Chinese Court Fines Apple For Copyright Violations 102
hackingbear writes "The Beijing No. 2 Intermediate People's Court ruled in favor of a group of Chinese authors, and Apple will have to pay them in excess of 730,000 yuan (US$118,000) for infringement. Apple had not gotten permission before selling their books on the Apple App Store, it noted. These cases were the second batch of lawsuits filed against Apple by the Writers' Right Protection Union, which includes prominent members like prolific blogger and novelist Han Han who have become a pop culture star through his creative and cynical writings criticizing the (Chinese) government."
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Apple are hypocritical thieves, nothing more, nothing less.
Just a typical corporation then
Passing off (Score:5, Interesting)
What should Apple have done? (Score:3)
The judge puts it squarely on Apple's feet.
Then what would the judge have recommended as a best practice to not do it again? How can Apple be sure that the text that an author submits to iBooks is the author's own work? In fact, how can even the author [wikipedia.org]?
Read all best-sellers and submissions completely (Score:2, Insightful)
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The books Apple are being prosecuted for are best-sellers! This isn't some obscure, hard to find manuscript we're talking about.
Apple would still have to check every submission against every best-seller, which means it'd have to buy every best-seller. And Apple would have to do this by hand in case a submission is a paraphrase of a best-seller.
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is it a crime in china to paraphrase someone else's book? this certainly wouldn't violate copyright here. see weird al for example.
I don't know about Chinese copyright law, but in general, preparing an unauthorized adaptation violates whatever national statute implements Berne Convention article 12 [wipo.int]. For another, even if parody falls under fair use, "Weird Al" Yankovic routinely seeks permission.
to the extent that a written book is the implementation of an idea, what can you do if somebody paraphrases your ideas?
The selection and arrangement of ideas is part of implementation, and what constitutes an idea tends to be broader in fiction than in nonfiction.
Re: What should Apple have done? (Score:2)
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The judge puts it squarely on Apple's feet.
Then what would the judge have recommended as a best practice to not do it again? How can Apple be sure that the text that an author submits to iBooks is the author's own work? In fact, how can even the author [wikipedia.org]?
Apple might not be able to completely avoid it. But, that doesn't mean they don't owe damages. Apple can pay the author all of the illegal profit that they made plus the money they paid the fake author. Then, they can sue the fake author.
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The judge puts it squarely on Apple's feet.
Then what would the judge have recommended as a best practice to not do it again? How can Apple be sure that the text that an author submits to iBooks is the author's own work? In fact, how can even the author [wikipedia.org]?
And let's not forget that authors often do not own their own books, usually selling the rights to the books to their publisher even before they are written. This applies to musicians and other artists too, usually there is a music label that owns the music. So it can be difficult to determine who owns what, which is why in the US if I upload something that doesn't belong to me I get sued, not the website I uploaded the copyrighted work to, hence the RIAA lawsuits against individuals we hear about often.
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Did Apple steal other people's ideas, or did someone else defraud Apple by submitting someone else's work to iBooks as his or her own? I'm getting hints from an article in China Daily [chinadaily.com.cn] that it may have been the latter.
Agreed. Article says someone else uploaded the books to Apple and those people were profiting from it. Sounds like Apple was an innocent 3rd party, like if I uploaded copyrighted works to Youtube and Youtube gets sued for sharing it instead of me getting sued.
Also, China has copyright laws? Home of bootleg movies and fake purses? Guess those laws only apply to foreign companies, not when China is stealing stuff from other countries.
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It's likely they acted "In Good Faith" given a perfectly normal submission. There may not be an equivalence for that Western legal term in Chinese law.
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It's likely they acted "In Good Faith" given a perfectly normal submission.
Many of the companies sued by Apple could also claim to have acted in good faith. Will Apple refund all the time and money they were forced to spend to defend themselves?
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It's likely they acted "In Good Faith" given a perfectly normal submission.
Many of the companies sued by Apple could also claim to have acted in good faith.
Sure. The company with the most US Design Patents thought there was no law against copying somebody else's design.
So where here is "the other side"? (Score:1)
"I'd say both sides are, in this case."
So where are the authors guild here being hypocritical?
If you're going to whine about how china has so many bootlegs, then Japan is hypocritical (Sony Rootkit abused the copyrights of the ffmpeg team), the USA ignored Charles Dickens' copyrights, Edisons' patents, the UK patents on mechanised looms, etc (and EVERY country has pirates, therefore EVERY country is hypocrites unless they admit and codify that copyrights are invalid).
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How is this on Apple? They're a store. Someone _ELSE_ sold a book through Apple that contained material that violated copyrights. Apple didn't produce the book. That's like blaming Barnes & Nobles if a book they sold violated copyright.
Apple haters will be Apple haters, making up bullshit reasons to hate.
Grooveshark (Score:3)
That's like blaming Barnes & Nobles if a book they sold violated copyright.
Or like blaming Grooveshark for its users' actions [slashdot.org].
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Re: Hypocritical (Score:1)
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You have to get the approval of their buyers to get in their stores and that's quite difficult, in many cases.
Not being an author or iTunes user myself, I'm not familiar with the process to publish on the iBookstore. I do know that Apple takes the first $650 because this page [apple.com] states that one must first buy a recent Mac, not a competitor's computer.
Re:Hypocritical (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple are hypocritical thieves, nothing more, nothing less.
The real Hypocrisy is the government and legal system of China. As someone who's lived in China. they have ZERO respect for IP laws. Just downstairs from my apt I had a better selection of western and Chinese pirated DVDs than blockbuster, DVD's of Movies that are still playing in the Cinema. I'd often see the local cops come in to BUY DVDs. This is not some backwards city. This is Shanghai and Shenzhen I'm talking about.
