Why Kaixin001 Might Not Be Too Happy About Its Victory Over Oak Pacific Interactive

Social media site Kaixin001's content was copyied by Oak Pacific Interactive (who owns social media site Ren Ren). It was put online under the domain name Kaxin.

Beijing No. 2 Intermediate People's Court ruled that Oak Pacific Interactive should pay to Kaixin001 400,000 RMB as compensation for damages, remove the copied content and stop using the name Kaixin (which means "happy") on the site. However Oak Pacific Interactive can continue to use the domain name Kaixin. So if you type in Kaixin, you will be redirected to the social media site of Ren Ren.

Read the Xinhua article via China IPR here.

A fair competition between social media sites such as Ren Ren (人人网), which focuses on internet cafe visitors and college students, and Kaixin001 (开心网), which caters to white collar workers, is laudable. However, one can pose the question about whether these two competitors reached their pole position, making use of the protection the Great Chinese Firwall gave them, de facto excluding social media sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn, is fair.