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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.'"
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?
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
First post! What's the bet this is pirated?
America, Home of the Brave.
the FBI has seized the apple.com domain name for facilitating piracy.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Whilst it's inexcusable that they've been ripped off on their assets, it was rather foolish to release the source code for a currently marketed game.
The real issue in this is how this will affect the public opinion on free software. It will not be good.
the FBI has seized the apple.com domain name for facilitating piracy.
I think you mean DHS's ICE division. They're the guys running around seizing domain names for little to no reason.
My work here is dung.
What everyone needs today in business are good layers and not a good product or even a product, just take it from someone...
From the GPL page:
"Our General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you have the freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge for them if you wish), that you receive source code or can get it if you want it, that you can change the software or use pieces of it in new free programs, and that you know you can do these things."
Doesn't look pirated to me.
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
The GPL does not have maps and art just game code. You need to buy the maps and art.
There was a time when I was huge Apple fan. Basically because they didn't have the arrogance problem that Microsoft has had for 20 years now.
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. Another lesser known example that I've had to deal with is with ITunes. They've had a major error in ITunes for many versions now where it calls a malformed URL. It calls out to "http://itunes.com." (with an extra dot). This kills programs like Dan's Guardian. (I work with kids, a filter is mandated on me). However, they have simply closed the case every time it is brought up. They're too arrogant to even do a search for a malformed URL in the code and correct it.
I have limited my business with Apple because of this. They have decided to fight MS by becoming them.
I've seen too many stupid comments about this today and yesterday, so I'm going to clarify a few points:
1. The SOURCE CODE to the EXECUTABLE was released as GPL.
2. GPL DOES, in fact, allow you to sell your build of that executable.
3. While they did distribute the assets (textures, models, sound, etc.) with the source code, those assets WERE NOT distributed via GPL.
4. GPL is for source code, not assets. For that, you're looking at a creative commons type license for something similar.
5. The assets were distributed with a "you can do anything BUT SELL IT" license
Meaning, as they charge $2.00 for it, Lugaru (non HD) is in blatant copyright violation. Never mind, using the name is probably a blatant trademark violation.
I think a lot of games (especially indie type titles) could benefit from going open source, while keeping tight hold on their assets. Sell the textures, models, and sounds, and give the source away. If someone wants to "steal" your game, they're going to have to build the rest themselves from scratch. It would help both in keeping tiny titles like that away from falling into the abandonware pit (especially if it's incompatible with modern OS's), and helping aspiring game devs in understanding how game logic works.
Both games seem to have been taken down from the App Store.
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This obviously has to do with Apple's monopolistic practices, Steve Jobs being a control freak, a horrible walled garden, non-user replaceable batteries, lack of ten USB ports on apple products, blah blah blah. This would have all been taken care of if they had published for Android instead!!
I thought I'd post just in case the Haters were taking a nap.
They'll confiscate Apple.com and put an end to this nonsense.
I'm not sure you CAN release code under the GPL2 while at the same time using trademark and copyright-on-abstract-concepts (i.e. characters) to effectively prohibit the distribution of the GPL'd code itself.
Now, if this game has the GPL code in the executable game-engine and the game elements in a separate, proprietary data file, then the author has a good case for piracy of the data file and its elements. The pirate should write up his own game data file using his own characters and upload it under a different title. Just be sure to make the source for the GPL'd elements available as required by the license.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
If the license is the GPL; does the right to redistribute contain an implicit license to use any trademarked or copyrighted names and art, etc? It would seem that a blanket redistribution clause would imply you have the right to use such items but have no right to independently use them; such as in advertising or screen shoots on a web page. So simply recompiling and selling the game would be OK but creating a derivative work would not; except that allowing modifications to the code might open the door to that.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Here is my simple ethical understanding of this situation, and my ethical understanding of similar understandings:
A game is released on the iDevice app store by someone. The game features both the code of another game whose code was open sourced by the GPL. The assets of that game were also copied. Nothing new or different was added to the content of the open sourced game, making it a 1:1 copy/port of the original work. If this someone does not have the rights to the assets, they should be found to be infringing copyright. This was the case with the iDevice app store game "The blocks cometh" as well as Lugaru in the above story.
A game is released on the iDevice app store by someone. The source code of another game whose code is open sourced was used. It also used new levels, models, textures, sounds, and even some adjustments to the game code was made to make the game quite different both in look and gameplay from the game the source code originally came from. This is not an act of piracy or infringement and is a genuine creative effort. This is acceptable and encouraged. The only caveat is that this source code must also be made open source as well (am I mistaken on this point?). I sadly lack examples, but I believe that this is the design of the GPL.
