In the latest choreographed attack against Apple (AAPL) channeled again through state-owned media, China’s state-sponsored Shanghai Animation Film Studio, one of the Communist Party’s propaganda organs, filed suit against the U.S. tech titan for allegedly selling its films without approval, the South China Morning Post reported Friday.
The film studio is seeking compensation of 3.3 million yuan ($530,000) for sales by Apple and Apple Electronics Products Commerce-Beijing, one of its Chinese subsidiaries, of 110 different film titles, including “Calabash Brothers” and “Black Cat Detective,” the report said citing a senior official with the Shanghai Studio who confirmed to the paper that the company had filed the litigation with the Beijing No 2 Intermediate People’s Court, which accepted the case.
[via SCMP] “We want to keep tight-lipped on this case because, as we see it, it’s just a litigation in which we want to get compensation [for our product],” the official from the Shanghai studio said. “It’s a sensitive period now since Apple is a big multinational company and it is surrounded by controversies on its practices in China.”Cupertino has recently been the subject of a smear campaign from Chinese state media. One of this week’s editorials from “People’s Daily” — known as the Chinese government’s ‘traditional mouthpiece’ – entitled “Smash Apple’s Incomprable Arrogance,” slammed Apple’s supposedly discriminatory after-sales service in China compared to the rest of the world. The article, which claimed the iPhone-maker shows disrespect to its Chinese customers, labelled the company as ‘dishonest’, ‘greedy’ and ‘incomparably arrogant’, apparently threatening regulatory action.
Apple said in a statement that it respected Chinese consumers and that its warranty policies were roughly the same worldwide with specific adjustments to adhere to Chinese law.
The suit is one of several recent and current Chinese legal actions against Apple.
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