An update on that story from a couple months ago about a coalition of Chinese authors planning to sue Apple over their works being sold in the iTunes store without authorization. China’s state-owned news agency Xinhua reports that the coalition has grown to 22 authors, who are claiming that 95 of their works have been sold without their permission.
The story doesn’t really have many details about how these books got into the store. It does say Apple was “too slow” to remove them after the authors complained, though doesn’t say just how slow it was. A local Apple spokesman insisted that the company will “respond properly and timely” to complaints.
Meanwhile, the story notes, Apple continues to spar with Chinese company Proview Shenzen over ownership of the iPad trademark, which Proview registered for the Chinese mainland in 2001.
It’s not really too surprising that unauthorized books would find their way into Apple’s store in China, which has a long-standing reputation as a hotbed of piracy. (For example, at one point someone in China ripped off the text of the Chinese translation of The Hobbit and did a bit of search-and-replacing to publish it as a bootleg Harry Potter sequel!)
And Apple has notoriously deep pockets (it announced yesterday that it was planning cash dividends and stock buybacks, and has $100 billion in the bank). I wonder if there might not be a little opportunism at work here?
(Found via PaidContent.)
