CBS Interactive Sued For Distributing Green Dam

Dotnaught writes "Solid Oak Software, maker of Internet filter CYBERsitter, on Monday filed a $1.2 million copyright infringement lawsuit against CBS Interactive's ZDNet China for distributing the Green Dam Internet filtering software. Green Dam was going to be mandatory on all PCs in China starting in July, but widespread criticism, including reports of stolen code, forced the Chinese government to reconsider. The lawsuit, if it succeeds, could force companies to give more thought to the risks of complying with mandates from foreign governments that violate US laws."

Comments

Given the situation

[Smidge207]

If china PCs had been hammering my servers for updates to their plagiarized software, I'd have called the CIA to see what to slip in next update. And this *has* been done before. During the Cold War, in order to disrupt the Soviet economy and serve them some comeuppance for their industrial espionage activities, the CIA, in partnership with American Technology companies ensured that hardware and software with carefully arranged "flaws" found its way into Soviet hands.

In one particular instance a "flawed" natural gas pipeline software and associated hardware went "haywire" (i.e. it ran the ultra-high pressure test) after a planned period of normal operation. The result was the largest non-nuclear man-made explosion ever seen from space (the satellites designed to detect plumes from ICBM launches detected a tremendous flash from the area near Vladivostok where the pipeline in question was located).

This article covers some of the details excerpted from the book At the Abyss: An Insider's History of the Cold War as recalled by Thomas C. Reed, a former Air Force secretary who was serving in the National Security Council at the time.

For those who could not understand the summary.

[will_die]

Solid Oak Software is using CBS Interactive for $1,238,450 on the claim that CBS Interactive copied 3,000 lines of code from Solid Oak Software's CYBERSitter and used it in Green Dam software.
The amount they are sueing for is $39.95, the cost of the CYBERSitter software, times the 31,000 times they say the Green Dam software was downloaded.

Since both companies are US based this comes down to simple intellectual property lawsuit.

Re:For those who could not understand the summary.

[will_die]

Blue Dam is the Chinese government's replacement for Green Dam. Blue Dam is aimed for the servers and make use of hardware and software and is suppose to be multiple times more effective then Green Dam was. It is not part of this lawsuit.
Found an article that better explains it. The chinese government hired Jinhui Computer System Engineering who wrote the software, and would of been the company that stole the code. They are China based so no lawsuits on them.
CBS Interactive is being sued because they are US based and distributed the software. It is still down intellectual property.

Re:What realistic choice does ZDnet have?

[zippthorne]

To paraphrase the GPL of all things..

If they want to operate in the USA, they have to comply with US laws. Compliance with Chinese laws doesn't absolve them from US requirements, if they can't do business satisfying all applicable law, then they must refrain from doing that business.

Re:What realistic choice does ZDnet have?

[Rocketship Underpant]

Actually, the point of a corporation is that a board of directors contractually assume legal and financial liability from the shareholders â" so they're the ones who should be punished for the company's crimes.