Production company continues copyright battle against Apple over iPhone app

The court battle between Australian production company Jigsaw Entertainment and tech giant Apple over an unofficial Chopper Reid app continued this morning, with a directions hearing taking place in the Federal Magistrates Court in Sydney this morning after mediation between the two parties failed to resolve the issue.

At the conclusion of today’s hearing, the magistrate set another hearing for the end of the month.

Jigsaw Entertainment chief executive Nick Murray told SmartCompany he remains fully committed to a trial, and will continue on its “moral crusade” to ensure Apple takes responsibility for acting on alleged intellectual property infringements.

“We’re not a huge company, but we’re not tiny either, and if Apple is prepared to ignore the rights of other people and our assets, then that’s that,” Murray says.

“We’re meant to respect the quality of Apple’s products – which we should, they’re great – but they had the ability to at least take a cursory glimpse at what was going on,” he says.

Apple was contacted for comment this morning, but no reply was received before publication.

The case began in the middle of 2010, when Jigsaw discovered that an app made by a 14-year old developer infringed on their copyright.

The app in question used soundbites from the Chopper Reid character on the Ronnie John’s Half Hour. Jigsaw contacted Apple, saying the app infringed its copyright, but did not receive a reply for several weeks.

However, Murray says he knows Apple must have identified their communication because the father of the app developer contacted the company to apologise for the entire situation. The app was taken down from the store.

But Jigsaw says this isn’t good enough, and wants Apple to take responsibility for allowing the app to stay on the store for so long.

“It was on sale for weeks, and it sold enough to get into the top five apps in Australia,” Murray says. “The damage that flows to us because of that is quite significant. The app got badly reviewed because it was thrown together with pinched sounds.”

“We’ve had two heated directions hearings – they brought QCs to those, which we thought was over the top. We’ve gone through the court ordered mediation, and now we’ll go back in to hearings and various orders will be made.”

Murray says the company is now “really pissed off” and says Apple has a responsibility to make sure each of the apps on its store does not infringe on any copyrights.

Apple already vets the apps sold on the store, but this process is mostly for making sure each app adheres to its own policies. It has shown no hesitation in removing apps that break Apple’s own rules – Murray says this should extend to legal liabilities.

“All they had to do was check where this was coming from. They may say that they have so many apps, it would be unfair for us to check that stuff. But really, I think that’s too bad – they chose to put up those 350,000 apps on the store.”

“That’s why we’re going to pursue it. They’ve reached a stage where they have really pissed us off.”

Murray also complains that Apple doesn’t believe it has affected the company’s reputation. The app itself received fairly bad reviews, and Murray says users may have believed the app was an official program made by the company.

“But they won’t acknowledge that. They’re trying to deny there is any value in our IP. And the people I have spoken to – including Supreme Court judges – say it’s quite rare that IP theft occurs from the own source.”

“We’re going to make them pay. We think they have a responsibility. It isn’t fair, and they’re going to have to delegate a lot of resources to this case.”

But it is unclear how good a chance Jigsaw actually has of winning if a trial goes ahead.

Last year, intellectual property lawyer Trevor Choy told SmartCompany that while the case was fascinating, it would be an expensive move for Jigsaw to take to trial.

“It’s difficult to see Apple would have known about the infringement, unless they were informed and they still allowed it to be sold. That doesn’t appear to the case.”