January 2010
Cybersitter sues China for Copyright Infringement
Cybersitter a software company based in California has filed a $2.2bn (£1.4bn) lawsuit in the federal court in Los Angeles alleging that the Chinese Government has infringed its copyright by distributing site-blocking software called Green Dam.
Green Dam which was developed by Chinese firm Jinhui Computer System Engineering had been created to block out offensive material on the web. The Chinese government had planned for every PC sold from July 2010 onwards to have a copy of the Green Dam software already installed.
Cybersitter argues that the developers of Green Dam have copied more than 3,000 lines of software code from there own filtering software and conspired with the Chinese government to distribute more than 56 million copies of the infringing software throughout China.
The Chinese government is yet to make a formal response to the allegations.
BRIFFA Comment
In the UK software code is protected by copyright law as a literary work and where a third party distributes infringing copies of a copyright work they are liable for secondary infringement.
U.S. copyright law works in a similar way and offers protection for copyright holders against distributors of illegal copies of their works.
However, even if Cybersitter were successful in their legal challenge they could face difficulty in enforcing US copyright proceedings against the Chinese government or developers of the Green Dam as they are based in a different jurisdiction.
In a recent judgment of the UK Court of Appeal on whether a U.S. copyright judgement could be enforced against an individual based in the UK the Court held that they had no jurisdiction to enforce a decision based on U.S. copyright law. They added that whether or not local copyright law can be enforced in another jurisdiction is a question for governments to agree upon through International treaties. It is likely that were Cybersitter to proceed to enforce a U.S. decision in China the Chinese courts would reach a similar conclusion on this issue as there is currently no international agreement on enforcement of U.S. judgements in China.
For more information on protection of software code and enforcement of your copyright please do not hesitate to get into contact with one of our Intellectual Property Lawyers via info@briffa.com.