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

What realistic choice does ZDnet have?

[Ritz_Just_Ritz]

If they want to operate in China, they've got to comply with Chinese laws. If they don't comply, the Chinese government has all sorts of levers to apply (fines, jail, blocking their site, etc).

Personally, I would just choose to not do business in China until such time as there is even a hint of transparency in the business and legal environments, but that's just me.

Re:What realistic choice does ZDnet have?

[NoYob]

The Chinese leadership is fighting a losing battle and I believe they know this. When they opened up their country to the West and doing business with free countries, it is only a matter of time for their regime to weaken and for Western influences to take hold. Not doing business in China wouldn't do anything except maybe quiet your conscience.

The more Western entities in China there are, the more their regime weakens. It will take time - maybe a generation or more, but the Chinese people will be doing the changing on their terms instead by mandate from Westerners.

Telling others how to live and how to govern themselves has never worked.Notice that whenever the Chinese government is criticized, the Chinese people are right there backing their Government.

Real change will have to come from within and the Chinese people will have to do it and do it according to their values.

Reaching Out To Sue Anyone You Can

[rsmith-mac]

This strikes me as desperation. Solid Oak Software obviously can't sue the violator, who is China proper, so they're suing any 3rd party they can find.

As far I can tell, the ZDNet China site is basically the same thing as Download.com, CBS American freeware/shareware/trialware download site. If this is the case, then CBS isn't directly making any money off of offering the software since they aren't selling it (they do however get ad money). It's freeware, and CBS would have no way of knowing that it contained copyright-infringing code. To add insult to injury, Solid Oak wants the full price ($40) of their own filtering software awarded to them as damages, for each copy downloaded from ZDNet China.

If this goes to trial and Solid Oak were to win, it would end up being a precedent-setting event. What Solid Oak is basically arguing is that 3rd parties are fully liable for any copyright violations in the software they distribute. That would immediately make download sites such as Download.com, FilePlanet, and MajorGeeks an impossible thing to offer. And who knows, maybe even Linux mirrors would be liable if some Linux component/package was found to be violating copyright?

If Solid Oak has their way, the idea of rehosting free (as in beer) software is dead.

Re:Well

[ground.zero.612]

Capitalism is evil.

I think you more properly meant that the people doing evil are doing it under the guise of capitalism.

Re:Win-win situation

[digitig]

A battle between a repressive government and a company that makes repressive software? So there's basically no downside?

Yes there is. Lawyers will profit.

Re:Well

[commodore64_love]

I really wish people would stop calling "capitalism evil". Capitalism is nothing more than your neighbor building a chair, or bed, or whatever his specialty might be, and you saying, "That's really nice, can I buy it or give you something else for trade?" That's capitalism and it's not evil. It's the basis of human interaction between neighbors and goes-back 5000 years.

Have some of the corporations gotten out of control? Absolutely, but that doesn't mean we need to kill capitalism. We simply need to downsize the corporation (or kill it off completely), same way we removed the kings and replaced them with democratic-elected assemblies.

That's an odd comment at the end

[MartinSchou]

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.

First of all - if you're doing business in more than one country, you are going to have to comply with the laws of those countries.

Secondly, if the recent polls are an indication, about half of Slashdot aren't in the US, so why would we care if some foreign country mandates something that may be illegal in the US? Now, if it had said "could force US companies [...]" it'd be a lot better.

But why are people surprised, that if you operate in a country, you will have to abide by the laws of that country? If you operate in a country that makes it illegal to give your customers' info to any third party without a court order, and another country has a law that says any government official can ask and it's illegal to deny the request - you're going to have to figure out how to build airtight shutters between the two companies.

Duh!