Am I mistaken at all on these ideas?
Exactly. Just as it is with Lugaru HD. Did you happen to notice the part where GP said "it was rather foolish to release the source code for a currently marketed game."? I was merely reminding him that the strategy worked fine with Q3 and is far from foolish.
I'm sorry, I only accept criticism in the form of sed expressions.
I'm guess the pirated app is being sold by a Chinese company no doubt?
FFS, just say "price". That's what you're talking about. That's all you need to say.
Let's face it. Apple only cares about Apple. If the game did something that Apple didn't like, or used a likeness of Steve Jobs, or the Apple logo, that app would have been off of the app store so fast that photons would say "wow, what was that?"
Apple doesn't care about anything else. They are not champions of what is right or just.
it's time to use the solar Death Ray.
From a discussion on the matter.
Actually, i think that Wolfire would have considerably more success if they pointed out that iCoder's version of Lugaru was distributed via GPL (http://blog.wolfire.com/2010/05/Lugaru-goes-open-source ), and as a result iCoder's app is incompatible with App Store licensing requirements.
I initially thought this would be a problem for Wolfire too, but since it's their IP they can relicense it (well, dual-license) for distribution through the AppStore however they wish, dodging the sorts of conflicts that VLC had (over which it was rejected from the iOS app store: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2082505 ).
Source: http://news.ycombinator.net/item?id=2173290
Now that I have your attention, let me explain that Apple (or any other retailer for that matter) can't be held responsible for unknowingly selling pirated software. With all the Apps that is in their inventory, you can't expect Apple to know intimate details for each and every one (eg. Didn't I see a similar game somewhere else?). Anyway now that the original authors have notified Apple, it's Apple responsibility to pull the questionable works off of their market until the matter is resolved.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
As much as everybody hates DMCA takedown notices around here, it seems like that would be the proper avenue for this sort of thing. It's certainly not an abuse of the DMCA in this case. Apple would likely respond relatively quickly so they don't lose their safe harbor.
~moofbong
If 'con' is the opposite of 'pro', what is the opposite of 'progress'?
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".
Using both *is* a bug, as the program is connecting to two different servers from HTTP perspective.
That might be exactly what is wanted, in order to avoid passing unneeded cookies around.
So, Apple touts their App Store as a place where you can get software without the problems regular vendors suffer, by means of their careful screening process.
I wonder how careful that screening process actually is if it fails to detect basic theft.
How long then until someone smuggles the first demonstration virus it into the App Store in order to show just how well that screening process actually works?
Unfortunately, GPL developers are about to discover the pain that traditional copyright holders have been going through for years. As more and more people decide to leap on the App bandwagon, those lacking a certain moral fibre will simply take to mining GPL'd games and selling them, regardless of how the assets and associated data might be licensed.
I don't expect this will be the end of such stories, far from it.
I've only just today seen that I, myself, have had to issue a DMCA take down notice to Apple, over a GPL game I made. Oh well...
THE HONOUR OF THE KNIGHTS - CC Licensed Sci-Fi Novel
Please note that this is an app sold through the Mac App Store, not iOS App Store. Completely different beasts, so completely different rules apply.
- Henrik
- when the Shadows descend -
So... Apple's been laying down the ban hammer on any app that had even a whiff of controversy or even a chance of violating their terms. Plenty of long developed apps were suddenly cut off and dropped at the last minute, with no comment from Apple. Developers had to go through hell to deal with Apple, find out why they didn't get approved, and then change whatever arbitrary thing that seemed to bother Apple that time.
If there was ANY possible defense for this kind of extreme, totalitarian control and manipulation of developers, then it would be some kind of quality assurance, or protection of customers.
THIS TEARS IT. You can't have it both ways Apple! Either you're nannying the app store, and you're manually approving of each app, and thus are responsible, OR you have to let everything through that isn't ridiculously offensive or illegal.
This actually IS illegal, and Apple has allowed it? I think that they should be absolutely, undeniably 100% liable for ANY AND ALL DAMAGES to Wolfire Games.
Unbelievable.
GCS/MU/P d- s:- a-- C++++$ UL++ P+ L++ E+ W++ N o K- w--- O M+ V- PS+++ PE Y+ PGP t+ 5- X R++ tv+ b++ DI++ D++ G+ e++ h-
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.
