App store under fire for selling pirated e-books

Japanese publishers are angry with Apple as the proprietor of the App store would do too little to ban infringing e-books from its online shop. On the App store a number of pirated Chinese e-books by Japanese authors are offered for sale. A consortium of publishers has issued a joint statement in which they call out to Apple. “The associations we represent believe that Apple bears grave responsibility for this problem”.

The pirates are believed to have scanned printed Chinese versions of the books and to have made this into e-books. Amongst the titles are books by best selling authors Hariku Murakami and Keigo Higashino. Apple had approved these books for the App store. The books are believed to be on sale since July.

Apple reacted by stating that it took the allegations seriously, but that ex ante screening of copyright compliance for the content of apps is prohibitively difficult and time-consuming. Therefore, the company prefers to work with Notice and Takedown procedures where the infringing content is removed after a request by rights holders.

“Some of the works have been deleted in response to requests from authors and publishers but a majority of them continue to be illegally distributed,” Torrentfreak cites from the press release. The consortium furthermore rejected Apple’s claim that it could not screen apps before approval.

The publishers see cooperation with Apple as the best way for ending the unfavourable situation. Still, they end their statement with a warning:  “A failure to respond will be regarded as a lack of will on your part to take measures in a sincere manner.”