WritersRightsAlliance
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Apple to pay Chinese authors $118,000 for violating copyrights
As reported by China Daily, a Beijing court has ordered Apple to pay three Chinese authors US$118,000 in damages for selling their books without prior consent through apps available on its App Store. The lawsuit was filed against Apple by the Writers' Right Protection Union (also known as the Writers' Rights Alliance), an organization that protects the copyrights of authors whose works are published online. According to China Daily, Judge Feng Gang, who was presiding over the case, said Apple "has the duty of checking whether books uploaded by third parties are in line with current laws." The ruling follows a long line of complaints and lawsuits against Apple by Chinese authors who claim their works have been uploaded through apps to Apple's App Store without their permission. [Via Engadget]
Daily Update for January 10, 2012
It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for daily listening through iTunes, click here. No Flash? Click here to listen.
Chinese authors want Apple to pay $1.88 million for allegedly hosting pirated ebooks
Last July, a group of Chinese authors petitioned Apple to stop distributing their books through multiple apps in the App Store. The group, called the Writers Rights Alliance, is now suing Apple for US$1.88 million for allegedly hosting pirated books. The nine writers in the group say that 37 of their works have been sold as pirated copies on the App Store, with Apple of course taking a 30 percent cut from the proceeds. Apple refused to remove the books from the App Store after being asked in July of 2011, noting that there was not enough evidence to provide that the works were unlicensed. Authors are frustrated with the slow pace at which Apple removes the pirated ebooks, with the executive for the Writers Rights Alliance noting that it sometimes takes two to three months before the pirated versions are canceled. Once that's done, new pirated versions often pop up. According to the group, some of the pirated ebooks may have seen more than a million downloads without the authors receiving revenue from Apple. The company has told the group to contact the developers creating and selling the products, but the Alliance says that the contact information for developers is often bogus. This won't be the last we hear of the Writers Rights Alliance. They're expected to file another lawsuit against Apple after January, seeking damages for alleged piracy on behalf of ten other authors.
Chinese authors to petition Apple to halt book downloads
A group of Chinese authors is petitioning Apple to halt the distribution of their books through multiple apps in the App Store, according to the 21st Century Herald Tribune (as reported by Reuters). The authors are part of a group called the Writers Rights Alliance, and this isn't the first time the Alliance has gone after a technology company for offering its books for download without consent. The group previously petitioned China's largest search engine, Baidu, to cease the publication of its books in the Baidu Library (similar to Google Books). However, a spokesperson for the Writers Rights Alliance said Apple's allowance of apps on the App Store is a graver situation. The Baidu Library offered Alliance books downloads for free, but some of the apps in the App Store make a profit through sales of the app or in-app purchases. From the Writers Rights Alliance's perspective, Apple is infringing on the Alliance's intellectual property by taking its 30 percent commission on sales of the authors' works. Apple has not yet publicly commented on the matter.
