[mhcmarty]

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It was patent infringement rather than copyright infringement. Presumably, the people who sued them had a patent on some part of the software that they use to run their website. In most parts of the world, you can't patent software -- its seen as akin to trying to patent a mathematical algorithm -- but in the USA, you have all these trolls who have been patenting all manner of nonsense. Some of it trivial, some of it already existing in prior art, etc. etc. Then they lie in wait until someone builds a business that uses something similar, and when they are making a lot of money, they sue and settle for licensing fees.


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Isn't this pretty much the same thing Blackberry went through? They were sued based on a patent that specified a process or how the e-mail servers were set-up.