Apple liable for copyright infringement in China
According to the official news agency Xinhua, a court in China has ordered Apple to pay compensation to eight Chinese writers and two companies for violating their copyrights after claims that Apple had sold unlicensed electronic versions of their books in Apple's online store.
The Beijing No 2 Intermediate People's Court ordered Apple to pay 1.03m yuan ($165,000 / £100,000) in compensation for the sales on the Apple App Store. The claimants had lodged claims for nearly 10 million yuan to compensate for their losses.
In September, a Chinese court ordered Apple to pay compensation of 520,000 yuan to a Chinese encyclopaedia publisher for alleged copyright violation. The US technology firm has appealed against that decision.
Apple pledged it does its best to protect copyright. "We're always updating our service to better assist content owners in protecting their rights" Apple spokeswoman Carolyn Wu said.
More on the BBC here
In my opinion, Apple is distributing nothing. They are supplying the store front for someone else to distribute the goods. This would be like suing the mailman for delivering a letter bomb...Now, I'm not sure if they can get into trouble because they screen and approve their apps, but I'm sure they have enough legaleeze written into the agreement when someone posts a new app to cover them for almost everything.
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