Chapter 30 Growing Pains Coral Distressed, Rainbow Retires

Relying on the rapid rise of many users, Tencent has attracted the attention of a group of technical personnel. Everyone is competing to imitate and change the QQ program, and Chen Shoufu is one of them. Chen Shoufu, born in December 1980, is very obsessed with computers.According to media reports, Chen Shoufu was obsessed with computer technology during his college days and was also very talented. In 2001, Chen Shoufu, who was very researched in technology development, discovered many shortcomings of QQ, so he made many modifications to the original version of QQ, removed the advertisements of QQ and added the function of exploring IP. The Coral version is not yet a plug-in form.

In 2003, Tencent approached Chen Shoufu. During the negotiation between the two parties, Chen Shoufu, who was still a student at the time, wrote a letter of guarantee, "guaranteed to close the download of the coral QQ version on my website, and not to modify the Tencent QQ software."At that time, Zou Dan’s version and Muzi’s version were also in trouble. Tencent’s trump card was copyright infringement. Under such circumstances, they withdrew from research and development one after another. In 2004, Chen Shoufu switched to cheating.Without modifying the QQ software source code, Chen Shoufu quickly wrote the prototype of the coral polyp QQ plug-in. At the very beginning, the coral polyp plug-in not only had the function of displaying IP and removing advertisements, but also effectively avoided Tencent’s Copyright issue.For a while, the download volume of coral polyps sometimes even surpassed that of Tencent QQ itself.

On August 20, 2006, Tencent filed a complaint against Chen Shoufu on the grounds that Chen Shoufu violated his copyright and constituted unfair competition.Tencent filed a lawsuit requesting that it immediately stop the infringement of the plaintiff's copyright and unfair competition, make a public apology, eliminate the impact, and compensate Tencent for economic losses of RMB 500,000. On December 20, 2006, the People's Court of Haidian District, Beijing made the following judgment: Chen Shoufu's act of setting up the download service of the work involved in the website "Coral Studio" without Tencent's permission is obviously an infringement, so the infringement should be stopped immediately and Bear the tort liability in accordance with the law, Tencent claimed that Chen Shoufu's actions such as setting up plug-in programs on the "Coral Studio" constituted unfair competition, and the evidence was insufficient, so it should not be accepted.

The result of the negotiation between the two parties in the court this time ended with Chen Shoufu publicly apologizing on the coral website and compensating Tencent with RMB 100,000.After winning the lawsuit, Tencent adopted a low-key attitude and has not made the trial results public.The coral cheating case, which seems to have been settled, became a new wave. On August 16, 2007, Chen Shoufu was detained by the Shenzhen police on the grounds of copyright infringement and illegal profit-making, which pushed the incident in another direction. "December last year (2006) the Beijing Haidian District People's Court ruled that Chen Shoufu should stop providing downloads and use of infringing software, but corals have been infringing." Fu Xuejun, publicity department of Shenzhen Nanshan Public Security Bureau, was interviewed by "New Century Weekly" Saying this, "After we received a report from Tencent, the investigators of the Economic Crime Investigation Brigade investigated and dealt with the case. After obtaining more evidence of illegal profit making, the criminal suspect Chen Shoufu was arrested in Beijing on August 16. ". "During the interrogation of the criminal suspect Chen Shoufu, he admitted that when he first started developing coral polyps, it was indeed for the convenience of users, but later some advertisers took the initiative to ask him to bundle advertising plug-ins. Enticed by advertising profits, coral polyps began to bundle advertising plug-ins In December last year, the court judged him to be infringing and stopped the download and use of the coral version, but he signed a contract with the advertiser for one year, and he could not stop the use of the coral version, which would violate the advertising contract. He said after being detained I can no longer control the whole situation and can't stop. However, now he is very actively cooperating with our investigation."

The focus of the incident is on the copyright infringement of coral polyps and the illegal profit-making by bundling plug-ins.So, how much money did corals earn? "Computer Application Digest" once calculated for corals: corals mainly rely on bundled plug-ins to make profits. Currently, plug-in vendors will give relatively favorable conditions for popular software on the market. To make software authors bundle their plug-ins, a few cents more, and a few cents less.It seems that a few cents is very little, but if the amount is large, the income is still very considerable.It is said that a well-known domestic software bundle can earn at least 100,000 yuan per month. Based on the number of downloads of coral polyps, the annual income is estimated to be in the millions.

Chen Shoufu's arrest sparked huge controversy.People who sympathize with Chen Shoufu also cited a vivid metaphor: just like the relationship between a set-top box and a TV, the set-top box enhances some functions of the TV, can you say that the set-top box infringes the copyright of the TV? Yu Guofu, a well-known lawyer in the Internet industry, pointed out , The impact of this case on the industry is very huge.Prior to this, copyright infringements were often considered to be subject only to civil liability.The action of the Shenzhen police this time has alerted and shocked many people. He believes that the sword of law hangs above the responsibility for copyright infringement.Subject to certain conditions, copyright infringement may be subject to severe criminal penalties.

