Discussions over Apple's alleged copyright violations have spread among Chinese netizens since 22 prominent Chinese writers sued the App Store for pirating their works in late March, Xinhuanet reported Tuesday.

Most of the netizens are standing by the Chinese writers, saying Apple's alleged breach of copyright laws and business codes will dampen writers' creativity and harm the healthy development of Chinese literature.

Top: Copies of The Note of Ghoul line the shelves of the Beijing Books Building on Sunday. Bottom: An iPad screen displays a pirate version of The Note of Ghoul downloaded for free from the Apple App Store. [Photo / Xinhua]?

"A world-famous company like Apple should take the initiative to preserve intellectual property rather than pioneer piracy," said a netizen, "this event shows that China is only a prosperous sales market for Apple, which takes little care of Chinese citizens' intellectual property."

"Although the internet accelerates the circulation of writings and provides easy access to knowledge, it has posed a new challenge to copyright protection," said another netizen, "inefficient combat against cyber piracy will impose a massive impact on the cultural industry in China."

The low cost of piracy as opposed to the high expense of litigation is the main reason behind the cyber infringement, a third netizen said.

A comment published by www.cqnews.net, a provincial news website, said writers' talent and knowledge remains the key to literary productions, which is unaffected by the fast upgrade of information and communication technology.

"Apple must be authorized by the writers even though it provides their works for free," said the comment.

Responding to the lawsuit filed by the Chinese writers, Apple claimed itself as a company valuing intellectual property and understanding the importance of its protection. The company promised proper and immediate answers in a public statement emailed to the media.

But publishing industry insiders say a complete piracy interest link has long been formed between the App Store and application developers. Apple is lax with its copyright policy and most of the uploaded files are treated as legitimate.

The App Store's business model is a split-up of profit between itself and the pirates, said Bi Jianwei, general manager of Motie, the largest private book publisher in China.

In fact, it is an open secret to profit from uploading pirate publications in the e-book industry, said an insider.

The current copyright law in China is unable to cope with the increasing issues of digital copyright protection in the explosive internet era, said Zhang Kangkang, CPPCC member and vice-chairman of China Writer Association, during the annual two secessions this year.