China is a country full of surprises, and for Apple one of the surprises is a lawsuit filed by a local government agency due to the fact that one of the applications available in its store allows viewing via video streaming of a propaganda film that the state would not want it distributed.
Youku is the application that would violate Chinese law and have that propaganda film available for streaming video, the government agency is of the opinion that since Apple distributes that application through the App Store, the American company should be legally responsible for what it does that app.
The film in question was produced in 1994, the intellectual property rights on it belonged to another company, this stating that its existence in the video library of those from Youku and the possibility of streaming video for it generated huge financial losses, of which Apple would be guilty of.
The propaganda film focuses on the fight between China and Japan in the early 1930s, and in the lawsuit filed against Apple and Youku, the Chinese government agency is asking for compensation of $7500 for the distribution of the film, a very small amount for those from Cupertino .
"Apple is being sued by a subsidiary of China's broadcasting regulator over a propaganda film more than 20 years old, in the latest legal wrangling for the tech giant in China in recent weeks. The plaintiff is also suing the developer and operator of the Youku HD app available on Apple's App Store that it says enabled users to watch the film and caused it "huge economic losses," according to the Beijing Haidian District People's Court."
The government agency that filed this lawsuit also blocked the iTunes Movie Store + iBookstore in China just a few months ago, so Apple doesn't really manage to escape from the Chinese government, which is trying by all means to disrupt its activity in the country, probably for force them to fulfill other requirements.
I would like to say that Apple will win the lawsuit filed by the government agency, but we are talking about China, a country where anything is possible and, in general, the results of lawsuits of this kind are favorable to companies or local entities.
