that they don't "get" how other cultures work, and fail there. So they are suing. Does this mean that Facebook is attempting to make non-homogeneous culture illegal? "Diversity makes business more complicated."

Re:Their initial name: Fakebook

[not already in use]

A bit of an aside, but there was short period of time where facebook was serving it's PHP source as plain text. I'm sure it could be found somewhere out there in some obscure location.

Re:Their initial name: Fakebook

[bucky0]

At the risk of feeding the troll:

>>Yes, you'd have to come up with something other than a translation of "facebook" (which is neither narrow nor slang, regardless of whether or not you've encountered the term before), if in addition to copying the name, you lifted entire sections of code, layout, features, and functionality.

When I started college back in '03, all the incoming freshmen could send in their pictures which would then be compiled into a book. It was called "The Facebook". It was produced by a company that the university contracted out to, so I'm sure that they had other customers as well.

In fact, when was called just "facebook", I was confused by when my friends at other students had "facebook me!" away messages on their instant messenger client.

Re:Their initial name: Fakebook

[mi]

It's a re-use of code, functionality, layout, and features...and it's a conscious ripoff of the name.

As almost any slashdotter worthy of their karma should immediately point out, nobody has lost any tangible material goods via somebody else's copying of their work (and if they did, they grossly overestimate their value, anyway). Thus neither the informal term "ripoff" nor the formal "theft" may possibly apply.

They will then begin implying, that because this is not exactly like stealing, then it is not at all like stealing, and thus there is nothing wrong with it... It is all the victim's fault anyway, because Facebook sucks, does not it?

Oh, and the computer illiterate single (grand-)mothers can not be stealing anything — because we sympathize with them...

Be sure, you have your private-investigator license renewed, before you post a disagreeing response.

Re:Their initial name: Fakebook

[clone53421]

If the markup is this different, imagine how different the underlining server scripts probably could be.

Ignoring any similarity at the user level or the browser level, how the hell are they supposed to copy the server level code? You can't SEE it. I could decide to make a site that copied facebook exactly - down to the very last detail - and I'd still have to recreate all the server side code.

Re:Their initial name: Fakebook

[UltraAyla]

To respond to your talk about the layout (everything else is being addressed by others), I think you should take a look at this page from the tour of their spanish language site (I can't read german):

http://www.estudiln.net/tour/es/profile.php?tourId=xvz&skinId=xvz

If you are a facebook user, you will know just how blatant of a ripoff this is - trademark or not

Re:Their initial name: Fakebook

[Haeleth]

Not sure how Students Directory = Facebook.

Now it's clear to me. You are some combination of an idiot or a troll.

Right, because everyone who is not a college student in the United States is an idiot or a troll.

Hint: "facebook" is not a standard English word. Look it up -- you won't find it in Merriam-Webster, for example. It may well be a North American college-student slang term; I shall take your word for this. In Europe, however, it does not exist at all, except as the name of a specific website.

(Second hint: Germany is not in North America.)

Re:Their initial name: Fakebook

[mr_matticus]

You're a slashdotter all right, but a misguided and confused one, just like the masses.

Thanks for playing, but you're absolutely dead wrong.

There's so much wrong with your post that it's impossible to know where to begin. For starters: ripoff != theft. Ripoff: n, copy or imitation. Also steal != theft. Tangible, material goods are not requisite to stealing.

Further, you're completely off base because this is a trademark case, not copyright. Go back to your regularly scheduled ignorance.

Re:Their initial name: Fakebook

[mi]

trademark case, not copyright.

Ouch, these are so different, it hurts — not. Both are "intellectual property", which — as is all well known around here — is "imaginary". If copying someone else's music against their will is Ok, then copying somebody else's web-site against their will is Ok too.

Your complaint is thus deemed without merit and dismissed with prejudice.

BTW, did you have a license to investigate the facts here?

Re:Their initial name: Fakebook

[mr_matticus]

...exactly. A facebook is a publication used by universities, large law firms, political organizations, and some businesses. It's an established word and not a unique product, nor is it a slang term for some other publication. It's considered by some to be colloquial, but not slang.

Re:Their initial name: Fakebook

[mr_matticus]

Wow. You certainly win the award for fulfilling the ignorant Slashdotter stereotype down to a T.

All property is imaginary, no quotes needed. Copying music without authorization is not legal either. You can't dismiss this action with prejudice.

Re:Their initial name: Fakebook

[mr_matticus]

That's plainly false. It is neither North America-specific nor is it college student-specific. It is indeed used in Europe--in fact, Airbus issues facebooks to its project teams. In German, it does exist, as Studentenverzeichnis--otherwise the site's name would not make sense. The two refer to the exact same publication. In the United States, Facebook.com is named after the Harvard Facebook, the official, physical publication it was meant to compete with and replace. It is synonymous with directory, and one of several terms used idiomatically throughout the world, as opposed to a yearbook, which is fairly North America-specific.

I am not a college student in the United States. It is not slang. It is at best colloquial, but considering its use in business, even that is stretching things. Its most popular use now is the multi-billion dollar social networking site, but the name was specifically challenged because it was a generic term, in a fairly high-profile legal challenge to Facebook.

Re:Their initial name: Fakebook

[riceboy50]

you won't find it in Merriam-Webster, for example

FYI: http://www.merriam-webster.com/info/07words.htm

Re:Their initial name: Fakebook

[mr_matticus]

http://flickr.com/photos/bumi/285541845/sizes/o/

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/18/facebook-sues-german-social-network-studivz/

http://mashable.com/images/facebookbigshot1.png

Check out the links to the Internet Archive home pages made by other posters, while you're at it. Facebook's home page recently changed, and their additional CSS is because their style sheets link to broad sets of standard styles. You don't mean to imply with a straight face that breaking up the CSS differently is evidence that it was written originally, or that even if it was, that it's not intended to duplicate arbitrary choices made by Facebook designers, do you?

Explain to me why all the unique content coding at studiVZ is in German, while all their PHP is in English, and named exactly the same as the includes, libraries, and function pages as Facebook.

Re:Their initial name: Fakebook

[mr_matticus]

"Facebook" is not a synonym for "student directory", it is a specific instance of a student directory.

No it's not.

And even if "facebook" were a synonym for "student directory" that still would not give Facebook an automatic claim to any term that describes student directories.

For the love of $Deity, no one, Facebook.com included, is claiming that.

It's not rocket science, people. It is not any one element. It is not the font alone. It is not the name alone. It is not the layout alone. It is not the exactly identical (and English) naming of files and functional PHP code in a German website alone. It is not the fact that the web folder is "Fakebook" alone. It is not the similar intent and purpose of the site alone. It is the sum of the reproductions, showing a pervasive and complete attempt to replicate the distinctiveness of a third party.

I don't know why this must be repeated so many friggin' times.

Re:Their initial name: Fakebook

[kaos07]

Rofl. How did I end up getting modded as troll.

Re:Their initial name: Fakebook

[Jesus_666]

I don't know why this must be repeated so many friggin' times.

I did acknowledge it in the very first sentence on my post...

Re:Their initial name: Fakebook

[mr_matticus]

The comment was more general exasperation than an individual comment. There is no way to address the "masses"--the latter half of my comment is directed at a generalized 'you'(pl.).

Re:Their initial name: Fakebook

[bucky0]

Sorry, I misread the difference between a colloquialism and slang that you were pointing out.

Seriously?

[WK2]

Seriously? I just checked both sites, and they look kind of similar, but not much. They're not even the same color, or the same language. I seriously doubt anybody would confuse the two.

http://www.studivz.net/
http://www.facebook.com/

Re:Seriously?

[Twigmon]

I agree completely. I just looked as well.. I went to the registration pages - they look completely different. How can 'using the same font' be considered a rip off? We only have about 5 fonts that we can use on the web!

I have a client who believes that every 'business directory' is ripping off his business directory. Fact is - there are going to be similar sites simply because there are so many sites. Dodgy thing about this client is, when he first told me what he wanted, he showed me examples from other business directories.

You don't become or stay the biggest by taking every other site to court, just make sure you are providing the best service and marketing properly...

Re:Seriously?

[WK2]

Oh, and get this. They don't even use the same font. They both use the same font family (sans serif), but that's only a fallback. If you have the necessary fonts installed, then Facebook will use "lucida grande", while the German site will use tahoma. Granted, if you don't have lucida grande, then they will both fallback to the same list, tahoma, verdana, arial, and then sans serif.

So, if you have "lucida grande" installed, then you will see two different, although quite similar, fonts on the two pages.

Re:Seriously?

[xalorous]

"[M]ake sure you are providing the best service and marketing properly..."

Nicely said.

Re:Seriously?

[the_other_chewey]

[I use neither site, but followed their development from early on]

Seriously? I just checked both sites, and they look kind of similar, but not much.

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
estimated to be around 50 million Euros.

Re:Seriously?

[KGIII]

There are a few more than five available, not many but a few, available for the typically configured machine. Seems to me that, in this day and age, there should actually be more fonts available in all the various OSes so that designers have more choices in a simpler way but that's a topic for another day. I should like to think that a judge would just giggle at a claim such as this, I've looked at the sites in question and though I don't speak German it really would be hard to see even vaguely important similarities other than they're both social networking sites directed at students. Well, I'm not sure if Facebook is still meant to be just for students but who knows?

Re:Seriously?

[Lord Lode]

They ARE quite similar, the button style of Facebook is easily recognisable in StudiVZ. So they did rip Facebook off, they could at least have designed the shapes themselves instead of ripping off someone else's work.

Re:Seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

Try these:
http://web.archive.org/web/20051127084214/http://www.facebook.com/
http://web.archive.org/web/20060101110221/http://www.studivz.de/

Re:Seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

I always thought "gruscheln" was made up from "grüssen" (to greet) and "kuscheln" (to cuddle)... but I may be wrong.

Re:Seriously?

[TheSeer2]

Look similar to me.

Re:Seriously?

[digitig]

No problem for the original con artists though: They sold to a big german media house for an undisclosed two-digit million sum estimated to be around 50 million Euros.

When did that happen? It sounds to me as if Facebook might have the timing just right, not late at all, now that it's owned by somebody with enough assets to be suing for.

Re:Seriously?

[the_other_chewey]

No problem for the original con artists though: They sold to a big german media house for an undisclosed two-digit million sum estimated to be around 50 million Euros.

