Who owns your comments?

Intellectual property rights on the internet in China seem to be developing faster than in other fields. Earlier this month we wrote already about virtual property and its threats, but now Danwei points at an court verdict between internet portal Sohu and online forum Dianping on the ownership of comments.
Dianping collects reviews by internet users on restaurants, shops and other venues and publishes those online. Sohu republished a part of those and Dianping sued. Sohu's argument that there could be not intellectual property on user generated content was dismissed by the court and Dianping, who organized the content in the first place, got damages.

Google sorry for stealing

Google in China has apologized to Sohu.com for 'lending' the database of Sogou, its input system for pinyin. Google offered their excuses just ahead of a press conference by Sohu where it wanted to vilify its competitor for stealing. The ongoing discussion will get an interesting twist here.