Talking of music piracy…

China is in trouble again. Californian music software company Cybersitter is suing the entire country for $2.2 billion. It argues that the Green Dam Youth Escort filtering program, which is installed on computers in China, infringes its copyright.

The program is designed to stop children from viewing pornography, but the Californian firm claims it illegally copies 3,000 lines of code developed by Cybersitter.

Greg Fayer, a lawyer representing the Californian firm said: “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.”

China of course does have this tendency to run roughshod over western copyright law.

It is worth bearing in mind, however, that the US itself didn’t recognise international copyright law until 1891.