When did that happen? It sounds to me as if Facebook might have the timing just right, not late at all, now that it's owned by somebody with enough assets to be suing for.

The sale was settled in early January 2007. So even if they waited for some sueworthy assets, the lawsuit isn't beyond the fastest.

Re:Seriously?

[**loki969**]

Seriously? I just checked both sites, and they look kind of similar, but not much. They're not even the same color, or the same language. I seriously doubt anybody would confuse the two.

http://www.studivz.net/
http://www.facebook.com/

It's not about getting the two confused, it is about stealing their code.

Rumors say that the bunch of students that founded studivz payed some ukrainian it-students to crack facebook to steal the code. And after studivz took of they sold it to the Holtzbrinck publishing company for 50 million Euros. :D

Re:Seriously?

[Registered Coward v2]

Oh, and get this. They don't even use the same font. They both use the same font family (sans serif), but that's only a fallback. If you have the necessary fonts installed, then Facebook will use "lucida grande", while the German site will use tahoma. Granted, if you don't have lucida grande, then they will both fallback to the same list, tahoma, verdana, arial, and then sans serif.

So, if you have "lucida grande" installed, then you will see two different, although quite similar, fonts on the two pages.

Technically, sans serif is not a font family but a style (without serifs, those embellishments at the end of the letters (the little hooks or balls) of a font. They are used to make a printed page look better; but are hard to effectively display on many monitors it is the desired style for fonts. There still is a font family associated with it, whether its Tahoma, Arial, etc. The font family defines the font's characteristics - i.e. how to draw an A - that appear on screen.

In the case of style sheets, it's selecting Tahoma sans serif, Veranda sans serif, etc. Finally there may be a system default if it finds none of the others, and it displays that font in a sans serif style.

Re:Seriously?

[Registered Coward v2]

Why should that even matter? Facebook didn't create those fonts.

If they made a font from scratch and studiVZ stole that, then they might have a claim. As I am seeing it, the two sites really don't look similar. At least no more similar than a million other sites do.

This is clearly a frivolous claim on Facebook's part.

In the US, unless the law has changed, font names are trademarkable but the actual font appearance is not. That may only hold true for traditional black line fonts, not ones that are elaborate works of art themselves (such as say letters created from animals posing), but IANAL. Not sure about Germany or how the Bern convention impacts German treatment of a US company's claim.

That's why you see fonts that are identical or nearly identical but with different names - Helvetica (Linotype's TM and MS San Serif, for example.

Finally, further complicating matters is the manner in which the font is rendered or created by a program can be copyrighted or patented, meaning you can display the font but not using the same algorithms, for example, to render it.

Re:Seriously?

[Splab]

Well if they ripped off facebook, then facebook ripped off about a million other sites with a login form and quick links to important parts of the site...

There are only so many ways of setting up your login box and the order in which you can put, help, about, etc.

Re:Seriously?

[wmbetts]

Wow I never thought I'd see a link to someones site I know in real life on /. .

Re:Seriously?

[M-RES]

Actually, the font used by Facebook is a customised (by designer and typographer Joe Kral) version of what appears to be Klavika. If the German site have actually used Klavika in it's original form and not the customised version then they may look very similar, but aren't actually the same font, thus Facebook can't sue. If they HAVE used Facebook's own font (bought and paid for by Facebook and no doubt OWNED by them too), then they're in an actionable position. In reality ALL fonts are copyrighted and it's up to the individual typehouse or, er, individual, to set the license terms for use (whether it's a free open source font, use for commercial work etc), just as all other creative works. This is why Arial was developed. M$ didn't want to pay Adobe for the license to Helvetica (originally an ITC foundry font, which Adobe bought the rights to), so instead they modified it (slightly different character spacing, aka kerning, slightly different x-height, minor tweaks to the lower-case t and the capital R etc - just enough to declare it officially 'different') and didn't use the copyrighted 'Helvetica' name. Other type foundries have followed the same path. Bitstream for instance developed their own version and dubbed it Swiss (721 I think - there are many different sans fonts in the 'Swiss' family which are Bitstream versions of other fonts and grouped together under a numbering scheme), Monotype had their own (not 'Sans Serif' which was developed circa 1986 by Richard Ware*). So copyright of fonts is viable. Although it's easy to get around. But claiming someone's use of an original font violates copyrights of another company who use a modified version of that font does not stand. *Just want to point out, 'Sans Serif' is a vastly different family to Helvetica and more closely akin to Futura or Avenir. A totally different character shape. Low x-height, very rounded character shapes, almost monoline stroke widths.

Re:Seriously?

[M-RES]

No, as I mentioned earlier, technically 'sans-serif' is a font STYLE (as you correctly point out - without the 'serifs' on the end of characters, but 'Sans Serif' is a type FAMILY (not just a font - there's a big difference). Although in the case of displaying a font in a browser, everything else you say is spot on (where it checks specific fonts, then degrades to any available sans system font). ...carry on, nothing to see here...

Re:Seriously?

[MacDork]

If a ripoff lawsuit was ever justified, it is this one.

That's the big question, isn't it? As long as they aren't using copyrighted Facebook images or trying to pass themselves off as the real Facebook, I see no problem with it at all. It's bad enough that we have ridiculous lawsuits due to software patents. I don't think more lawsuits is a good idea here. There's only so many ways you can lay things out with CSS. There are also only a small handful of "web safe" fonts that you can pretty much guarantee will be on every browser. With limits like that, you're bound to have lots of collisions.

Re:Seriously?

[Registered Coward v2]

In reality ALL fonts are copyrighted and it's up to the individual typehouse or, er, individual, to set the license terms for use (whether it's a free open source font, use for commercial work etc), just as all other creative works.

Not in the US at least - the names typically are trademarked but the font design itself is not copyrightable.

Re:Seriously?

[Registered Coward v2]

No, as I mentioned earlier, technically 'sans-serif' is a font STYLE (as you correctly point out - without the 'serifs' on the end of characters, but 'Sans Serif' is a type FAMILY (not just a font - there's a big difference).

Although in the case of displaying a font in a browser, everything else you say is spot on (where it checks specific fonts, then degrades to any available sans system font). ...carry on, nothing to see here...

I don't want to argue semantics because it appears this is a case of the same terminology being used in multiple ways - to define style s- serif, cursive, san serif, etc; as well as the traditional family of fonts - Arial, Helvetica, etc.

That, IMHO, is why using the same terminology to describe different aspects of a field of endeavor, or any other related set of things / activities, is a bad idea.

Re:Seriously?

[vux984]

There are a few more than five available, not many but a few, available for the typically configured machine.

More than 5 available, but only 5 that are actually usable for content.

Comic Sans is pretty much off limits unless you are doing a myspace page.

The monospace fonts, while valuable for code snippets, numerical tables, and so forth are completely unsuitable for content.

That leaves us with Times (+Times New Roman) and Georgia for serif choices (2 fonts)

For sans serif, your link suggests we have:
Andale mono, arial, century gothic, trebuchet, and verdana.
(arial black, and impact real arent very useful outside of titles)

Andale Mono doesn't belong on that list at all, I think its on less than 15% of windows PCs.
Century Gothic is represented best on Windows at around 80%, 60% on Mac; that's not exactly 'great'.

So for sans serif, the practical list of fonts is arial, verdana, & trebuchet. (3 fonts)

For a total of five fonts.

Re:Seriously?

[clone53421]

There are only so many ways of setting up your login box and the order in which you can put, help, about, etc.

Right... but if you copy the code, it's violating copyright. I don't suppose you looked at the source of those pages? They're obviously almost identical; in many cases the divs and inputs are even named exactly the same thing. I'm not just talking about "email" and "pageheader", either... why the hell do both of them have divs with an id of "squicklogin"?

I won't copy-paste the code here, because I can't figure out how to get slashdot to be nice to the indentation, but facebook's runOnload() is EXACTLY the same as studivz's JavaScriptOnLoad() function. Here's just an excerpt from the two pages though... put them in two Notepad windows and compare them side by side...

facebook:

<body onload="runOnload();">

<div id="book">
<div id="pageheader">
<h1 id="homelink"><a href="/">Facebook</a></h1>
<ul id="gnav">
<li><a href='http://www.facebook.com/login.php'>login</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.facebook.com/register.php">register</a></li><li><a href='http://www.facebook.com/about.php'>about</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.facebook.com/help.php'>help</a></li>
</ul>
</div>

<div id="sidebar">

<div id="squicklogin">
<form method="post" action="http://www.facebook.com/login.php">
<label for="email">E-mail:</label>
<input type="hidden" name="noerror" value="1" />
<input class="inputtext" type="text" name="email" value="" id="email" size="20" />
<label for="pass">Password:</label>
<input class="inputtext" type="password" name="pass" id="pass" size="20" />
<div class="buttons"><input type="submit" class="inputsubmit" value="Login" id="doquicklogin" name="doquicklogin"/><input type="button" class="inputsubmit" value="Register" id="doquickregister" name="doquickregister" onclick="javascript:document.location='http://www.facebook.com/register.php';" /></div>

</form>
</div>
<div id="ssponsor"></div></div>

studivz: (I snipped the PHP session id from the URLs and the hidden element because it was ugly and not really relevant to my point.)

<body onLoad="JavaScriptOnLoad();">

<div id="allesdrin">
<div id="topheader">
<div id="homelink" onClick="location.href='index.php';" style="cursor: pointer;"> </div>
<ul id="topnav">
<li><a href="login.php">einloggen</a></li>
<li><a href="register.php">immatrikulieren</a></li>
<li><a href="about.php">über uns</a></li>

<li><a href="help.php">hilfe</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
<div id="leftbar"><div id="leftlogo2"></div> <div id="squicklogin">
<form method="post" action="login.php"><input type="hidden" name="PHPSESSID" value="{snip}" />
<label for="email">E-mail:</label>
<input type="hidden" name="noerror" value="1" />

<input class="inputtext" type="text" name="email" value="" id="email" size="20" />
<label for="pass">Passwort:</label>
<input class="inputtext" type="password" name="pass" id="pass" size="20" />
<div class="buttons">
<input type="submit" class="inputsubmit" value="Einloggen" id="doqui

Re:Seriously?

[Lehk228]

typefaces cannot be protected but font files are.

the typeface is the look of the characters, the font contains all of the guts required for proper kerning and hinting. those guts generally are in fact executable code run by the renderer.

