14 DAY TRIAL // A Taiwanese book author is recounting an interesting story on his Facebook profile concerning a trip to Apple’s Hong Kong headquarters where he was allegedly called an “idiot” by the tech giant’s legal department and then escorted out by local police.
Taiwanese writer Giddens Ko says that, for the past two years, he has been trying to convince Apple to remove copyright-infringing apps featuring his work, but to no avail.
Apple, for its part, said it couldn’t comply with his requests, being unable to confirm the novels’ true owner, according to The Register.
So he traveled to Apple’s Hong Kong offices to tell the company’s legal team that he had not authorized the use of his writing in “the pirated versions of his works,” reads the report.
A member of Apple’s staff reportedly told the man that he should file another written complaint. Ko did just that, insisting to have his manager video tape the whole thing.
Here’s where it gets really interesting. As his assistant was filming, Ko says a member of Apple’s team called him an “idiot.” The UK site, however, does little to explain the exact circumstances in which the swearing occurred.
But apparently Apple wasn’t too pleased with the whole filming thing so they called the police. After arriving on the scene, Hong Kong authorities found nothing illegal but did proceed to escort Ko out of the building, allowing him and his assistant to hold on to the recording.
Apple has since removed a number of applications which Ko highlighted as infringing, according to Taiwan’s Central News Agency.
Editor’s note:
The information at hand is too vague to make an accurate impression about these events, which is why we’d kindly ask Chinese-speaking readers to sift through Ko’s story and share their own impressions in the comments. Any relevant input will be considered for a potential update to this story.