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Android Piracy Sites Seized By US Government
Dupple writes with news that the DOJ took a few Android app piracy sites offline. From the release: "Seizure orders have been executed against three website domain names engaged in the illegal distribution of copies of copyrighted Android cell phone apps, Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Department of Justice's Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney Sally Quillian Yates of the Northern District of Georgia and Special Agent in Charge Brian D. Lamkin of the FBI's Atlanta Field Office announced today. The department said that this is the first time website domains involving cell phone app marketplaces have been seized. The seizures are the result of a comprehensive enforcement action taken to prevent the infringement of copyrighted mobile device apps. The operation was coordinated with international law enforcement, including Dutch and French law enforcement officials."
But there isn't an Android piracy problem! The fandroids said so!!! This is all just Apple FUD!!
No, I'm not an iShiny faggot, either.
It's about time !!
Wow, judging by the above comments, the apple trolls/shills are out in full force! Will the real tim cook please stand up?
but most of the good apps and games aren't available in the uganda google play store
When will we throw off the tyranny of Europe and their wild view of copyright? I for one am tired of having to jump every time some Dutch or French bureaucrat decides our copyright enforcement is too lax.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
15 new sites popup, android torrent programs get a boost, and alternate piracy sites get a lot more publicity for free.
Good one guys, thank you for making your country's government live up to the phrase "land of the free."
Hmm, the humour and sarcasm seem to have been be lost on you.
Think about it, the copyright and patent law make something that is supposed to be just a way to protect a business model into a criminal offence.
Really? You think this is what government should be doing?
You can't handle the truth.
Why don't these sites just advertise their IP address instead buying and losing domain names?
Nice little propaganda piece on copyright coming from the DOJ there. Glad to see their priorities are in order.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
I'm so glad DOJ cares about copy right infringement while not giving two $h1ts about thousands of Mexican lives that were lost while DOJ instructed ATF to let guns walk south.
Too bad everyone's not using 1 thoroughly monopolozed...I mean centralized Apple store. Then instead of virus infested counterfeit apps, they'd only have to deal with Apple secret police kidnapping apps randomly out of the store for no reason, insane overpricing/insane profit margins, psychotic Apple geniuses (see story a couple down from this one :-P ) and human rights violations.
When you walk into a store and shoplift a product, the store no longer has the product to sell to someone else. This is not true of prohibited copying.
I'm glad there's a thriving Android piracy scene out there. I don't have any problem shelling out money for Android apps, yet I've looked for pirated APKs on a few occasions.
Why would I do this??? After all, they're only $1-5usd, and the overwhelming majority of the apps are free anyhow, so a few paid apps is no big expense (contrast this with IOS, where you've gotta pay for EVERYTHING). Well, there's a few different scenarios at work.
One is device compatibility... I bought Sonic CD just days after it came out, and I was anxiously awaiting Sonic4. I heard people talking about it, but every time I'd go looking for it, there was no such app in the app store. After a few months, I was using the web interface to the app store for some reason, and found it... but it wouldn't allow me to purchase it. A quick search of the web for the apk, and it installed and ran on my device just fine. Once Sega gets their heads out of their asses, I'll buy the legit version, but thanks to pirates, I'm not a second-class citizen, stuck behind the wrong door in the walled-garden.
Compatibility is another. When the sixaxis compatibility checker was spitting out ambiguous messages that weren't in the documentation, I did my own "checking" with the full app to see if buying it would be throwing money down a hole. Thanks pirates!
And finally, there's always the case of a company that screws you over... Number 1 app on my phone is an RSS reader. Eliminates 90% of my "mobile" web browsing, with the painful interface that subjects me to (Slashdot is no exception). I decided to support RSS Demon and bought a copy, hoping that the annoying bugs would be fixed in just a few more releases...
But within a month, they had rearranged their product offerings on the store, and now what I bought doesn't even exist, so I don't get the many, many upgrades that have come along since. And worse, I couldn't reinstall even the version I bought if my life depended on it, since it's no longer in the store, anywhere. e-mails to the developer have gone unanswered. I'll be dammed if I'm going to send them more money to just up and screw me over once again. Since I've already paid in, I don't feel even slightly hesitant to resort to piracy of the product I already bought. Thanks again, pirates!