Re:Seriously?

[Lehk228]

so it's German for "glomp"

Style lawsuits..

[Anonymous Coward]

..are bullshit.

Compete on features and stop whining that people copy your look. When they do that, it means you're winning. No one confuses Microsoft Live Search for Google despite Microsoft copying the style.

Re:Style lawsuits..

[mr_matticus]

Defending style elements are critical to maintaining trademark protection, when that trademark is dependent on look and feel. Facebook is not so innovative as to be worth copying for any legitimate technical aim, nor is it so generic that it was an accident.

It uses a distinctive configuration of layout elements, text styles, and interactive elements. Even details such as the use of square brackets and grey shading around text boxes for emphasis are duplicated exactly. Just browsing the two home pages and looking at the two registration forms, the resemblance is obvious. It's so painstakingly reproduced in terms of spacing, CSS element sizing and positioning, and text formatting that it's obvious it's a copy-and-paste job, not even a handcrafted reproduction.

They're not designing their site so that it's similar--they're downright copying it. It's absurd and pointless, and Facebook has every right to defend their distinctive marks in the consumer space. If some other website flat-out reproduced Slashdot's appearance, changing the green to orange, would a person with basic familiarity with Slashdot look at the new site and consider that the two might originate from the same people? That's substantial confusion when you're not directly selling a product.

Live Search and Google don't look anything alike.

Re:Style lawsuits..

[**loki969**]

It's not a look-a-like problem. Studivz most probably has stolen the code from facebook.

Re:Style lawsuits..

[**loki969**]

Quote Financial Times Deutschland:
"Facebook wirft dem sozialen Netzwerk, das dem Verlag Holtzbrinck gehÃrt, unter anderem auch vor, ohne Erlaubnis auf Facebooks Computersysteme und -netzwerke zugegriffen zu haben, um sich unrechtmÃÃYig Daten zu verschaffen."

Which kinda translates to:
"Facebook accuses the social network [edit: studivz], which belongs to the Holtzbrinck publishing company, among other things of accessing Facebook computersystems and networks without permission, in order to procure illegitimately data."

Rumors say that the bunch of students that founded studivz payed some ukrainian it-students to crack facebook to steal the code. And after studivz took of they sold it to the Holtzbrinck publishing company for 50 million Euros.

Re:Style lawsuits..

[Rob Kaper]

Definitely not. Facebook claims a ripoff, not a major security breach. If people had access to the entire source code of Facebook this would be a very different lawsuit.

Re:Style lawsuits..

[Bonobo_Unknown]

How can you steal something that you can freely download?

Re:Style lawsuits..

[maxinuruguay]

Defending style elements are critical to maintaining trademark protection, when that trademark is dependent on look and feel.

What are you talking about? Style elements? Trademarks do not cover 'style elements.' They cover words or symbols. You can trademark the name and the logo but you can't trademark a website. Unless they copied it VERBATIM then they don't have a copyright case either. The courts have been mixed on copyrights of GUI and, generally, they have been dismissed.

Re:Style lawsuits..

[TuringTest]

If some other website flat-out reproduced Slashdot's appearance, changing the green to orange, would a person with basic familiarity with Slashdot look at the new site and consider that the two might originate from the same people?

What! You're implying that this is not written by the /. editors?

Re:Style lawsuits..

[civilizedINTENSITY]

THE PROTECTION OF "TRADE DRESS"

The first principle of unfair competition law is that everything that is not protected by an intellectual property right is free to copy. In fact, copying is an essential part of the whole fabric of an economic system of free competition. Thus, the act of "copying," far from being intrinsically improper, is essential and should be lauded and encouraged, not condemned. There is absolutely nothing legally or morally reprehensible about exact copying of things in the public domain.

The Court stated further:

. Other circuits that have likewise found that a presumption of intent to confuse arises when evidence of copying is presented recognize that if there is no real issue of a likelihood of confusion, evidence of copying is of no import. Id. (citations omitted). "We have recognized that evidence of intentional copying raises a presumption that a second comer intended to create a confusing similarity of appearance and succeeded. But if comparison of the works reveals no fair jury issue concerning likelihood of confusion, then intent to copy, even if found from the proffered evidence, would not establish a Lanham Act violation."

Re:Style lawsuits..

[mr_matticus]

Somehow you missed the critical elements of what you quoted.

Everything not covered is free to copy. Facebook's trade dress is protected.

Likelihood of confusion is also established by the eight DuPont factors, which are satisfied here. "Likelihood of confusion" is not a plain meaning phrase, it's a term of art.

Re:Style lawsuits..

[civilizedINTENSITY]

You confuse something inherent to the design with trademark dress: "It uses a distinctive configuration of layout elements, text styles, and interactive elements."

Yet the US Supreme Court ruled that design, in and of itself, in the product, can not be inherently distinctive. The website can not "use" a distinctive configuration because such is not and can not be recognized in a court of law, because it doesn't exist. Any such mutterings are irrelevant.

However, one can acquire secondary meaning. While it is meaningless to say the design is distinctive, it is not impossible on its face that secondary meaning has developed, "which occurs when the public recognizes that the primary significance of the trade dress is identification of the product's source, not the product itself."

To summarize: regardless of how much you like the style, it can't (ever, by definition) have inherent distinctiveness. There is no such thing. Its only over time, as perception gathers in the minds of men, that a design can gain secondary meaning. Again, this is *not* inherent to the design. Design has no inherent distinctiveness.

Re:Style lawsuits..

[civilizedINTENSITY]

My point is that you haven't established, to me at least, that Facebooks design has anything to do with trade dress, yet. I pointed out that design isn't distinctive in the product. It can only acquire secondary meaning. You can state over and over that it just is trade dress protected (and stamp your foot,even), but not without seeming silly if you keep referencing the design. You need to prove secondary meaning has developed, and you've never mentioned that once.

In terms of confusion, a term of art carries less weight than legal terminology. Of those eight points, the courts (in the US) have held that for copying to matter, there has to be evidence that confusion exists. I would suggest that confusion does not exist, it is well known by people who use the site that it is not facebook. Hence, no harm, no foul.

What seems to bother you, if I read between the lines correctly, is that it is legal to copy a new design (since it can't be inherently distinctive, and it takes time to acquire secondary meaning). I think you might be a designer, and wish to believe there is inherent distinction in design. Yes? One can always patent the design, though.

Re:Style lawsuits..

[mr_matticus]

Yet the US Supreme Court ruled that design, in and of itself, in the product, can not be inherently distinctive.

Yet another confused rambling. The Supreme Court did not say that design cannot be distinctive. It held that an individual product design is not sufficiently distinctive on its own without secondary meaning. Design must be distinctive first and foremost in order to qualify for achieving secondary meaning. "A trade dress has acquired distinctiveness if it has developed secondary meaning, which occurs when the public recognizes that the primary significance of the trade dress is identification of the product's source, not the product itself", from your very own link.
Samara held that an individual product design is not itself distinctive trade dress. But you're not paying attention to the examples: the tailfins of Cadillacs, the color magenta in cellular services, the shape of a Coke bottle. It's not the design that they're protecting, it's the association with the origin.

However, one can acquire secondary meaning. While it is meaningless to say the design is distinctive, it is not impossible on its face that secondary meaning has developed, "which occurs when the public recognizes that the primary significance of the trade dress is identification of the product's source, not the product itself."

"An unregistered mark can be 'distinctive,' for purposes of a Lanham Act provision protecting unregistered marks if their use is likely to cause confusion, if its intrinsic nature serves to identify a particular source, so that it is inherently distinctive, or if it has acquired a secondary meaning, so that, in the minds of the public, the primary significance of the mark is to identify the source of the product rather than the product itself." Lanham Trade-Mark Act, 43(a), 15 U.S.C.A. 1125(a).

Exactly as has occurred here. It is not meaningless to say the design is distinctive. It is necessary. When a trade dress, as Facebook's, has acquired secondary meaning, it is distinctive and protectable.

Please get a clue and don't pick fights in things over your head.

Re:Style lawsuits..

[mr_matticus]

You need to prove secondary meaning has developed, and you've never mentioned that once.

I have, several times. The layout of a website is ipso facto the indicator of origin for online services. The Slashdot design is what indicates to you that you are using Slashdot. In conjunction with referring to the URL, it is your only way of recognizing this site as opposed to Engadget or Wikipedia.

From Peri Hall & Associates, Inc. v. Elliot Institute for Social Sciences (not published, but the most succinct summary of the test wrt websites):
"Plaintiffs have put forth substantial evidence that Plaintiffs own copyrights to the code and graphic design of the website. Further, even a cursory examination of the two websites at issue shows that the Defendants simply copied the look and feel of MCLE's website, even to the extent of using the exact same pictures in the exact same layout on each page. Additionally, Plaintiffs introduced evidence that Defendants are using MCLC's trademarks as metatags in its website. Therefore, this Court finds that Plaintiffs have demonstrated a substantial likelihood of success on the merits from which irreparable harm can be presumed."

In terms of confusion, a term of art carries less weight than legal terminology.

A term of art is legal terminology. You are working from the plain meaning, which carries no weight.

Of those eight points, the courts (in the US) have held that for copying to matter, there has to be evidence that confusion exists.

Again, confusion is not defined by whether a consume would actually be confused, but by the DuPont factors, of which actual consumer confusion is just one. A factor is not an element, and need not be fully satisfied to pass gravamen.

Re:Style lawsuits..

[mr_matticus]

Hard to believe, I know! It reads with almost the same level of editing skill (and the same rate of display rendering bugs) as the real thing!

Re:Style lawsuits..

[civilizedINTENSITY]

A mark is distinctive. Design is not and can not be inherently distinctive. These are facts. Design can acquire distinction when, in the minds of men, it is associated with a source (as opposed to being assoicated with a product). This is not an inherent distinctive trait, but an acquired one. It isn't the design that *is* distinctive, but rather the status of the design in its relationship to the thoughts people have about seeing it in a product, to thoughts they have on who originated said product.

The court ruled:

The Court went on to discuss âoedistinctivenessâ of the mark. It stated in part:

In evaluating the distinctiveness of a mark under Â2 (and therefore, by analogy, under Â43(a)), courts have held that a mark can be distinctive in one of two ways.

