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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.'"
the FBI has seized the apple.com domain name for facilitating piracy.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Yarrr, ye'v been pushed down the page, ye scurvy dog! Yarrrr!
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.
Action 1: Wolffire Games Releases Lugaru HD
Action 2: Some time passes
Action 3: Wolffire Games thinks they're seeing double
Action 4: Because of the rest of the article, Action 3 may be forgiven.
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.
That remains to be seen. This could well open up the opportunity for a lawsuit against Apple, whose policies are not only a limitation on what they will accept, but also a promise of sorts to other developers that they will not accept those things. They are facilitating copyright infringement and they have a review process which is allegedly there to prevent this sort of thing from happening.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
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.
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
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.
Let's parse it:
"When Wolfire Games released their animal martial arts games" - this gives the epoch when the rest of the sentence happened, it was all at the same time as the game was released
"'Lugaru HD', on the Mac App store," - this is a more detailed explanation that tells us what game was that and where it was released
"shortly after they could be forgiven for thinking they were seeing double" - this is a more detailed explanation of the time, it all happened shortly after the time when they could be forgiven
" . " - oops, this sentence no verb and no subject.
No, it's perfectly kosher to have GPLed source code but non-GPLed game data.
See the various Quake GPL releases - it has NEVER been legal to use that GPL code to play the original game unless you legitimately owned the data.
It took quite a while before "standalone" games were created based on the Quake1/2/3 GPL release code, in these cases ALL of the game data was replaced with new (typically Creative Commons-licensed) data.
I don't think anyone would have an issue here if the Lugaru HD engine were being used with all-new artwork. The problem here is that the Lugaru HD artwork/data is being re-released by the pirates at a much lower price, and Apple is supporting this piracy by not responding to the emails from the owner of the original artwork/data.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Say what? There's nothing in the GPL that prevents you from selling your software, or software written by someone else and released under the GPL (as long as you don't change the licence and make the source available).
It's official. Most of you are morons.
The GPL does not have maps and art just game code. You need to buy the maps and art.
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.
There is. It's called Muphry's Law :)
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.
Thats not a malformed URL, its a perfectly valid one - the trailing dot makes the domain a fully qualified one under RFC 1738. Its your filter program that is the faulty one here.
You should submit this info to the makers of Dan's Guardian so they can fix their software to handle all properly formed URLs.
1 (short ton / firkin) = 89.1432354 slugs / keg
No, he didn't.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muphry's_law
Because you gave them permission to do so.
-- Lattyware (www.lattyware.co.uk)
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."
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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.
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unless your 'consignment' store is a pawn shop in Florida... if your house is broken into and you subsequently find your items in a pawn shop you must buy them from the pawn shop if you want them back - and the pawn shop is not liable
This is untrue in the vast majority of the country. Pawn shops in most states have a legal responsibility to actively try to prevent stolen items from being sold and, their possession of your property, regardless of is they paid for them, does not transfer legal ownership to them, since they paid someone who did not own the goods. In almost every state pawn shops have to return stolen goods to the rightful owner and eat the loss. The police generally confiscate goods for the investigation then return them to the original owner. If the police do not do this, some pawn shops will try to claim payment from you. This is when you go to small claims court or (if valuable enough) file suit against the pawn shop. They will lose if you can show the goods are in fact probably the ones stolen from you (you don't even need beyond a reasonable doubt for a civil case like this, just probable).
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.