Pirated App Sold On Mac App Store

iDuck writes "When Wolfire Games released their animal martial arts game, Lugaru HD, on the Mac App store, they could be forgiven for thinking they were seeing double. A counterfeit version of the software is currently available on the app store at a much lower price point under the name Lugaru. The best bit: as yet Apple have not responded to Wolfire's emails to rectify the situation. While the source to the game was GPLed, 'the license made it very clear that the authors retained all rights to the assets, characters, and everything else aside from the code itself.'"

Comments

Huh?

[chihowa]

When Wolfire Games released their animal martial arts games, 'Lugaru HD', on the Mac App store, shortly after they could be forgiven for thinking they were seeing double.

I know I must me new here... Would it kill you, Taco, to read this garbage before posting it? WTF does that sentence even mean?

Re:GPL

[dotancohen]

The real issue in this is how this will affect the public opinion on free software. It will not be good.

The public won't notice. As usual.

Re:Apple has learned arrogance from MS

[gnasher719]

Apple doesn't seem to feel accountable to anyone any more. This is another great example where they don't even think they have to answer their email messages.

It's very simple, actually. Apple will not and should not react to just a claim in an e-mail. What the copyright holder has to do is to send a DMCA takedown notice in the correct form. They have to state that they are the copyright holder, that the other copy on the store is infringing on their copyright, and they have to give the correct contact information that allows them to be identified. This was published on slashdot many times when someone tried to suppress information through an overzealous DMCA takedown notice. There are rules that the copyright holder has to follow, and if they are not followed then the website need not and should not take down the allegedly infringing work.

Once a proper DMCA notice is sent, Apple will have to take down the infringing work in a reasonable amount of time (less than 24 hours) or be on the hook for copyright infringement itself (if there was copyright infringement in the first place). In addition, they have to send the contact information to the alleged infringer, who can either accept this, or demand that the software is put back on the store, which they would do if they think there is no copyright infringement and they are willing to go to court about it. If that happens, then Apple is off the hook, and we can be sure there will be a court case.

Re:Apple has learned arrogance from MS

[dreemernj]

You should submit this info to the makers of Dan's Guardian so they can fix their software to handle all properly formed URLs.

"Assets" == "Intellectual Property"

[davev2.0]

Every story I see on Slashdot about copyright, so-called file sharing, the .*AA, etc. people complain that Intellectual Property (IP) is not real property and no one is losing anything when IP rights and copyrights are violated. But, the "assets" everyone is talking about are IP. If it is not wrong to redistribute the IP of others, why is this wrong?

Really, this just highlights the hypocrisy of so many Slashdotters and FLOSS supporters of "file sharing".

Re:"Assets" == "Intellectual Property"

[bluefoxlucid]

The issue is that people seem to think that stealing shit for personal use is different than stealing it and selling it for crack money.

The large argument used against the RIAA here is a knee-jerk to their horrible inability to adapt to market and their abuse of the court systems. They are wrong in that. But people seem to want to argue that if someone (working under a marketing agent, etc, whatever the circumstance, indie or signed) puts in their time and effort to produce a work, record that work, refine that work, and publish that work, that then it should be okay for us to just take that work.

The premise here is that by either not buying that work or taking a copy, I'm not depriving you of anything: both actions are equivalent to you. The fallacy is that by either taking a copy or buying a copy, I'm gaining a specific benefit: I get a copy of your music. The exchange of work for value here is that I pay you for a value we agree on for the work, and you give me a copy of the work. This is the same exchange as I pay you a value I see as worth losing in money in exchange for, say, a tea pot, and you give me a teapot worth $x in raw materials + $y value added for your time making it == $z that I'm willing to pay to acquire it.

In either case, I might prefer the risk of not giving you any money for your work, but taking it anyway: I benefit, you don't. That's called stealing. Around here, people decide that if you lose some kind of asset, I've stolen from you; if you're no poorer than when you started, then apparently I've created wealth by making myself richer (I now have music I've stolen) without making someone else poorer (you haven't lost anything). This is a fallacy: the time investment hasn't paid off, and others who are actually purchasing are subsidizing the value I'm not (i.e. 300 people pay 33% more so that 100 people can steal it).

The truth of the matter is if nobody ever stepped in, iTunes wouldn't have gained momentum. Napster was becoming widely popular, easy to use by everyone, kids and old people who barely knew how to use a computer. It only shipped MP3 files, not videos (porn) or programs (viruses). Music of today would largely be available for free online. A few early adopters would spend gazillions on CDs, rip them, share them. I know this is an "overblown doomsday scenario" but think about how popular iTunes is: Napster almost filled that gap, for FREE. Napster is why MP3 players became popular in the first place.

There's stealing.

The OP is complaining that people use these arguments that "copying data for personal use" is not stealing when the RIAA is involved, but want to act like they know what they're talking about here after making gratuitous use of phrases like "Imaginary Property."

Re:Did Slashdot go retarded today?

[Anonymous Coward]

Neither side in this story gets my sympathy.

Meaning that the person who sells an illegal version of the game, undercutting the business of the actual developers, and the person who gave away [most but not all] of his work for free so that others might learn from it and do cool things, are both equally evil/good? How fair-minded of you.

Re:Unwise GPL

[BarryJacobsen]

Apple is supporting this piracy by not responding to the emails from the owner of the original artwork/data.

Investigating before responding != supporting. From the sound of it, only a few days have passed - and I'm sure he'd be pretty pissed off if the OTHER guy e-mail Apple first and Apple immediately pulled his app without an investigation.

Wrong about the best bit.

[gig]

They GPL'd and got cloned, but the best bit is the poster thinking it is somehow Apple's responsibility to fix baby's diapers. Managing your intellectual property is up to you, crafty open source software developers.

For the love of God, shut the fuck up!

[Brannon]

Apple exercises totalitarian control so that there aren't a sea of buggy and/or malicious apps out there like on Windows. It improves their customer experience which is why their customers like it. If you don't, then don't by an iPhone--just go buy some shitty Android and leave the rest of us alone.

Apple doesn't scrutinize the copyrights of every app that is submitted to them--that would be an impossible task. They do what everyone else does, waits for a complaint.

There are millions of Apps out there--it takes a while for Apple to process these complaints.

Seriously, is this all you have to feel indignant about? that some company somewhere is selling something that their customers want and just because it isn't what *you* want then the rest of us have to suffer your adolescent little shit fits?

Re:Why Apple?

[DMiax]

Because they are distributing it? And getting money from it? To supreme irony (or bad taste, your choice) they could file a valid DMCA complaint to Apple. The fact that they did not yet means they are being very reasonable.