First, a mark is inherently distinctive if âoe[its] intrinsic nature serves to identify a particular source.â Ibid. In the context of word marks, courts have applied the now-classic test originally formulated by Judge Friendly, in which word marks that are âoearbitraryâ (âoeCamelâ cigarettes), âoefancifulâ (âoeKodakâ film), or âoesuggestiveâ (âoeTideâ laundry detergent) are held to be inherently distinctive. [citing a case]

Second, a mark has acquired distinctiveness, even if it is not inherently distinctive, if it has developed secondary meaning, which occurs when, âoein the minds of the public, the primary significance of a [mark] is to identify the source of the product rather than the product itself.â [citing a case]

The Court stated further:

It seems to us that design, like color, is not inherently distinctive.

Your personal insults are beneath the quality of my discourse. I present facts. The bottom line is that the design, when created, can not be distinctive for purposes of the Lanham Act because design has no inherent distinction. Period. The best that can be hoped for is to acquire distinction by correlating the product's (by definition) inherently non-distinctive design with its origin in such a way that it acquires distinction (which it lacks inherently) by the association.

Another request, you are "fighting" rather than discussing. I can't get into a fight in things that over my head, because I don't stoop to that level. Please, elevate yourself to my level of discourse, and don't be afraid to learn something new.

Re:Style lawsuits..

[civilizedINTENSITY]

Again, almost but not quite right.

"Again, confusion is not defined by whether a consume would actually be confused, but by the DuPont factors, of which actual consumer confusion is just one. A factor is not an element, and need not be fully satisfied to pass gravamen."

You conuse the cart and the horse. First

âoeSecondary meaningâ refers to evidence that, upon seeing a name, book series title or in this instance, a packaging, the public has come to believe that the product related to such name, series title or packaging comes from a particular manufacturer (publisher, popcorn maker etc.) and that a similar use by another would create a likelihood of confusion in the minds of the public as to source.

Second,

The Court then focused on the âoelikelihood of confusionâ element and identified a list of 8 factors that a court might use to make that determination. Such factors are not conclusive nor exhaustive but instead are factors that, among other factors, help focus the discussion.

It is not I confusing a factor with an element, but you who confuse a factor which can help determine the element, with the defining principle which *is* the element.

Citing another case, the Court quoted:
The general concept underlying likelihood of confusion is that the public believe that the markâ(TM)s owner sponsored or otherwise approved of the use of the trademark.

So what is at issue here, is whether the public perceive use of the mark was in accordance with its rightful use as property, to denote the origin of a product. That is the concept which is "likelihood of confusion".
There are 8 factors that help to determine if the public perception has been mislead, yes. But the point of the factors is to determine if confusion exists. You can't then say, "Well confusion exists, but that doesn't matter to determining if confusion exists." Sorry. Better luck next time.

Re:Style lawsuits..

[civilizedINTENSITY]

Oh, sorry for two posts, but I almost forgot: you are now intermixing owning copyright with owning a trademark. IP is confusing enough, huh? There is no IP like 127.0.0.0, although everyone has there own.

Re:Style lawsuits..

[mr_matticus]

Design is not and can not be inherently distinctive.

No. That statement does not even make logical sense. Design must as a prerequisite, be distinctive before it can acquire secondary meaning. The design of a single product alone cannot be sufficiently distinctive to innately earn trademark protection.

I present facts. The bottom line is that the design, when created, can not be distinctive for purposes of the Lanham Act because design has no inherent distinction. Period.

No, you don't. You present a layman's regrettable misunderstanding of facts. A product's design, standing alone, has no inherent trade distinction, because it has no association. This statement is also true of a logo--you can create a logo without trade distinction because nobody knows what it is. That does not mean that the logo is not independently distinctive. The design itself must be distinctive, or it cannot ever hope to acquire secondary meaning. You are relying on the shorthand summary of a law firm. I have provided the exact text of the Act and the court opinion.

"The attribution of inherent distinctiveness to certain categories of word marks and product packaging derives from the fact that the very purpose of attaching a particular word to a product, or encasing it in a distinctive package, is most often to identify the product's source." 206

You are mistaking "product design" for "design" generally in your analysis, based on the incomplete information provided to you. To wit, " Two Pesos, Inc. v. Taco Cabana, Inc., 505 U.S. 763, 112 S.Ct. 2753, 120 L.Ed.2d 615, does not foreclose the Court's conclusion, since the trade dress there at issue was restaurant decor, which does not constitute product design, but rather product packaging or else some tertium quid that is akin to product packaging and has no bearing on the present case. While distinguishing Two Pesos might force courts to draw difficult lines between product-design and product-packaging trade dress, the frequency and difficulty of having to distinguish between the two will be much less than the frequency and difficulty of having to decide when a product design is inherently distinctive." Id.

I can't get into a fight in things that over my head, because I don't stoop to that level. Please, elevate yourself to my level of discourse, and don't be afraid to learn something new.

Oh, but you do. Implying that I'm somehow beneath your level of discourse, when you are plainly relying on a non-expert and unprofessional source of information, is ludicrous. It is you who should be paying closer attention and learning.

Your personal insults are beneath the quality of my discourse. I

Personal insults? Anything you might perceive out of your ignorance as a "personal insult" could not possibly exceed the "personal insult" of trying to claim some sort of superiority in this discourse, particularly given your limited knowledge of the field.

Re:Style lawsuits..

[civilizedINTENSITY]

At this point I've tried, but failed to connect with you. As I grow weary of your interspersed abuse, I bid you farewell. You made interesting points after you woke up sufficiently to be careful. You continue to make assumptions, however, which your training should prevent. Such is life. Good bye.

Oh, and I do claim the high ground, here. :-)

Re:Style lawsuits..

[mr_matticus]

No, there is no intermixing going on at all. You're thoroughly lost here. There is no reference to copyright.

Re:Style lawsuits..

[mr_matticus]

Again, almost but not quite right.

No. Just no. Until you can properly articulate the standards, with valid citations not to an incomplete and inadequate summary, there is no point in continuing this.

You can't then say, "Well confusion exists, but that doesn't matter to determining if confusion exists."

How you got to this absurd statement is a mystery.

Actual consumer confusion is not requisite to the existence of confusion in the trademark context. If actual consumer confusion exists, it is supporting evidence. It is not, however, adequate. It is neither necessary nor sufficient.

Re:Style lawsuits..

[mr_matticus]

I wish I could say the same of your points, but they're unfortunately somewhere between misguided and flat-out wrong, which is humorous given your frequent admonishing with an informal reference that's less accurate on the matter than Wikipedia (an interesting phenomenon, to be sure). If this is your face-saving means of bowing out, so be it.

Re:Style lawsuits..

[civilizedINTENSITY]

Wrong: "Plaintiffs have put forth substantial evidence that Plaintiffs own copyrights to the code and graphic design of the website." Sorry. Just plain wrong.

Re:Style lawsuits..

[civilizedINTENSITY]

You argue by authority. Thats a fallacy. You don't address the issues I raise except to say they are wrong. Thats rude, and not even making an argument. Its less than a fallacy. Your level of discourse is unbecoming. Sorry, but you lose by not even playing, let alone playing well with others. See, the problem is by making it personal, the argument itself (as much as there was one) is cast aside. This is a public forum, for public debate and entertainment. Flaming is sometimes entertaining, but it isn't debate. As a professional you could be lifting the standards here at slashdot. I implore you, do so.

Re:Style lawsuits..

[civilizedINTENSITY]

You don't list a single point, yet you judge it in your mind and then label it, without ascribing to the label that which it is alleged to reference. You are like unto a dangling pointer. It is interesting to note that while I was blockquoting quotes from the US Supreme Court, you prefer Wikipedia? Again, attacking the speaker instead of addressing the argument is rude, and wrong. Likewise, your whole point seems to be, "I'm authoritative, and authority good. Bow to me now." That won't cut it. Sorry. I'm sure you can think, and have something to say, and are capable of adding to the discourse. I'm afraid that for the most part, you waste my time. Time is money. Gotta go. In terms of face-saving, I'd leave you with this thought: I'm actually serious. I'm not playing with you, I'm not shooting for karma points or audience reaction. I'm trying to have a conversation. Thats all. An exchange of ideas in reference to a current topic of interest. Thats really all.

Re:Style lawsuits..

[mr_matticus]

That's the summation from the previous paragraph. The look and feel is not relevant to a copyright inquiry, but only trademark. I'm sorry if the completeness of the quote was confusing to you.

Re:Style lawsuits..

[mr_matticus]

It is not personal, and the standards would easily be lifted would you not complain about perceived "tone" while professing your own false superiority. The implication that you are engaged in a higher level of discourse based on fabricated beliefs of personal slights is ridiculous. Debate is adversarial and there is value in being direct, even blunt, and especially so when someone with that dangerous "little bit of knowledge" refuses to pay attention.

Each and every issue has been addressed no less than twice by the authority of court opinions on the matter. They are wrong for the reasons illustrated quite plainly by the text. It's not rude. What is rude and presumptive is to continually repeat the same disproved arguments based on plain meaning of terms where they do not apply.

Perhaps instead of challenging, you could seek clarification on issues you plainly do not understand. Trying to pretend you know what you're talking about and attempting false corrections is no invitation for being let down gingerly. Take your moral indignation elsewhere.

Re:Style lawsuits..

[mr_matticus]

It is interesting to note that while I was blockquoting quotes from the US Supreme Court, you prefer Wikipedia?

Again illustrative of your utter failure to comprehend. You are quoting a law firm's web page and using the quotes without context or understanding of their contents, because you have not actually read the SCOTUS opinion on the case, let alone understood it. Further, my statement was that your law firm summary was less accurate than the Wikipedia entry was not an expressed preference, but quite clearly a condemnation of your source and Wikipedia at the same time. I prefer actual authority wielded by one sufficiently knowledgeable to present it. I am happy to discuss issues and points of confusion with lay people in the context of a discussion, but being awkwardly challenged and imprecisely countered--and then to have to sit through complaints about how the poor arguments were flatly rejected--is not indicative to me of someone interested in a discussion.

It's indicative of a clueless person who thinks he knows better and has expressed an annoying refusal to listen.

Re:Style lawsuits..

[civilizedINTENSITY]

Agreed. And thank you.

Re:Style lawsuits..

[civilizedINTENSITY]

There you go again. Lets try this explicitly. In your posting, you allege statements but don't provide quotes. You allege occurrences, but are too lazy to list them. There can't hardly be a response, since there is no meat on the bones. You say over and over that I don't understand. It would be lame of me to parrot back your postings, but possible, due to the way you posted. In terms of challenging you, I regret it. But it was worth a try.

