Chinese Writers Sue Apple Over IP Violations

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."

Comments

Hard for the little guy

[wrathpwn]

If it had been Apple or any other giant corporation who had been wronged, the victor of the case would be clear. I hope this guy wins his case and shows them that individuals have the same rights as giant organizations.

Re:Hard for the little guy

[ninetyninebottles]

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:Hard for the little guy

[ninetyninebottles]

Actually, I would argue that when done on a commercial scale it is theft. Since the people who obtain the infringing copy are paying for it, often believing they are paying the legitimate rights holder, one could say these very much are literally lost sales, and the infringer actually is stealing from the rights holder.

Apple is the one making copies in this case so they are the copyright infringer. The company that licensed the copyright to Apple could be committing fraud by licensing things they don't have legal rights to. Neither action is theft.

Theft is when you take something from someone, violating what most cultures believe to be the natural right to own goods. IP violations, on the other hand, are when you infringe upon a government granted monopoly on a particular kind of expression, expression which is itself a natural right. Confusing the two is promoting a very dangerous misunderstanding, that IP rights are somehow intrinsic and that you somehow naturally have the right to stop other people from repeating something you said or drawing a picture that looks like one you drew. This is not an unintentional problem. There has been a huge PR campaign for decades now to blur that distinction in the minds of the people to distract from the fact that in the US those IP rights are only supposed to be granted for the promotion of useful arts and sciences and that our current laws do no such thing, only funneling money into the hands of cartels that control distribution channels.

So I say again, this is about copyright violation and please, please, please stop referring to it as theft. The distinction is vital.

Re:hahahaah irony

[crossmr]

How do you say moron in English?
Do you think any of these authors were doing any infringing themselves, or were you just so desperate to make that predictable joke that you couldn't bother to take your brain out of idiot mode long enough to think about it?