Apple sued £1.2m by Chinese authors for copyright infringement

Apple is being sued for 11.9m yuan (£1.2m) by a group of Chinese authors for offering customers downloads of copyrighted books through the Apple online store, according to reports.

Chinese business publication Caixin said nine writers, under the mantle of the China Written Works Copyright Society (CWWCS), had now entered into formal proceedings against the firm in Beijing's No. 2 Intermediate People's Court.

The writers include world famous Chinese blogger Han Han and author Li Chengpeng.

Apple is reportedly being sued for copyright infringement relating to 37 works.

Previously, the CWWCS has taken action against both Baidu and Google for copyright infringement.

The current court action by the writers is an ironic twist of events, given that Apple filed lawsuits against a number of Chinese stores in New York's Chinatown last August for trademark infringement, including a store called Apple Story.

Several more stores were targeted by the authorities in China after it emerged they were fake, unlicensed Apple Stores.

This was in addition to the court proceedings Apple initiated against Samsung, HTC and Amazon last year for patent infringement.

However, patent analyst Florian Mueller said the proceedings by CWWCS were entirely disconnected from Apple's current patent disputes.

"This is an entirely unrelated event to the ongoing patent wars Apple is suffering. They are about completely different issues," he told V3.