Apple is now running a marketplace. It is exercising an enormous amount of control over what is sold in that marketplace. It has a financial interest in every item sold in that marketplace.
It is a lot like a consignment store.
If a consignment store sold stolen property, it would belegally responsible for its acts. I'm NOT saying they would be liable, but rather that they could be held liable and that the "I was only a consignment store" defense would fail.
Apple's need to control is okay within its platform, but when that control reaches out and hurts third parties . . .they risk liability.
I'm not sure what them having released the source code has to do with it. Couldn't the pirates have just submitted a purchased version without needing the source code?
Doubtful. The art assets could be easily lifted from the binary but the code was probably rebuilt from the source and signed with the copyright violator's key. Code is signed, data is not. If code could be re-signed then we would have seen a lot of this by now. So what's different about this instance? The copyright violator had the source code. Occam's razor points to the GPL.
The quote that you referred to was just speculation, not an established fact.
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?
So, Apple touts their App Store as a place where you can get software without the problems regular vendors suffer, by means of their careful screening process.
Unless they are making specific claims about confirming copyright, they're legally in the clear.
I wonder how careful that screening process actually is if it fails to detect basic theft.
Not theft, copyright and trademark infringement. Please learn the difference if you're going to be discussing these topics intelligently.
How long then until someone smuggles the first demonstration virus it into the App Store in order to show just how well that screening process actually works?
Likely not a virus, but someone will undoubtedly slip a trojan past the Mac App reviewers at some point. I'm not sure yet if Apple is applying their security frameworks to apps from the Mac app store. If not, hopefully they will soon and will be able to contain malware that slips through via their MAC implementation and revoke the signature of malware, thus globally disabling it once it is discovered; like they do with iPhone apps.
I definitely give the person who put the pirated version on the app store an A for effort.
Bryan
Anyone who releases the source code, art, build scripts, etc. to their "proprietary" for-sale app shouldn't be surprised when someone compiles it and sells it for less. If the art was licensed so it couldn't be sold, then a free version of the app would be the next obvious "price point". Which begs the question why on earth the developer chose such a model IF they wanted to make money from the App store. Sounds like the developer should have expected this.
Just thinking from my tin foil hat, who's to say this wasn't a planned hoax from the start to get people to notice (and purchase) this game. They got a lot of press out of this. When you are a needle in a stack of needles, you gotta have a gimmick. Claiming your kid is in a UFO shaped balloon has been done already. Crying "GPL VIOLATION" gets a lot of attention.
Flexible bare-metal recovery for Linux/UNIX
Why do we even want Apple to respond? Do we really want Apple to police this? Just send your lawyer after this other "author".
I did not know you could write your own terms of gpl.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
You don't have to cry over the developer's business model. They made plenty of money from the first Humble Bundle, partly because they promised to release the source.
What I find strange about your comment is that the analogy of your position to video, books, and other creative works protected by copyright law (since these works are released without obfuscation, unlike compiled code) is that the creators should expect counterfeiters to hijack their works, and not expect that they can have a viable business model.
Do you actually believe that? Reality doesn't seem to agree with you with respect to the viability of the business model, even if it is true that there is illegal copying and counterfeiting in those arenas also. There's even illegal copying and counterfeiting of non-open-sourced programs and this infringement doesn't necessarily prevent some companies from having a viable business model.
File a DMCA notice on Apple, making damned sure that you clearly demarkate your legitimate application from the counterfeiter's listing in it.
Has anyone thought that this could just be a stunt by the developers of Lugaru HD to get free publicity.
If they don't respond promptly, I'd send apple a nice DMCA takedown. They can't be capricious dicks about people selling their own stuff and then fail to act on blatant copyright violation.
-josh
As we like to state on here so often, copyright and trademark infringement are not "basic theft".
Unless the submitter includes the original copyright and trademark information, Apple has no way of knowing for sure that the content belongs to someone else. For those that argue "but someone else was already publishing the same assets with a copyright attached!" this is true, but whose to say it wasn't the other guys who slapped on some fake rights? The problem is, while all these things are theoretically detectable, you have an open-ended detection problem. What should they be detecting? How far should they search? As soon as they enter this arena, they become liable for anything they miss.
It's easier just to respond to appropriate DMCA and Trade notifications -- which they do.
Actually at this point if Apple doesn't do something to remedy this they can be found to be facilitating copyright infringement and things could get fun.
I'll meet you at the intersection of "Should be" and "Reality"
Apple's policies on so many aspects of their app store suggests that they are above the law. Why should this be any different?
