Authors win Apple suit

Eight Chinese authors won a class action suit against Apple Inc for copyright infringement and Apple was sentenced to pay 412,000 yuan ($66,000) in total for their losses, according to a verdict announced by Beijing Second Intermediate People's Court on Thursday.

The amount of compensation for each author ranged from 7,000 yuan to 180,000 yuan. Apple will also have to pay litigation costs worth 18,000 yuan.

This may not be the final result, since both sides have 15 days to appeal to a higher court.

Wang Guohua, the Beijing-based lawyer for the authors, expressed disappointment with the amount when contacted by the Global Times Thursday.

"We are glad that Apple Inc was ordered to take full responsibility for copyright infringement, but the total amount is low compared with our expectation of more than 8 million yuan," said Wang.

The Chinese side will consider appealing for a larger amount of compensation, but the final decision to appeal is up to each author, he noted, saying that the maximum compensation for each author could still reach 500,000 yuan.

Hao Qun, one of the novelists, who writes under the pen name Murong Xuecun, intends to appeal, he said on his Sina Weibo immediately after the verdict came out. Apple was ordered to compensate him with 7,000 yuan.

Apple Inc could not be reached by press time. This is not the first time the company has faced a copyright infringement lawsuit in China. It was ordered to pay Encyclopedia of China Publishing House 520,000 yuan for copyright infringement in November, which Apple has appealed to a higher court on the grounds that the amount is too high. This case is still under review.

Apple received a letter from the authors' lawyer in July 2011 and declined to respond to the action, saying that they should not be the target since the App Store was operated by a firm in Luxembourg and not by Apple directly.

The company challenged the jurisdiction of Beijing Second Intermediate People's Court in May but the court rejected the challenge in June. The trial was held in October.

Before receiving the lawyer's letter, Apple had received many complaints from domestic writers, including Han Han and Murong Xuecun, for selling their works in the App Store without their authorization. Apple has pledged to delete the sources but some deleted works have been known to pop up again in the App Store.

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