Copyrights take a bite out of Apple

Xie Wen, former president of Yahoo China, said other technology companies will not change the management of their downloading platforms, and such infringements will go on. Uploaded information is abundant and complicated, which means companies, no matter big or small, have huge difficulties in distinguishing infringements, he said.

"What they (companies) can do is make it stricter for publishers, but this may affect their online platforms' popularity and result in economic losses," Xie said.

Yang Shuo, a specialist with a decade of experience in cybermanagement, agreed. He said it is impossible for these companies to improve their verification systems with technical solutions.

"The verification must rely on human power, but some small companies won't spend money and time to employ people to do such work," he said. "So such disputes will be hard to avoid in the future."

Yu Guofu, a lawyer specializing in copyright cases, agreed with the IT experts, saying the compensation that Apple will pay is much lower than what it had received from downloading and publishers.

"Apple, a famous company, was required to compensate three people with only about 700,000 yuan, which will not worry other companies," he said. In addition, victims sometimes only concentrate on big online operators, so "smaller and less-famous online platforms can still get away with their infringements", Yu said.

"If the infringement cost becomes high and the punishment for violators becomes harsh, these companies will take their responsibility into consideration, and similar cases will be reduced."