14 DAY TRIAL // The developers of the controversial Green Dam Youth Escort Internet content filtering software, as well as the Government of China and seven large computer manufacturers were named as defendants in a $2.2-billion copyright infringement lawsuit. The action was brought forth by Solid Oak Software, a U.S. company whose intellectual property was allegedly stolen and incorporated in the Chinese program.
During the first half of last year the Chinese government mandated that all computers sold in the country beginning 1 July 2009 should come bundled with an Internet content-filtering application dubbed Green Dam Youth Escort. The software, developed under a government contract by Zhengzhou Jinhui Computer System Engineering and Beijing Dazheng Human Language Technology Academy, was allegedly supposed to protect children and prevent access to explicit, adult material.
However, privacy advocates didn't buy the excuse and analyzed the software, only to discover that it also blocked other content of political nature. It was not long after that a team of computer experts from the University of Michigan reverse-engineered its code and announced that the software was riddled with serious security holes that could be exploited remotely to infect millions of computers.
During its research, the team also pointed out that Green Dam made use of code from CYBERsitter, a content-filtering application developed by Santa Barbara-based Solid Oak Software. Pressured by International bodies, the Chinese government eventually limited the deployment plan only to computers in public institutions and Internet cafes.
The complaint filed yesterday by Solid Oak Software in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, alleges that over 3,000 lines of code from CYBERsitter were copied and used in Green Dam by its developers. The two Chinese companies that created the application are accused of misappropriating trade secrets, engaged in unfair competition and copyright infringement
Additionally, the Chinese government, together with Sony, Lenovo, Toshiba, Acer, Asustek, BenQ and Haier, is also named as defendant for distributing over 56 million copies of the infringing software. "This lawsuit aims to strike a blow against the all-too-common practices of foreign software manufacturers and distributors who believe that they can violate the intellectual property rights of small American companies with impunity without being brought to justice in U.S. courts," Greg Fayer, the attorney for Solid Oak, commented, according to IDG News Service.
The distribution of the software together with new computer systems stopped in September 2007, with Sony, Lenovo and Acer being the last manufacturers to end the practice. Zhengzhou Jinhui Computer System Engineering had previously denied all claims of copyright infringement.