We all know how Apple is tough–they don’t think twice about suing anyone who infringes their patents, just ask Samsung and HTC.  But it looks like the tables are turning as a group of Chinese authors is suing Apple for 11.9 million yuan ($1.9 million) for copyright infringement in Beijing’s No. 2 Intermediate People’s Court.

Nine authors operating under the China Written Works Copyright Society claim that Apple published 37 of their works in the App Store without their consent.  Caixin Online reports that the case already entered formal proceedings in Beijing last week.

The group of Chinese authors include:  pop culture figure Han Han, politically-controversial author Li Chengpeng, as well as other popular writers like Cang Yue and Murong Xuecun.

“The download number of one best-selling book is as much as one million, which creates about one billion dollars in losses for each writer,” the society’s spokesman Bei Zhicheng told the Nanjing Daily.

Ongoing copyright issues for publishers in a digital world

This isn’t the first time the CWWCS dealt with copyright infringement.  In 2010, Google Inc. issued a formal apology for the same faulty act as Apple.  And in 2011, Baidu deleted nearly 2.8 million items in response to complaints from more than 40 authors.

This is also not the first time that Chinese authors sued Apple.  Last year, two copyright cases were filed against the tech giant.  In August, the first Chinese individual, writer Zhu Jintai,  filed a lawsuit against Apple for allegedly infringing his intellectual property rights.  He resorted to litigation after Apple refused to provide any information about Apple’s developers.  Though the lawsuit is still pending, Apple already removed the novel and issued a statement stating that developers, under the terms of their agreement with Apple, may not violate, misappropriate or infringe copyright.  It was followed by six writers demanding 6.5 million yuan in compensation from Apple over the copyright infringement of 23 books in September.