It sounds like Lugaru followed in Tivo's footsteps of trying to comply with the letter of the GPL while twisting its spirit enough to break a spine.
I thought that Slashdot considered Tivo-ization bad http://slashdot.org/story/07/06/04/0020213/GPLv2-Vs-GPLv3?
So what else is new. I signed up for the Mac App Store a couple of days back when I received an unpleasant jolt about Apple fanaticism to control their own platform.
I am a casual user who had just joined the App Store. I was just about to buy Angry Birds when I noticed a top selling software called OPlayer. Curious because the name resembled a suspicious familiarity to the PC player MPlayer, I browsed the app and discovered it was indeed just a wrapper around MPlayer.
There were no reviews for telling the customer that he need not pay for this application and could just install MPlayerOSX from http://mplayerosx.sourceforge..../ or download VLC from http://videolan.org. A small google revealed that the developer OlimSoft is a guy called "Jonathan Young" from China.
MPlayer has contributors from many countries, primarily US and Europe, but also India and China. It turns out he has never even contributed to MPlayer. He is just putting a wrapper around the app himself and charging $20 a pop to unknowing users to profit at the expense of the hard work
I decided to give the app a single star and write a short review to dissuade unknowing visitors from accidentally buying the app.
It turns out I can't write this. Apple doesn't allow you to review an App unless you specifically for out the money for it. I was jolted by this because while I had bought apps for my iPad (like Angry Birds) I didn't know that Apple was deliberately suppressing information.
I have also used Amazon.com, but they actually allow you to review ANY and I mean ANY product. It was because of this that Games with draconian DRM were given 1-star on Amazon by users to express their dissent. It was because of user review that the CDs with Sony's infamous DRM Rookit got booted from top position.
But here we have OPlayer, a top 300 app on the Mac App Store ripping users and charging for other people's work and I can't even tell people about it!
When I posted this on the Apple Forum my post was deleted because "Your post was removed from Apple Discussions as it contained feedback or feature requests."
But "Journalists" (who just love Apple) love to write glowing reviews like this even if Apple creates a noose around their people neck for design, convenience and security.
Seriously.
I've owned various Apple products sense the Apple ][+. I was gone (working for a living with Netmare) for decade+ while they ran emulated 68K files systems and stacks, lame multitasking etc etc while singing homilies about their machines being stable and better.
They have always been arrogant to the point of occasional gross stupidity. Does the term 'not invented here' ring a bell? They blew a huge lead in commercial GUIs by sitting on their accomplishments. There was no excuse. They failed to execute.
NextStep/Jobs saved their asses.
Without Jobs Apple would have had to agreed to Be Incs extortionate demands. By then they were just beat down by protected memory and preemptive multitasking. They had wasted millions and years failing. Someone really high up had reached his level of incompetence and was trying to hide by surrounding himself with even more incompetent people (I forget the peter principle corrillary name so I can't cite it).
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
...that is all it is.
That is one ugly game.
Surprise! The code was closed until the Humble Bundle and no one has started screaming about GPL violations since it's been opened up. So no, the whole basis of your reasoning is unsound, even if you sell software for a living.
Note to self: other people might have different successful business models which I don't know about.
> As far as I know, books, music and videos don't have a GPL equivalent that could poison the
> finished result so that it must be given away to be legal.
You really need to get out of the basement more. Firstly, GPLed code can be sold if you can find someone willing to buy it. It doesn't necessarily have to be given away for free (even if you are possibly correct in a practical sense). Secondly, see the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license for books, music, videos, etc.
Oh, and lastly --- you actually didn't reply to any of my post, you merely unconnectedly knee-jerked anti-GPL sentiment. Now that you understand how wrong your assumptions were, you have a second chance to actually reply to my point.
Actually, the copyright holder has to serve Apple with some sort of formal complaint. This needs to be more than whiny emails. At that point some of Apple's lawyers may stop laughing if the sense a credible lawsuit coming. Otherwise, they can just ignore it.
Just spreading fud from under my tin foil hat,
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
If the current version of Wikipedia's entry for GPL2 is to be believed, there is some disagreement among legal circles on this one.
So, if you will permit me to retract what I say and replace it with this general statement:
"Before distributing proprietary code, data, or anything else that you wish to keep proprietary along with code, data, or anything else that is licensed under the GPL2, do your research on what others have done before and if it's not clearly understood within the open-source community as permissible, get a lawyer's opinion or take the risk that you may have to release your proprietary files under the GPL2 at a later date."
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.