Apple to pay $80,250 in copyright row

Beijing's Second Intermediate People's Court has ruled in favor of the Encyclopedia of China Publishing House in its lawsuit against Apple Inc for infringement, claiming 500,000 yuan ($80,250) in compensation, Economic Information reported on Tuesday.

The court ruled the publishing house is the only legitimate copyright owner of the Chinese History Volume of "China Encyclopedia", first edition. Its copyright is protected by Chinese laws. No organization or individual shall spread the involved content through the information network without the copyright owner's permission.

The publishing house found in October 2010 that iTunes software, which can be downloaded from a website run by Apple Electronic Products Trade (Beijing) Co Ltd, allows users to purchase and download a large part of "China Encyclopedia" from the App Store for iPhones and iPads.

The plaintiff claimed the behavior of Apple and its App Store caused great economic losses to the publishing house and requested the court to order the defendants to stop the infringement and pay 530,000 yuan in compensation.

Apple said the publishing house was not the copyright owner of content from the China Encyclopedia. It claimed Apple was only the developer of the iTunes software and is not involved in the operation of iTunes and the App Store.

According to the court's verdict, Apple should bear the responsibility for the App Store copyright infringement.

In addition to Encyclopedia of China Publishing House, there are a number of Chinese companies and writers suing Apple for infringement. The cases are still pending.