[JURIST] A Beijing court ordered Apple, Inc., on Thursday to pay damages of 1.03 million yuan, or $165,908 USD, to eight Chinese writers and two companies for copyright infringement. The Beijing No. 2 Intermediate People’s Court [official website, in Chinese], a regional court directly below China’s appellate level courts, held [Xinhau News report] that software available on Apple’s app store contained unlicensed digital copies of the writers’ books in violation of the plaintiffs’ “right of communication through information networks.” The China Written Works Copyright Society (CWWCS) [official website, in Chinese], an organization representing the writers in the complaint, originally asked for $1.89 million in compensatory damages and nearly doubled [Apple Insider report] that request in February to $3.65 million following what CWWCS considered a slow response by Apple to their initial request for the materials’ removal.

Thursday’s decision is the second in four months from the same court ordering Apple to pay damages for copyright infringement. Apple is currently appealing [Washington Post report] a September order by the court to pay $83,000 for alleged copyright infringement of a Chinese encyclopedia publisher. Apple has also been on both ends of multiple patent challenges with Samsung recently. In October, the US District Court for the Northern District of California [official website] lifted a preliminary injunction [JURIST report] against the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 [product backgrounder], which was granted during a patent infringement suit brought by Apple against Samsung [corporate website]. In September, the US International Trade Commission (ITC) [official website] ruled against Samsung [JURIST report] in a suit brought against Apple claiming that Apple infringed on four of its patents.