Re:Style lawsuits..

[civilizedINTENSITY]

Hey Mr. Lawyer. Get over yourself. You are so sure that no mere genius could ever read a sentence and have something interesting to say about it. You are childish, and immature, and lacking in the social graces whereby good conversation can be both instructive and entertaining. Continue to make blanket statements regarding your supposed superior position, and denigrate me, but take a look in the mirror while you do so. An argument should stand on its own merits. Pretending otherwise while continually trumpeting and beating your chest is just too much. Too much testosterone. Too put it bluntly, fuck you and the horse you rode in on. You failed to illuminate or educate, and you waste my time. Fuck you.

Re:Style lawsuits..

[mr_matticus]

In the course of this lengthy discussion, I have cited three court cases, two statutes, and provided clarification on five terms of art with which you are unfamiliar.

You allege occurrences, but are too lazy to list them.

Where?

Re:Style lawsuits..

[mr_matticus]

You are so sure that no mere genius could ever read a sentence and have something interesting to say about it.

Hardly. There are plenty of interesting things to be said.

You are childish, and immature, and lacking in the social graces whereby good conversation can be both instructive and entertaining. Continue to make blanket statements regarding your supposed superior position

I think you're confusing your posts with mine. You are the one claiming superiority and distracting from the points with imagined slights.

denigrate me

There you go again. You're the only one making this personal. You continually claim the high ground and accuse others of arguing on a lesser level. Instead of being professional, you go straight for challenges arising from ignorance, not any attempt for illumination or clarification. You pout and stamp your feet and claim that you're "done"--but keep posting, complaining about how you've been "treated". You are not your argument, and if you can't participate in a discussion without whining about bogus arguments being flatly rejected, you're not ready for a debate.

Fuck you.

QED.

I know it's unrelated...

[Anonymous Coward]

In the United States, one cannot copyright a game's metrics. I can go out and make a knock-off "monopoly game" by the exact same rules as "Monopoly", as long as I'm not taking any of their copyrighted properties. This has been tested several times in the courts.

In the same regard, I would hope that I could make a complete knock-off of a website (no matter how novel the idea seems) provided that I do not infringe on any copyrights or patents held by the owner.

Re:I know it's unrelated...

[kaos07]

The case seems even more tenuous when you realise that it's very doubtful that Facebook copyrighted the font that they use...

Re:I know it's unrelated...

[kaos07]

Actually, according to their terms of use: http://www.facebook.com/terms.php/

32665, FACEBOOK, THE FACEBOOK, FACEBOOKHIGH, FBOOK, POKE, THE WALL and other Company graphics, logos, designs, page headers, button icons, scripts and service names are registered trademarks, trademarks or trade dress of Company in the U.S. and/or other countries.

Nothing about trademarked fonts or layouts.

Re:I know it's unrelated...

[illumastorm]

What do you think a design is? It's the combination of the layout and fonts used in a webpage.

Re:I know it's unrelated...

[mr_matticus]

Focusing on the font is missing the forest for the trees. It's like saying that the guy impersonating you down to the the details used the same shampoo, and thousands of other people use that shampoo. It's absurd. It's not just the shampoo. The font is one element--the font size, formatting, and coloring are others. Take that small set of similarities and add it to the other small sets of similarities. Taken together, there is no chance of coincidence.

Both sites have changed slightly since this issue was first disclosed, but the underlying harm, and the German knockoff's exploitation of Facebook's marks for profit, continues unabated. The "developers" made millions on this scam.

Re:I know it's unrelated...

[idlemachine]

In the United States, one cannot copyright a game's metrics.

But one can apparently patent them:

Wizards of the Coast, Inc., a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc. (NYSE:HAS), is a worldwide leader in the trading card game and tabletop role-playing game categories, and a leading developer and publisher of game-based entertainment products. The company holds an exclusive patent on trading card games (TCGs) and their method of play and produces the premier trading card game, MAGIC: THE GATHERING, among many other trading card games and family card and

I believe this patent even included turning cards to indicate different states.

Re:I know it's unrelated...

[Rob Kaper]

For Monopoly this is only true because the game itself is based on a community game.

I did make a "knock-off" and although IANAL, I posted [url=http://www.robertjohnkaper.com/software/atlantik/legal.html]my legal disclaimer[/url] in case it would become a problem.

Re:I know it's unrelated...

[Rob Kaper]

Damn. Slashdot should really support BB markup, or forums should accept certain HTML. Or I should pay more attention. :(

http://www.robertjohnkaper.com/software/atlantik/legal.htm

Re:I know it's unrelated...

[civilizedINTENSITY]

It seems to me that website design fails to meet the requirements for trade dress protection, in that the visual elements of a website aren't without function. The purpose of denoting blocks with visual indicators is inherent to HTML, and is meant to be a guide. Claiming that color, font, stylesheets, etc...are part of trade dressing seems backasswards in terms of what trade dressing *is*:

From widipedia

Trade dress refers to characteristics of the visual appearance of a product or its packaging (or even the facade of a building such as a restaurant) that may be registered and protected from being used by competitors in the manner of a trademark.[vague] These characteristics can include the three-dimensional shape, graphic design, color, or even smell of a product and/or its packaging.

There are two basic requirements that must be met for trade dress protection. The first is that those features must be capable of functioning as a source indicatorâ"identifying a particular product and its maker to consumers. In the United States, package design and building facades can be considered inherently distinctiveâ"inherently capable of identifying a product. However, product design can never be inherently distinctive, and so such trade dress or other designs that cannot satisfy the 'inherent distinctivness' requirement may only become protectable by acquiring 'secondary meaning.' In other words, the mark may be protected if it acquires an association in the public mind with the producer of the goods.

Under the functionality doctrine, trade dress must also be nonfunctional in order to be legally protected; otherwise it is the subject matter of patent law. What is functional depends strongly on the particular product. To be nonfunctional, it cannot affect a product's cost, quality, or a manufacturer's ability to effectively compete in a nonreputational way. For example, color is functional in regard to clothing because that product is purchased substantially because of its color and appearance, but color is not functional on household insulation, which is purchased purely to be installed in a wall and is never seen.

Re:I know it's unrelated...

[civilizedINTENSITY]

If someone impersonates you, that means they are trying to make other people think that they are you. Thats a type of fraud. Someone who decides I'm cool, who starts wearing my type and color of clothes, uses my brand of laptop running by fav linux distro, cuts their hair to look like me, starts lifting weights, and eventually looks like me, but never trys to sign my name on a check isn't impersonating me. I should not have the right to tell other people they can't wear leather, for instance, because thats *my* style. Thats bullshit. Bullying bullshit.

Re:I know it's unrelated...

[mr_matticus]

If someone impersonates you, that means they are trying to make other people think that they are you. Thats a type of fraud.

Or they're trying to benefit from an association with you or achieve a better position in the marketplace because of that implied commonality. Signing a check is a myopic standard to use for impersonation--they can derive benefit from the impersonation in many other ways, and when it's in a business context, the rules are narrower, just like it is for people. A celebrity's likeness is protected by a right to publicity.

I don't understand what's so difficult for you to wrap your head around, or why you and other posters keep insisting on reducing comparisons down to single elements, missing the forest for the trees. No one is alleging that you shouldn't use the same font or wear leather. That's the bullshit, and it's coming from your ignorance.

Re:I know it's unrelated...

[civilizedINTENSITY]

There is nothing wrong with attaining and advertising commonality. Its only where they stop saying, "I look like civilizedINTENSITY!", and "I agree with civilizedINTENSITY!" and start saying, "I *am* civilizedINTENSITY!", that laws are broke. They ain't me.

To assume without authority and with fraudulent intent (some character or capacity) is a problem. To merely look alike or sound alike, thats not a problem. So long as no confusion exists as to identity: no harm, no foul.

Lets take this a step further to draw out our differences in opinion. Lets say a new web site is created that uses unheard of techniques in CSS to differentiate structure. Truely, remarkably, uniquely different presentation, and it *works*. Assuming its not under patent, and since it can't be under trade dress since its too new to have acquired secondary meaning, then everyone who designs a website should by writ of principles of ethics implied by, if not stated out right in their professional code of conduct, immediately copy those presentation techniques.

The reason they should do this is just this simple, it works, so it should be used. If its not protected and its better, then it should spread as far and fast as it can. This makes the world a better place. This sort of copying is not merely condoned, it is *required* of ethical citizens. Do regular updates! Don't get stuck in a less than agile mindset.

Re:I know it's unrelated...

[illumastorm]

I am going to disagree here. The design of a website will, in fact, affect the functionality. The design can dtermine the placement of buttons, forms, text fields, links, scripts, and so on. This falls within the functionality requirement that you quoted. Now on the nonfuctional requirement, the elements that can be considered to meet that would be the graphics, non-interactive flash videos, fonts; basically anything that can be called eye-candy.

I would say that a webpage design is indeed trade dress, because the website establishes the identity of the entity on the Internet. I consider to being a similar concept as going to a brick and mortar store.

Re:I know it's unrelated...

[mr_matticus]

Its only where they [...] start saying, "I *am* civilizedINTENSITY!", that laws are broke. They ain't me.

Okay, first of all, why can't you use apostrophes appropriately? I wrote it off as a typo the first ten times, but now it's just growing absurd.

Back to the point, the use of a design is an assertion of identity, particularly in foreign markets where context is changed. The Coca-cola logo is not immediately recognizable in, say, Arabic. But that bottle definitely is. Another company using that bottle is directly benefiting from appearing to be a Coca-Cola product on first impression. If I change the word Slashdot in the top left and call it PlasmaStream, and change the content to physics-related entries, I am directly appealing to people who might reasonably conclude that PlasmaStream is a new spinoff of Slashdot, because the audience has significant crossover and the layout is instantly recognizable.

since it can't be under trade dress since its too new to have acquired secondary meaning

Argumentative fallacy. Newness is not a factor.

immediately copy those presentation techniques.

CSS data structuring is not layout. It is not look and feel. What you're referring to is a patent, and that is outside the context of this conversation.

This sort of copying is not merely condoned, it is *required* of ethical citizens.

