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

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.