It'll be a shame if efforts to combat piracy are successful, and cut off semi-legitimate users like myself. Or worse, if it gets pushed underground a bit further, and every APK is packaged with some nasty virus out to steal all your data. AirPush and it's kin are bad enough, as-is, that everyone using Android is going to need Spyware remover and antivirus soon.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Thought crime? Have you even read 1984? A thought crime is a "crime" in which the mere desiring something contrary to the law is itself a punishable criminal act. No proposed copyright law has come even close to being a "thought crime." You do genuine civilian libertarians absolutely no good with this extremist hyperbole and only make the rest of us copyright minimalists look like idiots.
Heck, while I'm at it, I have news for you. We have these modern law enforcement mechanisms called "extraditions" and "international partnerships." This means that if people from your country screw over the US Government in the US, you help us stop them. Believe it or not, the US Government has actually done this in reverse on behalf of foreign countries such as when it puts Americans in prison for going to places like Uganda and Thailand to rape children or when it arrests Americans who raise funds for guerrilla groups abroad.
The article is missing important information like the IP number of the servers or other what pirate sites have not been seized yet.
This kind of information is very important for me to judge the danger of piracy!
who was put out of business by piracy, good!
Over 250,000 illegal installations...less than 1000 sales.
Here's another: when you copy and distribute software without authorization (which allegedly those sites did), you basically substitute the legitimate distribution channel (which pays the author) by another which doesn't pay the author.
For one thing, when I buy a lawfully made copy of a work distributed on a physical medium, use it, and then sell it used to someone else, that distribution channel doesn't pay the author either, but the law doesn't prohibit it. For another, what's "the legitimate distribution channel" for copies of the film Song of the South, the television series Spartakus and the Sun Beyond the Sea, or the video game Earthbound?
Alternatively, when you shoplift, only the retailer is the only one losing and typically he has insurance to cover such loses.
Watch for broken window fallacies here. If there were no shoplifting, insurance would be cheaper.
$1 app - why even risk a virus or jailbreak or download hassle
$10 app not valued at $10 - it still might not be worth the effort; but those greedy app developers can motivate somebody to put in more than $10 of their time just out of spite.
If you are going out of business anyway you may as well lower the price before you go under. Stop blaming everybody else except yourself. You don't set your value it doesn't matter what you think your work is worth; the consumers decide that and maybe there is no middle ground and you go out of business, that is life.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
I know Americans are usually pretty shocked not everyone uses a credit card but I've honestly never needed or wanted one and can still buy credit for iTunes, Skype, PSN, Amazon, eBay and dozens of others with no hassle.
Of course they don't mention what apps were being illegally copied. In addition, they don't mention who requested the take down. Is this a case of true piracy, where people were circumventing paying for software? Or, is this a case where people were downloading free apps, but not through the google app store? If the latter, exactly what copyright was being infringed?
Another band-aid fix that will fail to work and comes at the cost of due process and Internet freedom.
Until the banksters are prosecuted once and for all, I have zero pity for copyright. As a juror I vote not guilty for all LAW, as long as these banks are allowed to steal.
I am actually quite amazed that iOS piracy is so unchecked and that no servers have been seized. Once jailbroken, any app is available malware free off one site that self-polices and pretty much everyone trusts.
What's happening is that 1) in general apple users are willing to pay for stuff; 2) jailbreaking is a greater hurdle to overcome than sideloading; and as a result there is a lower iOS piracy rate and more profit for developers.
When will people understand that this is what P2P is for?
Geez, pirate properly guys....
expandfairuse.org
I have been interested in the differences in the various banners that are put up on these seized sites. I have a Python script I run now and then to gather all of the banners. Right now I have 16 banners from 757 seized domains hosted at 4 IPs. If you'd like to see them, you can check out the Picasa Web Album.
Reason being the Android apps were better than their Apple counterparts.