That's asinine. Copying a technique has absolutely nothing to do with the Facebook thing. There's nothing groundbreaking about the technological innovation of the Facebook design that would be worth reproducing for any legitimate purpose.

Re:I know it's unrelated...

[civilizedINTENSITY]

The requirement is that the "eyecandy" can not have function. If said eyecandy "will, in fact, affect the functionality", then it is disqualified. Thus, by your own arguement, insofar as you are right regarding the functionality of web design, it can't be trade dress. Only pure eyecandy need apply!

Re:I know it's unrelated...

[illumastorm]

OK, then, give me an example where eye-candy does affect functionality. Oh, and the eye-candy must be non-interactive.

Re:I know it's unrelated...

[civilizedINTENSITY]

I don't think eye-candy relates to function. However, layout is more than eye-candy. Thus, design related to function, being more than eye-candy, shouldn't be admissible as trade dressing, yes? Or am I just completely off base here?

Same font?

[kaos07]

That's pathetic. Seems like Facebook borrowed more than money off Microsoft, they took some of their business tactics as well.

Here we have the dominant (Maybe not in sheer numbers around the whole globe, but possibly in Europe, and if not very close) player in the business taking legal action against a new player using the fact that they have the same "font" as a pretext. God. How many different fonts are there in use around the internet?

Maybe Yahoo should sue Google since, you know, they both have a search bar. Why doesn't Microsoft sue Google over Gmail? Why? Well the buttons are on the left and the inbox on the right in both! Facebook has a pretty stupid case and they probably won't win. That shows two things. First of all, they're stupid. Second of all, they're using pretty lame (even if common amongst the big players) tactics to take down a site that probably wouldn't even a pose a big threat to them.

What's the lesson? Business is business. Doesn't matter what type.

Re:Same font?

[Sique]

Here we have the dominant (Maybe not in sheer numbers around the whole globe, but possibly in Europe, and if not very close) player in the business taking legal action against a new player using the fact that they have the same "font" as a pretext.

StudiVZ is by far larger in Germany than Facebook with 6 mio registered profiles vs. 1.2 mio registered profiles. Here we have a case of a company not expanding fast enough with their business model into other countries, and when they finally do (about two years late) they see their ecological niche already occupied by a local player. And now they are calling the courts to change this.

It was the same with eBay vs. alando in Germany, which ended with eBay actually buying alando in the end, because they couldn't compete against alandos stronghold in Germany.

Re:Same font?

[pak9rabid]

That's pathetic. Seems like Facebook borrowed more than money off Microsoft, they took some of their business tactics as well.

Nah..If they truly took Microsoft's business tactics then Facebook would have sued them via proxy instead of directly.

there is another facebook clone in Russia

[psykl0n3]

Strange that they are not suing http://www.vkontakte.ru/ on this one they've copied even the colours :) I'm not mentioning that many of the features and such are the same as the facebook was a couple of years back. Although, they did make this knockoff when there was no Russian translation for the Facebook and thus Facebook was pretty unusable by the general population :)

Re:there is another facebook clone in Russia

[apodyopsis]

I would imagine it is much, much harder to bring a case in Russia - look at the AllOfMP3 debacle. So they hit the soft targets in a country with more copyright friendly laws first.

Of course, being sued by Facebook on stealing code and ideas, is much like being told to sit up straight by the hunchback of Notre Dame.

Re:there is another facebook clone in Russia

[KGIII]

I am not sure if your comment was funny or insightful... Either way, someone should mod you up for something.

Same != similar == no case?

[SystematicPsycho]

Does facebook have any case? Even if it was similar isn't it still "different", not the same. Even if they called it "faceLook" say, isn't that still different and not legally copied? I guess it comes down to the legal aspects and law.

Re:Same != similar == no case?

[Xest]

The closest case I can think of to this was the whole Lindows (now Linspire) debacle. Microsoft complained that Lindows sounded too much like Windows and for some idiotic reason managed to win.

I don't disagree Lindows sounds like Windows, but it takes a rather impressive amount of mental incapacity to think the two are somehow the same.

Re:Same != similar == no case?

[Xzerix]

Another example, the lego collectors website called "Brickbay" which was forced to change it's name by eBay. One sells used and new Lego, the other sells everything from knock-off Perfume to Dodgy grey imports. Hardly comparable.

And Brickbay (Now "Bricklink") looks NOTHING like eBay...

Bullies.

Re:Same != similar == no case?

[rolfwind]

Microsoft complained that Lindows sounded too much like Windows and for some idiotic reason managed to win.

ORLY?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_vs._Lindows

As early as 2002, a court rejected Microsoft's claims, stating that Microsoft had used the term "windows" to describe graphical user interfaces before the product, Windows, was ever released, and that the windowing technique had already been implemented by Xerox and Apple many years before[1]. Microsoft kept seeking retrial, but in February 2004, a judge rejected two of Microsoft's central claims[2]. The judge denied Microsoft's request for a preliminary injunction and raised "serious questions" about Microsoft's trademark. Microsoft feared that a court may define "Windows" as generic and result in the loss of its status as a trademark. In July 2004, Microsoft offered to settle with Lindows.[3] As part of this licensing settlement, Microsoft paid an estimated $24 million cash (for a case that Microsoft itself brought), and Lindows transferred the Lindows trademark to Microsoft and changed their name to Linspire.

Re:Same != similar == no case?

[bestinshow]

Well in the US look and feel lawsuits will fail, due to the precedent set (I assume it was set at the time anyway) by the Apple vs. Microsoft case when Apple sued Microsoft for stealing the look and feel of their OS.

Given that there are a limited number of possible web page layouts for any given style of website, it is inevitable that some will start to look a bit similar to another one. We're not shocked that cars all look car-like are we? You never got Ford suing GM because GM also sold vehicles with 4 wheels, an outer shell and windows... (or maybe there were such cases!)

However as the case is in Germany the outcome could be different. However it is pretty obvious that it isn't Facebook, it isn't even called something similar like "GesichtBuche".

Re:Same != similar == no case?

[bestinshow]

Ta for the clarification.

Re:Same != similar == no case?

[bucky0]

rolfwind took my comment, but not only that, Lindows/Linspire got the right to package microsoft codecs with their OS

Copying from copycats

[Anonymous Coward]

Interestingly, there is a notion here in Germany that wer-kennt-wen, another social network, "ripped off StudiVZ's idea"... Maybe there are simply not enough ideas around any more.

Button layout and font?

[Xest]

What a menu down the left and arial, verdana, tahoma? I'm fairly convinced Facebook wasn't the first to come up with that setup!

I haven't logged in to the site of course so I don't know what it's like overall but really the frontend whilst admittedly a similar layout, certainly isn't identical or even particularly close to identical by any means. There's some pretty blatant differences and you'd certainly never confuse to the two.

What's Facebook so afraid of?

Re:Button layout and font?

[pimpimpim]

Copying the font is a non-argument, but at least in 2006 it really was almost a one to one copy. Then again, how many ways are there to make a social networking site look like.

Fact is, Facebook was late in opening up to the German market, and an abbreviation like StudiVZ is an excellent name to target abbreviation-loving German students. It reeks to me like the barbie-vs-bratz issue, where Mattel tries to sue only after it noticed that the success of the other was immense.

Re:Button layout and font?

[TheLink]

"Mattel alleges that Bratz designer Carter Bryant was employed by Mattel when he thought up the idea for the Bratz line. If so, says Mattel, Bratz belongs to Mattel. "

Oooh. Someone else took the risk, and it's a success, so now Mattel wants it. Just because he might have thought of the idea while working for Mattel.

Say I come up with an "edgy burger idea" while working for McDonalds that McD management would under normal circumstances never approve, so I start my company, launch the burger, become a big success, and McD has the right to take it?

I call that bullshit. Even if there's a law saying that's the way it is, I call it bullshit.

I'd say it's fine if McD gets to launch a similar burger, and Mattel is allowed to make a similar Barbie Brat. But getting a whole profitable business for free?

Aside: I always found it funny when people said the Japanese were not innovators and not creative. Just look at the toys - who gave the world transformers, "game and watch". And who gave the world Barbie, toy soldiers and guns for 50 years.

Re:Button layout and font?

[pimpimpim]

Exactly. The goal of patents and trademarks and such should be to support progress and innovation, not as a tool for the traditional giants to extort the ones that took a substantial risk, a lot of effort, and made a well-deserved gain of it.

In the case of social networking, one could claim that all were a copy of the first social networking site (friendster? maybe older ones, don't know), as there are only so many ways to do it. But to become successful depends not just on your site layout, it is a combination of correct timing, understanding the local markets, and usability of your product. There are still places where google is not the dominating search engine, just because they don't get the local needs correctly (mostly places with different character sets and grammar, so that the search engine just doesn't give efficient results). Should Google sue them? Hell, even Google just copied the idea of making a search engine: their layout contains a search box with a search button next to it, and the option to search in different categories. Not as if that was new.

Grrr I hate the term "Look and Feel"

[msgmonkey]

What is it with the software industry that makes it think it has a special case with so-called "Look and Feel"? Unless its trying to pass itself off as an exact copy of FaceBook a.k.a. fraud then I don't see the problem.

In the fashion industry people will get design patents and others will create copies with say four buttons instead of three. In the auto industry things like body panels are even patented so when you get a copy it does n't fit exactly because its not a 100% copy.

Re:Grrr I hate the term "Look and Feel"

[mr_matticus]

It's not unique to software by a long shot. It's called "trade dress" and it's used by disparate industries. Some examples: airline cabin interiors, restaurant decor, automobile body elements (e.g. Cadillac tail fins, Lincoln's "spare tire" hump and eggcrate grille, Mercedes-Benz double headlights), and quite famously, the shape of a Coke bottle.

In the fashion industry, trade dress covers things quite different from the number of buttons. The allegation clearly indicates you don't have an appropriate frame of reference. One example for you: the "C" pattern on Coach handbags and whatnot, not the location or number of zippers.

Re:Grrr I hate the term "Look and Feel"

[civilizedINTENSITY]

But in all those cases, the trade dress in nonfunctional. The decor is not a part of the functionality of transportation. The layout is a functional part of a website. One can't use color as part of a clothing trade dress, but one can use the color of insulation since the color isn't seen when the product is in use. Tell me in what way design elements can't be seen? The "C" pattern on Coach handbags is orthogonal to the use to which a handbag is put. The visual design of a website is *not* orthogonal to its use. Its bullshit.

