Link: Japanese Publishers Threaten to Bite Apple

The Wall Street Journal Reports:

So it turns out that maybe not everyone in Japan loves Apple Inc.

A Japanese consortium of book, e-book, magazine and digital comic publishers issued a stern rebuke of Apple’s enforcement of copyrights on its App Store. The group said certain works by renowned Japanese authors Haruki Murakami and Keigo Higashino have been illegally scanned and distributed over the App Store.

In a joint press release on Tuesday, the Japan Book Publishers Association, the Japan Magazine Publishers Association, The Electronic Book Publishers Association of Japan, and Digital Comic Association said Apple’s distribution of content that clearly infringes copyright is “illegal.”

Read the whole thing here

A screen shot of an Apple App Store taken on Nov. 30 that shows one of the pirated copies of Haruki Murakami’s novel “1Q84″ on sale for 230 yen. The app has since been taken down.