Chinese court: Apple must pay $82K to encyclopedia publisher for app store piracy

In a less reported legal case, the Encyclopedia of China Publishing House started a lawsuit against Apple, arguing that Apple was responsible for the sale of pirated copies of the encyclopedia available on the App Store. The publishers initially sought $84,200 in damages but were awarded $82,600 according to the Beijing Times. The lawsuit had been on going since 2010, when the firm claimed that apps that were available for sale on the App Store contained pirated copies of the encyclopedia. Apple tried to claim that because it didn't make the app, it couldn't be blamed for the content, but because Apple profited and promoted the app, the company was found guilty by the courts. According to AppleInsider.com, Apple has argued that with over 700,000 apps available to iOS users in China, the company would find it near impossible to manage and verify that content in each of the apps is legal and original. However apps go through an approval process with Apple, so arguably someone should have checked at time of approval; if the process and store was more open like Android, Apple could claim plausible deniability. This isn't the only case against Apple by Chinese writers: 9 writers have joined together to sue Apple for offering versions of their work to be available on the App Store. They are asking for $3.65 million in damages.