According to the public prosecution materials provided by Tencent, the public prosecutor believes that: from the end of 2005 to January 2007, after Chen Shoufu downloaded the Tencent QQ software from Tencent's website, he modified the Tencent QQ software without Tencent's permission, and copied the Tencent QQ software Delete the ads and search functions, and add the function of displaying friends' IP addresses.In addition, "the modified software will be placed on the self-registered Coral Studio in the name of Coral QQ for users to download for illegal benefits."The public prosecutor also said: According to the investigation by the public security department, Chen Shoufu began to illegally copy QQ software in 2003, then modified and disseminated it, and modified and distributed almost every genuine QQ software.From 2006 to 2007 alone, five versions of QQ software were illegally modified and released.

On the afternoon of March 20, 2008, the first-instance trial of the "QQ Coral" case, which has attracted much attention, was pronounced in the Nanshan District Court of Shenzhen: the defendant Chen Shoufu was sentenced to three years in prison and fined 1.2 million yuan for copyright infringement.Chen Shoufu's defense lawyer once argued that the "Tencent QQ Coral Enhancement Package" series of software developed by Chen Shoufu did not modify any source code of Tencent QQ, which did not constitute copyright infringement, and insisted on defending his innocence.But the court ultimately rejected it.It is understood that before bundling these softwares, Chen Shoufu conducted strict tests. Although these softwares later turned into rogue softwares, this is beyond his control.Shortly after Chen Shoufu was detained, Piaoyun Team, another organization engaged in QQ development, said that it would terminate the production of Piaoyun QQ."Crazy Gentleman," a member of the organization, said that the team caused about 80,000 yuan in advertising losses to Tencent every day.Because Chen Shoufu was arrested, the Piaoyun team also worried that one day they would be hit by Tencent's rights protection, so they chose to quit.But for Tencent, the plug-in incident is more like an intermission.

Rainbow QQ started operation at the end of 2007, a project secretly developed by Pang Dongsheng's 51.com.Before the launch of Rainbow QQ, Shanghai Honglian Network Technology Co., Ltd. was registered in the name of Pang Jing, one of the Rainbow QQ project team members. "Rainbow QQ" is a third-party plug-in, because it has the "value-added" functions of Tencent QQ such as IP address detection and display of invisible friends, so it quickly became popular among the huge QQ user base. On November 24, many Rainbow QQ users received a prompt box from the QQ Security Center saying “Illegal QQ plug-in software found”, claiming that such plug-ins are likely to leak user privacy, and users are advised to uninstall them immediately.If the user does not uninstall, QQ will exit immediately and the user cannot use it normally. 51.com publicly issued an official statement on November 26, stating that Rainbow Software has been registered with the National Copyright Administration for software copyright, and Tencent has no right to arbitrarily determine that Rainbow Software is illegal.

Subsequently, the two sides launched a new round of war of words surrounding the rainbow QQ software dispute, and there was even news that "Tencent will not rule out suing 51.com". "21st Century Business Herald" wrote that: Before launching "Rainbow QQ", 51.com had consulted with relevant legal agencies. "Rainbow QQ" was developed, designed and marketed, and there were relevant legal teams behind every step. support. "It can be said that at the beginning of the production of Rainbow QQ, relevant legal issues were considered and full preparations were made."

The "war" between 51.com and Tencent has already laid the root of the disaster. It is reported that the competition between 51.com and Tencent has not been for a year or two, and 51.com’s “poaching” from Tencent is already an open secret within the company. Many important projects of 51.com are people from Tencent. In charge, for example, Wu Wenxuan, who is in charge of the development platform of 51.com, and Zhang Baohe, who is in charge of instant messaging, were both recruited directly from Tencent. "I think 51.com will be positioned in a market that competes with QQ in the next few years." Pang Shengdong, chairman of 51.com, once publicly expressed his competitive relationship with Tencent, "We will not shift the market either." Almost Every time Tencent launches a new function and application, 51.com will "learn" and "digest" it, and quickly develop it on its own platform.For example, "51 Mall", "51 Group", "51 Show", and "51 Asking" are currently on the 51.com platform. In addition to developing Rainbow QQ, 51.com has also developed its own IM (instant messaging). ) Products: 51 hanging. The feud between Tencent and 51.com is deep, but regarding Rainbow QQ, there are two voices in the industry: one thinks that Rainbow QQ does not copy software and secondly does not profit from it.The second voice believes that although Rainbow QQ has no commercial activities at present, there must be a certain business logic behind its operation: first, third-party plug-ins will occupy Tencent QQ servers and increase the load on Tencent servers; second, Rainbow QQ can easily Obtain Tencent user data freely and use it for yourself. But in more than a month, the attitude of Pang Dongsheng and Tencent to carry on to the end has changed. On December 16, Pang Shengdong, the chairman of 51.com, publicly stated that 51.com no longer intends to continue to do rainbow QQ plug-ins. At present, the company has reorganized its business and will return to its main business to "do the basic things well."And this decision is mainly affected by the "financial crisis".In fact, Pang Dongsheng has suspended the development of Rainbow QQ at the end of November, and the project team has been disbanded.Industry insiders pointed out that Pang Shengdong's statement implied that investors had put more pressure on 51.com.