Re:Grrr I hate the term "Look and Feel"

[mr_matticus]

The look and feel of a website is not functional, it is aesthetic. One can use color as part of clothing trade dress.

You're still confused.

Re:Grrr I hate the term "Look and Feel"

[civilizedINTENSITY]

Only in so far as the color is percieved in the minds of people to be related to the source for the product (as opposed to identifying the product itself). In fact, in terms of secondary use, almost anything that can convey information and be without function, will work.

Please note: I said "layout", you are saying "look and feel". Please lets not talk around each other.

You can't have a website that doesn't have layout, of one sort or another. Thus, layout is inherent to what a website does, which is present structured information. "Look and feel" are different, although I'd suggest that heading levels, paragraph markers, etc..., are all layout, too. So the style sheets associated with them would also have use, as they are demarking structure. That is, they are part of the "structure" in "structured information". At what point does the functionality of layout become unnecessary enough to qualify for "look and feel"? I'd suggest that at the point where it no longer adds value to the presentation of material by being capable of being a "structure" identifier, and is thus just pretty and unnecessary (that is, not useful, without function) overhead.

Re:Grrr I hate the term "Look and Feel"

[mr_matticus]

You can't have a website that doesn't have layout, of one sort or another.

And you can't have a conventional, internal combustion car without a grille of some sort. The design of that grille might be distinctive, just as the design of a layout might be distinctive.

The existence of a structure is functional. Its colors, arrangement, proportions, and coding are not, and are all capable of being distinctive.

You are attempting to split hairs where there are none to split.

I'd suggest that at the point where it no longer adds value

Your suggestion is unnecessary and irrelevant. It is not a novel question. A visual layout is a design. It is aesthetic, even though good design facilitates ease of use. The OS X UI comes to mind here (also established, protected trade dress).

Ripoff?

[dnwq]

This is StudiVZ. It doesn't look like a ripoff. This is what a ripoff looks like!

Re:Ripoff?

[crossmr]

They do call themselves the Facebook of China
http://venturebeat.com/2008/04/30/xiaonei-the-facebook-of-china-raises-430m-better-funded-than-facebook/

Re:Ripoff?

[LS]

They actually go so far as to rip the images and javascript from facebook directly. The little notification / IM thing at the bottom of the page is EXACTLY the same.

And these guys just got 400 million in funding! WTF?

Nice e-advertisement in Europe

[diopter72]

I know friends in Europe that uses studiVZ, and when I visited there I've seen the general layout. The site does mirror Facebook in many ways - like, ways that prevent you from saying "it's only similar, but not the same!" However, having said that, I don't think Facebook will win in court. This is either a hollow threat or just Facebook trying to generate more user base in Europe (mainly German-speaking parts) by inserting itself into Internet media.

More than a ripoff

[gmthor]

Facebooks also claims that studivz illegally gained access to their servers...what ever they mean with that. Or that's what the german finacial times wrote anyway. (german)

Ironic

[Anonymous Coward]

The irony is that StudiVZ has (successfully) sued other german pages for copying them. Serves them right to get sued themselves I would say.

Ripoff true, but not the reason for the lawsuit

[jlp2097]

I am German, so I know both StudiVZ and Facebook. It is true that StudiVZ copied just about everything from facebook except the color and the name. Functionality, fonts, even the order of buttons is the same. Hell, StudiVZ even had a directory in their URLs named "Fakebook". Whether this is legal or not - the courts may decide that.

More interesting about this case is the fact, that this has been known for a long time, even to Facebook. But they (facebook) only recently started to expand to Germany. As they are too late and thus largely unsuccessful (Metcalfes Law anyone?) they decided to sue them. But this is purely business: if they want to be sucessful in Germany they have to buy StudiVZ. And sueing might help lowering the price. Pretty straight-forward.

Re:Ripoff true, but not the reason for the lawsuit

[fiendie]

Reminds me of Alando.de which was basically an eBay-ripoff. When eBay decided to expand to the German market, all they could do is buy out the company and make the guys who started it rich men. Ironically those guys apparently bought stakes in Facebook now and started complaining about the alleged ripoff.

The precedents paint a pretty bleak picture for Facebook, too. Seems that the clones always win.

Re:Ripoff true, but not the reason for the lawsuit

[Nahooda]

I'm German too and I fully agree. This comment pretty much sums it all up! Wonder who'll win...

-DBS

Re:Ripoff true, but not the reason for the lawsuit

[Sapphon]

Spot on. Facebook has only been available in German for a few months, and it was hardly unforeseeable that of two virtually identical services the one that's available in the country's language first will be more successful.

I, for one, hope FB mount a successful takeover bid and combine the two services.

True Irony

[ThinkComp]

Disclaimer: I have a biased view on this topic, which I've written about in detail here: http://www.aarongreenspan.com/authoritas.html

That being said, given Facebook's history, it's truly ironic that they would be suing anyone for infringement of intellectual property rights of any sort.

Didn't you know?

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't you know that many people in Germany refer to studiVZ as StudiVotze, which can literally be translated as StudentCunt.

Re:Didn't you know?

[mischi_amnesiac]

Except that is wrong spelling. It's written with a F as first letter.

In Soviet Russia ...

[krkhan]

... and elsewhere, this is known as a fork.

Re:In Soviet Russia ...

[yuriyg]

In Soviet Russia, it's called vkontakte, comrade!

Lightbox DHTML popups, and friends? Sue them all!

[remitaylor]

So, there are lots of Lightbox-like DHTML popups (including Lightbox, itself) which are all styled specifically to look like Facebook's popups.

Why doesn't Facebook sue all of them?

I mean, seriously ... open source javascript tools have to be stopped! They do nothing but help us! Stop them now!

Facebook ... wow. I really, really love you, facebook, but ... keep this kindof crap up, and I'm looking for another social networking site.

Unbelievable.

Compare them in 2006

[Anonymous Coward]

http://web.archive.org/web/20051216121754/http://www.studivz.de/

vs.

http://web.archive.org/web/20060511053819/www.facebook.com/

I'd say, go get them, Facebook.

As an aside, the founder of StudiVZ has shown some really bad taste in the past:

http://seclog.de/pub/2006/11/voelkischer_beobachter_studivz.jpg

facebook should have sued this

[gzipped_tar]

xiaonei.com (WARNING: Chinese language, with Fl*sh and animated GIF, a bit slow to load).
Xiaonei.com was designed to mimic both the look-and-feel and the function of Facebook.

Re:facebook should have sued this

[BeanThere]

And why is "Chinese language" a "WARNING"? Might it scare children or is it NSFW or what?

Ironic given how facebook started

[Viol8]

Read up the history of how Mark Zuckerberg allegedly nicked the idea from some Harvard guys he was supposed to be working for to develop a similar site. Makes for interesting reading though I notice the wikipedia entry has been sanitised to remove some inconvenient facts about facebook's gestation.

To me this lawsuit is hypocricy of the worst type.

Re:Ironic given how facebook started

[thermian]

In business, especially the IT business, it is the first to market who wins, not the first to come up with an idea.

Sure he may have nicked their idea, but if they'd been serious and worked fast enough their website would have been just as good as Facebook.

As for whether he was being dodgy, well, did they have him working under a contract? If not then its their word against his, and he was under no legal obligation not to use the ideas any way he wished. If you want to stop that sort of thing, you *have* to have contracts. Thats why contracts exist, without them anything goes.

Besides, he's the one who made an idea into a business. That means he won, well done him. They lost, tough. Maybe next time they'll be more careful.

Re:Ironic given how facebook started

[Viol8]

What he did may or may not have been legal (i think there was an out of court settlement but I'm not 100% sure), but it sure as hell wasn't ethical. So its a bit rich for Facebook to get all high and mighty about its (rather poor) look and feel being stolen.

Re:Ironic given how facebook started

[thermian]

Ethics are, unfortunately, a luxury usually indulged in by successful companies *after* they have become rich/powerful.

Re:Ironic given how facebook started

[lena_10326]

As for whether he was being dodgy, well, did they have him working under a contract? If not then its their word against his, and he was under no legal obligation not to use the ideas any way he wished.

Verbal contracts are legal. Apparently they have emails documenting this, so there's strong evidence there was a contract. It was pretty clear they contracted him to do the work.

Let's say this was about a secret recipe for a new type of sauce. I give you the recipe and pay you to manufacture it for me. You do nothing but delay me for 3 months and lie about producing it, but in reality you were manufacturing it for your own profit, you can be sure there's going to be a law suit on the grounds of fraud, infringing on my product, and maliciously disrupting my ability to develop my business.

If it was a matter where they approached him with contract work, he declined and went off to implement his own website based on the idea, then there's no problem with that. They failed to get him to sign a non-compete, but that's not how it went down. It was very clear he accepted a contract for work deal with them.

Mod parent down

[jmcbain]

Why do you feel the need to woefully inject Microsoft? Your argument makes absolutely no sense and fails to contribute to the discussion. Microsoft does not sue other companies; Microsoft dominates them. Now you are arguing that Facebook is acting like Microsoft despite the fact that (1) Microsoft doesn't sue and (2) by your own admission Facebook is actually not a dominant player. And then you start rambling nonsensically about suppositions regarding how Yahoo, Google, and Microsoft would act. Your arguing style is reminscent of a young boy when his blanket is taken away.

Mod parent down, please.

Re:Mod parent down

[kaos07]

Why do you feel the need to woefully inject Microsoft?

You must be new here...

