The Wall Street Journal reports that Chinese courts have ordered Apple to pay a group of Chinese writers $165,000 for unlawfully distributing copyrighted works in certain Chinese apps.
A Beijing court ordered Apple Inc. to pay 1.03 million yuan, or about $165,000, to a group of local writers who said the U.S. gadget maker sold unlicensed copies of their books online, according to state media.
The state-run Xinhua news agency said Thursday that the Beijing No. 2 Intermediate People’s Court ordered Apple to pay the money to eight Chinese writers and two companies for violating their copyrights.
The writers had asked for 10 million yuan and Apple was ordered to pay a fraction of that. Unlicensed eBook distribution has been a problem for Apple of late, as the report notes that the company had a similar issue back in September. Apple isn't intentionally distributing the copyrighted content itself, but because the company is the gatekeeper for the digital stores, the Chinese courts are requiring Apple to pay.
Top Rated Comments
Whenever I read anything that the Chinese complain about with copyright, unauthorized distribution etc. I have to laugh.
Sad as it is:-)
1) The way I was raised, that's called "stealing." Especially if it's a luxury that they shouldn't have if they didn't work for the money to afford, and they don't need it to live.
2) It drives up the prices for everyone else, because we have to compensate for YOUR lack of proper rearing.
Dude, both those things are completely contradictory. What you meant to say was, it helps people get for free some reasonably priced items they could easily afford to pay for.
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Piracy is the equivalent of duplicating currency. The only victim is every law abiding person who's goods/money just got devalued by greedy freeloaders.
Why didn't the writers sue the people who uploaded the books directly instead of going after Apple ? Answer - Apple has more money.
I would not be surprised if it was a scam where the group of writers arranged to have someone upload the books so the writers could sue :D.
And now there are two cars. The horror. :eek:
1) It lets people to get something which they could not afford to buy under any possible conditions
2) It makes companies to reasonably price their products.