Chinese Writers Sue Apple Over IP Violations 143
hackingbear writes "A group of 22 Chinese authors have filed a claim against Apple, alleging its App Store sells unlicensed copies of their books. The Writers Rights Alliance, founded by Han Han, a young popular Chinese author and the worlds' most popular blogger, who is known for his cynical criticism of the government, petitioned Apple last year to stop electronic distribution of the writers' books and had earlier persuaded Baidu, China's largest search engine, to stop publishing their material on its Baidu Library product."
Re:Hard for the little guy (Score:1, Informative)
They do get a nice 30% commision and unless there is an indemnification clause on the publisher/developer agreement, Apple did profit from the IP theft.
Re:Hard for the little guy (Score:5, Informative)
They do get a nice 30% commision and unless there is an indemnification clause on the publisher/developer agreement, Apple did profit from the IP theft.
First, it is copyright violation not "IP theft". Please don't conflate the terms as they have entirely different legal basis in most jurisdictions. Second, in the US commercial copyright infringement is punishable by the company having to pay a fine and reimburse the copyright holder unless it was knowledgeable about the copyright infringement first and refused to remove the offending content, in which case the court can award damages. So assuming this suit was filed in the US, Apple can pull the books from the store, reimburse whoever owns the copyright the profit on the 30% of each sale (which is almost nothing after operating expenses, Apple's store is about selling things cheaply in order to make money off of hardware), pay a fine, and sue whoever submitted the books to recoup the loss if they care enough. All of this, of course, presuming there is not some weird situation we don't know about or the suit was filed in China and the laws there are significantly different.
Re:Two minute justice resolution. (Score:4, Informative)
Basically what you are saying is, "I will pay for any costs incurred to you by lawsuits resulting from my negligence, lies, or mistakes." It's highly probably that such language is in the contract. What that means in China is somewhat more questionable.
Re:hahahaah irony (Score:4, Informative)
how you say irony in chinese?
Not sure, but with a Chinese accent, it's ILONY
Ironically, "IRONY" is one of the few English words which most Chinese speakers will be abe to pronounce nearly perfectly, as it lacks consonant clusters, and ends on a vowel.