Re:Mod parent down

[kaos07]

(1) Microsoft doesn't sue

Oh really?

http://www.pcworld.com/article/118767/microsoft_sues_alleged_software_pirates.html/

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=2&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pcworld.com%2Farticle%2F128014%2Fmicrosoft_sues_phishers.html&ei=EGyESJv0JonysAPC2NnDCQ&usg=AFQjCNFPm_ruNzNNECI8DMuzt3--hohOWw&sig2=V298uGQk4lHzfjyvw2vpNQ/

infozerk.com/averyblog/microsoft-sues-boy-boy-sues-back/

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=4&url=http%3A%2F%2Fnews.cnet.com%2FMicrosoft-sues-over-source-code-theft%2F2100-1025_3-6119892.html&ei=EGyESJv0JonysAPC2NnDCQ&usg=AFQjCNHnn_gq19jJUeJ_pR0ko8_xmlTzUg&sig2=4dntiLvBSko5_9-3aU5oAA/

news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9730964-7.html/

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=6&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.engadget.com%2F2006%2F09%2F26%2Fmicrosoft-sues-viodenta-for-copyright-infringement%2F&ei=EGyESJv0JonysAPC2NnDCQ&usg=AFQjCNGxflq-OCfC4rXs5VZP48Y5ME3Jmg&sig2=onjW3qJ9und85seO-HY8hQ/

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=7&url=http%3A%2F%2Farstechnica.com%2Fnews.ars%2Fpost%2F20060718-7284.html&ei=EGyESJv0JonysAPC2NnDCQ&usg=AFQjCNFAlxjyBDZLVaFCSwrdoRlIFvCjuA&sig2=_Hk7P4D8oWI5t2kIeldAfA/

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=8&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.microsoft.com%2Fpresspass%2Fpress%2F2004%2Fdec04%2F12-02BrownPaperPR.mspx&ei=EGyESJv0JonysAPC2NnDCQ&usg=AFQjCNGLytgdgGZ_moIESURFUlgkHLyGzA&sig2=iW-iFvb7cEkhuOYDHAUazA/

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=9&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theinquirer.net%2Fen%2Finquirer%2Fnews%2F2006%2F03%2F19%2Fmicrosoft-sues-firm-for-re-selling--spyware-beta&ei=EGyESJv0JonysAPC2NnDCQ&usg=AFQjCNHyzBuJiL7bBT5XcFlFJpDBFxfcWA&sig2=PjSTg-PAhCM5wZyAltCPCw/

There. Proved you wrong with lieterally 5 seconds of Googling.

Re:Mod parent down

[civilizedINTENSITY]

I believe that the argument being made was that Facebook, like MS, is trying to cheat the system by stealing a win rather than earning it. That this would occur after an infusion of cash from MS is interesting, at least to me. MS gives SCO cash, SCO trys to sue their way into market dominance. MS gives Facebook cash, etc... If there is a pattern occurring don't you think it worthy of SEC attention?

Re:U stole my UI

[Savage-Rabbit]

...and general lack of design?

I think they are getting some fierce competition from Dell on that last one.

Alright. first one to use left column navigation

[unity100]

and right content column with a top header bar on a website, go sue facebook. for, they are piggybacking on your success.

In other news, Pepsi is suing Coca-Cola..

[bronney]

for making a drink that "tastes" like a Pepsi!

what in ze hell is that?

Reasonably strong case

[The Absurd Chemist]

Upon seeing StudiVZ for the first time last year when I moved to Germany, my first thought was, "Hmm, they must have bought the rights to use the code from Facebook." After using it for a while though it became clear it is distinctly different from Facebook, but I'm inclined to think that courts won't see it like that.

Having a similar look, feel, and even layout really shouldn't be enough to be called a copy, since in this case the imitation isn't necessarily to try to make people use StudiVZ instead of Facebook. Facebook has a minuscule portion of the market here in Germany, with StudiVZ very clearly in the lead. I get the feeling this case is simply retribution for that, since apparently Facebook wants to break into the market here to a greater extent.

On an interesting note, I've yet to meet a single Myspace user here.

server error on /usr/www/users/fakebook/index.php

[janopdm]

Look at the path on this StudiVZ server error: http://flickr.com/photos/bumi/285541845/sizes/o/
It shows the amount of creativity that went into StudiVZ.

What timing!

[Atario]

Rolling Stone magazine just had a big story about how Facebook was itself stolen in the first place.

Re:What timing!

[xtracto]

Wow,

Now that is a story. I had no idea about the origins of FaceBook... according to that story the founder of Facebook is a total asshole.

Re:What timing!

[civilizedINTENSITY]

IANAL, but while NDA have weight, at least in CA, i believe that NCA have been ruled unenforcible as "restraint of trade".

Feed 'em to the PIGS!

[Frosty Piss]

Recently, studiVZ was criticized for the provocative contents of a campaign of viral videos. Reportedly, one of three particular videos, for example, shows a gang that murders a vegetarian and feeds him to pigs.

-- Wikipedia

Can't be all bad!

Re:Feed 'em to the PIGS!

[DuncanE]

Okay, Im a vegetarian.. and your post still made me spit soy milk on my keyboard ;-)

User base is the key

[Saint Fnordius]

StudiVZ really did manage to capture a huge chunk of Facebook's old core of users, the students. Back when I was more interested in Facebook, there was a problem with the Germany network, namely that some Canadians tried to usurp the network message boards to post racist and offensive crap. Facebook did nothing for ages, despite tonnes of complaints, and many students migrated to StudiVZ instead.

Whether earned or not, StudiVZ has a better overall rep amongst Germans, and Facebook had been too slow in the past to react. Now they find themselves unable to crack the userbase, so they'll try to kill the competition with this strategy.

I think whatever they do, Facebook just doomed themselves in the German market. Either they look like another American trying to quash a local hero, or they look like the Goliath that the little StudiVZ managed to take on and beat.

Re:User base is the key

[Sapphon]

Being a user of both services, I have no idea why anyone would choose StudiVZ over Facebook. Aside from being able to see who lasted visited your page (which can be toggled by the visiting user), and having the (admittedly cool) functionality of entering what courses you're studying*, StudiVZ has nothing that Facebook doesn't (and has a much crappier interface).

StudiVZ lost a lot of users when they introduced their new privacy-unfriendly terms and conditions, and my anecdotal evidence is that I'm seeing more Germans migrate to Facebook than from it. The main reason StudiVZ caught on here was because it was – surprise – in German, while Facebook (until recently) wasn't.

It's not that Facebook has a worse reputation than StudiVZ, but simply that it's less well known. As such, FB suing SVZ won't hurt their chances in Germany in the slightest.

To respond to other posters saying they've looked at the two sites and can't see many similarities: take it from a user – they are incredibly similar. Just that StudiVZ is worse.

*so can find, you know.. fellows students.

Re:User base is the key

[Saint Fnordius]

While I don't disagree with you, I think the biggest difference is that StudiVZ (and its spinoff SchuelerVZ) are more school-oriented, whereas Facebook in Germany is more socially-oriented. That's why I haven't seen StudiVZ from the inside, as my last semesters in the uni were back in the Eighties. Ahem.

I can tell from my daughter's usage that Schueler.CC trumps SchulerVZ, though. It too seems to borrow heavily from Facebook's look and feel, but the kids simply prefer Schueler.CC for chats and online nonsense. German kids just have different tastes, as ICQ still trumps AIM and the other IM protocols.

I also stand by my observation that Germans will rally around the local boy against the Big Bad American. It happens all the time, as the case with Walmart shows. Even Starbucks flopped on its first attempt to enter the German market, and even now they are having a hard time against the lookalikes that filled the niche before they could.

Re: Timing

[Lonewolf666]

If GP was right about lots of the web design originally being exact copies, the lawsuit comes a bit late.

Because stolen HTML code is a clear copyrigt violation, while "look and feel" is a lot less clear-cut.

Correction of Summary

[Blakey Rat]

Facebook, the largest social networking site in the US

Facebook is number 2 to MySpace still. It's growing much quicker, so it's likely to overtake in the next six months, but at the moment Facebook is not the largest social networking site in the US.

Haha better not look in China

[specific_pacific]

http://www.xiaonei.com/
http://www.5gsns.com/
http://yiqi.com/
http://www.yeejee.com/
http://www.hainei.com/

and that's just a sample!

Somehow I doubt this lawsuit will help them much

[Mathinker]

If the German student population is anything like the German geek population I have the distinct impression that even if they would win the lawsuit even fewer people will use their German site.

I wonder if their PR department is taking lessons from the **AA.

Re: Timing

[digitig]

Stolen HTML code remains stolen HTML code even if it's no longer the code used on the site. (And yes, for the sake of other readers, I am aware of the controversy over the use of the word "stolen" in the context of IP).

Karma

[boxxa]

Ha. Karma is a b*tch.

Copies? Bah

[styryx]

What are you talking about 'copies'. Have YOU seen the sites? One is blue(fb) and the other is clearly RED! RED IS NOT BLUE!

Re: Timing

[M-RES]

Sod 'IP' - I thought HTML was an open scripting language? So how do you steal anything written in it?

So?

[Godji]

What _exactly_ is wrong with a ripoff from a _legal_ (not moral) point of view? Can Facebook claim copyright infringement?? Is there a law against "doing more or less the same thing independently"? If there is, I'm scared.

Re:So?

[clone53421]

What if they copied the source code?

Somebody else already posted these, but I'll repeat anyway... check the view-source and see if you notice the similarity.

http://web.archive.org/web/20051127084214/http://www.facebook.com/
http://web.archive.org/web/20060101110221/http://www.studivz.de/

Re:So?

[thedistrict]

I agree, there are some similarities. And the idea of piggybacking on the success of facebook is certainly plausible, now that they're turning down bids from the likes of MS. That doesn't make it legal though. And it's quite suspicious, I don't think that this will be settled on studiVZ side. Unless it's a European judge with a thorn in his side about american anti-trust issues and facebook (and myspace) controlling the market.

Re:So?

[temcat]

And what is wrong with a ripoff from a moral point of view? I say let's copy the best from each other, and the world will get better. There's no such thing as a moral right to uniqueness.

Re:So?

[Godji]

I absolutely agree with you. I did not (intend to) claim otherwise. I was just curious about the legal side of the question, and I wanted to ignore the moral one.

Re: Timing

[digitig]

It's no more open as the English Language itself, and authors are still able to copyright their work.

easy to fix

[speedtux]

Move the login/password dialog to the right. See, now it's completely different.

Besides, look who's complaining...

Re:Lightbox DHTML popups, and friends? Sue them al

[clone53421]

Facebook ... wow. I really, really love you, facebook, but ... keep this kindof crap up, and I'm looking for another social networking site.

If they keep this up, good luck finding one. ;)

Re:LOL

[civilizedINTENSITY]

Its not a ripoff:

The Court cited McCarthy on Trademarks and Unfair Competition, a well respected legal treatise that says: The first principle of unfair competition law is that everything that is not protected by an intellectual property right is free to copy. In fact, copying is an essential part of the whole fabric of an economic system of free competition. Thus, the act of "copying," far from being intrinsically improper, is essential and should be lauded and encouraged, not condemned. There is absolutely nothing legally or morally reprehensible about exact copying of things in the public domain.