Apple sued in China over film copyright

World tech giant Apple is involved in another lawsuit in China and this time it is over the copyright of a film, according to Cankaoxiaoxi.com which cites The Sydney Morning Herald website.

A Beijing court says it has been alleged that Apple has infringed the exclusive online rights of China Movie Channel, an agency under the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television of China over the broadcasting of a film. The film, first screened in 1994, focuses on China’s resistance war against Japanese aggression in northern China in the 1930s.

The plaintiff is also suing the company which developed Youku HD and put the Youku HD app on Apple's app store. The move made the film available to any user of the app, according to the plaintiff.

The plaintiff is demanding the immediate suspension of the broadcasting of the film by Apple and Youku HD and compensation of 50,000 yuan (around 7,500 USD), plus reimbursement for its costs incurred in trying to stop the broadcast of 20,158 yuan (around 3,025 USD). No comments from Apple and Youku HD developer have been received.

It is not the first time Apple has been involved in a lawsuit in China, the company's second biggest market.

In March, Apple was forced to close its iBooks store and iTunes Film store in China as a result of a reported investigation by the supervision authorities. The services had been open for just seven months before they were shut down.

In May, the intellectual property authority in Beijing handed down a verdict that the design of the iPhone6 and iPhone6Plus was an infringement of a patent owned by a Chinese company in Shenzhen. The court ordered Apple to stop selling the products in Beijing as it believed the outer appearance of the Apple phones were too similar to a phone produced by Shenzhen Baili. Apple has denied the charges and is appealing the decision.

Also in May, Apple lost an appeal to use its trade mark, iPhone, exclusively in China as a court passed a verdict that allows a leather company to legally use it on its bags and other leather products. The leather company won the case as it filed the application to use the iPhone trade mark to the Chinese trade mark office in 2007, over two years before iPhones were sold in China, according to the court.