They only reason this law is being enforced is that it's Apple and the government is trying to "send a message". Any Chinese owned store, especially with Communist connections, these violations would be ignored.
Proven 100% wrong here. (Score:1)
"As someone who's lived in China. they have ZERO respect for IP laws."
Since this entire case is about China respecting IP laws, your assertion is PROVEN wrong.
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"As someone who's lived in China. they have ZERO respect for IP laws."
Since this entire case is about China respecting IP laws, your assertion is PROVEN wrong.
No, there's a difference between using IP laws when it's to your advantage, and actually "respecting" them.
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No.
In China, just being a foreign corporation (especially US) is enough to have the law be used against you at times it would not be used against domestic companies.
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Haha, ok, but what about China? The really funny part here is China fining a US corporation for copyright violation.
What the heck? (Score:1)
China enforcing copywrite laws? Are you kidding? Since when? Did you pause to consider this might be simply preditory? A large part of China's economy and most of China's military is based on copywrite/patent violations! When China starts enforcing intellectual property rights, it will only mean that it has stolen enough.
So... (Score:2)
I'm going to connect some of the dots provided in the summary, perhaps a little too liberally, but it sounds like the Chinese government ruled in favor of writers that are popular for criticizing the Chinese government.
While I'm not their biggest fan, this is a pretty big step for them.
Granted, it's not like they were explicitly ruling in favor of that so much as not wanting American corporations profiting off of things that are legitimately original Chinese works...ie, don't exploit our people unless you p
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Maybe it's got more to do with sticking it to an American company. American companies don't usually have much luck in CHina regarding copyright claims.
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Number of people that care: zero. Number of francophiles that may care: estimated to be >=1.
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Yup.
Much of China's economy has been built on that concept, and also the idea of working with foreign corporations only long enough to learn their trade secrets and manufacturing techniques - once there is nothing more to learn, it is common for the Chinese companies to stop doing any business with their foreign partner.
Of course, combine this with short-sighted American CEO's concerned only with quarterly profit, and China wins every time.
well Apple did F**K up. (Score:5, Insightful)
Somebody uploaded best-sellers to the store. It is like some john doe uploads the (chinese) Dan Brown books to iTunes, and apple get 30% of all the sales.
Too bad there are so many anti-chinese sentiments here. But this is really a case of chinese seaking part of apple making a boo boo.
Note that in AmericaN law would allow up to $150,000 per infringment, the chise case was for multiple infringements, but the article does not state how much.
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If you would have bothered to read OP's comment he is clearly trying to suggest that the government is for some reason becoming more open to to it's criticas by siding with them in a copyright suit which they historically side with their own regardless of the circumstances.
> it sounds like the Chinese government ruled in favor of writers that are popular for criticizing the Chinese government.
> While I'm not their biggest fan, this is a pretty big step for them.
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Yea, they love the "American" system of capitalism, they just don't like it when outsiders own those profits.
They have in the past gone so far as to build facilities there then nationalize them.
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Yea, they love the "American" system of capitalism, they just don't like it when outsiders own those profits.
They have in the past gone so far as to build facilities there then nationalize them.
Yeah, in China, the government owns the businesses. Here in the US, the businesses own the government.
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American company? I'm not so sure about that. Every apple product I have has "Made in China" on it.
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Wait till you hear where mom's apple pie is made.
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Apple is not local to China.
Just because something was made in CHina, does not mean it was not done for a foreign company.
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American company? I'm not so sure about that. Every apple product I have has "Made in China" on it.
I guess Dell isn't an American company either, then.
Re:So... (Score:4, Interesting)
My guess is that it is a ploy by the Chineese government to force the works to be removed from the App Store.
If they requested directly to have the works removed they would get denied, but if they claim infringement towards the author they can get traction.
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It could also be seen as them trying to reduce the spread of these writers works.
In other news... (Score:5, Funny)
...North Korean court fines Canadian tourist for human rights violations.
Re:In other news... (Score:4, Insightful)
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We're likely on the same side regarding the issue of ethics at Guantanamo, but unless there are Guananamo inmates who are imprisoned for merely the words they've written , it's not an appropriate comparison.
No OCILLA (Score:3)
A humble verdict (Score:1)
If it was a Chinese company being sued in America, the bill would've landed on $118 billion.
China respecting IP? (Score:2)
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I fail to see... (Score:1)
...where they write about what the Chinese government is doing to the people who stole the copyrighted materials, presented them as their own, and reaped the other 70% of the proceeds. Same thing as the Amazon/1984 debacle. Apple's only error is (perhaps) in not doing "enough" to keep OTHER people from breaking Chinese copyright laws.
Double-Take (Score:2)
Thought for a second I'd read that headline backwards.
irony (Score:4, Informative)
Does anyone besides me find it ironic that the piracy capital of the world managed to sue a US company? And win?
Of all the places to lose a copyright infringement case as a defendant...how the hell did it happen in China of all places?
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Does anyone besides me find it ironic that the piracy capital of the world managed to sue a US company? And win?
Of all the places to lose a copyright infringement case as a defendant...how the hell did it happen in China of all places?
Simple. Copyright holder sues unlicensed distributor of content. Funny how those crazy laws work, eh? I mean, wow! It's like they totally disregarded the American and Chinese "Pirate" citizens, and just had a case over copyright infringement between businesses that didn't wind up costing some huge ridiculous millions in damages. That's INSANE! LOL, silly China.
China Getting There (Score:2)
1. Criticise government
2. Become popular
3. Sue people
4. Government's court sides with you
I see some positive news in there. Apparently, you can be critical of the government, and still have the government support you.
Funny (Score:2)