For its infringement Apple will have to pay the three plaintiffs a total of $118,000 dollars. This compensation is actually much higher than many other fines that have been levied for copyright infringement. We have to wonder how the books were posted in the first place considering the fact that Apple has one of the most restrictive screening processes for their music, books and applications.

So now the question is; were the books posted knowing they were protected by copyright?  I am guessing that someone probably did know (Apple claims they review all submissions). If this is the case doesn’t that make it willful? I know that in the US adding Willful to the infringement makes it worse and can push the compensation up as much as three times the awarded amount. Apple has always pushed for willful infringement in their lawsuits against HTC, Motorola and Samsung. It would be very nice to see them get the same treatment (since it looks like it was willful). It would also be nice to see them pay the same level of fine that an average person would get for doing the same thing… I wonder what the compensation would look like if we used RIAA’s statutory damages…

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