Software piracy taken to a new level

[lonewolff]

Hi Guys,

Check this out:

http://blog.wolfire.com/2011/02/Counter ... eveloping#

In short Wolfire games (no relation ) has released a game on to iTunes for $9.99 and some dude has purcahsed it and then re-uploaded it to sell for $0.99, raking in 'money for nothing'.

So far, Apple has allegedly done nothing about this and Wolfire games has not been able to make anything out of their hard work.

As a community mainly consisting of indie and hobbiest developers, what hope has anyone got if they come up with something worthy of selling?

This is just 'in your face' piracy.

[masterfalcon]

Just a small note, Apple pulled the counterfeit version yesterday. http://blog.wolfire.com/2011/02/Counter ... -App-Store

[Klaim]

That's still sad.

[lonewolff]

Yeah, its not good.

[mkultra333]

The actions of Apple seem far more appalling than those of the original conman who uploaded the copy.

First up, despite Apple's notorious vetting processes and bureaucracy, they let the copy into the app store. Secondly, they totally failed to respond to the alarm raised by the original producers, leaving the copy up for a week selling for 10% the real price. Third, when they finally did take it down (probably only because of bad publicity), they still have failed to give any response or communication to the legitimate producer. I'm guessing compensation will be out of the question.

Apple just do not care. I used to dream of the day when Microsoft would be challenged, only to see it turn into the nightmare that is the Apple corporation.

On the plus side, hopefully the publicity will give Lugaru a sales boost greater than what it lost during that bogus week.

Edit: According to this article, it wasn't even Apple who pulled the fake, it was the fakers themselves. Probably figured it was best to take the money and run. http://www.kotaku.com.au/2011/02/and-th ... mac-store/

What changed in a week? Apple doesn’t appear to be the party that took the decisive action here. The people making the other Lugaru did.

“The application was removed from sale by the development team, it was not pulled by Apple,” Alex Matlin of iCoder told Kotaku today. Last week, Matlin had told us that he believed “that we have every legal right to market and sell the software.” That right is no longer being exercised via the sale of a $2.49 Lugaru.

Last week, an Apple spokesperson told Kotaku that the company was looking into the matter. Apple has not replied to a follow-up request about what actions it took, and Matlin did not explain why iCoder decided to remove the game a week after claiming its rights.

[betajaen]

I wonder if Apple could get sued for copyright infringement. What I mean is, as they are hosting the illegal version of the application, would they be guilty as the people who put it up it in the first place? My analogy being Apple acting like an uploader n Bittorrent. However, their with their incompetence and lack of transparency, and just ignorance - they should be sued. It is my understanding that the application submission process is long winded and should rule out mishaps like this.

However, Wolffire are awesome just like all indie gamers, they are giving free copies to the people who bought the wrong version.

We don't think that the customers should be punished for buying the fake version -- they probably just assumed that all the games in the App Store are legitimate. We would have assumed the same thing until last week! If you accidentally purchased the fake Lugaru, you can forward your receipt to contact@wolfire.com and we will give you an authentic version of Lugaru HD, as well as a bonus Steam key for your trouble.

http://blog.wolfire.com/2011/02/Counter ... -App-Store

[Kojack]

I got Lugaru in the first humble indie bundle, but haven't tried it yet (the environments look pretty low quality). Overgrowth, the sequel, looks a lot better (but still seems like a furry game, which puts me off).

Lugaru is open sourced under the GPL, so selling the game exe is fine. But the game data isn't GPL.

Something vaguely similar is the case of 3D Magix Pro. It's a commercial 3d modelling and animation package available for $47. It has positive testimonials and a massive website hyping it. But in reality it's just Blender. The preview pics on the store are stolen from other web sites, including artwork made with Max, the creator and testimonial photos are stock photos. The 60 day money back guarantee isn't honoured. The blender team have been trying to shut the site down for nearly 2 years, but it keeps coming back under different names. The guy is also selling Blender under the name Illusion Mage with almost identical websites and the same example pics stolen from other websites.
He (under yet another fake name/photo) also sells a dvd with 58000+ iphone apps/ringtones/wallpapers. I bet he doesn't have permission for any of them. To top it all off, he sells (yes, another fake identity stolen from iphotostock) a dvd of 16000 wood working plans. The art styles are inconsistent in the examples, so they are probably just copied from a bunch of unrelated sources.

[mkultra333]

Ha, I'd never heard of the 3D Magix Pro scam. I had a look at the website, and one of the pics is even watermarked "(c) 2008 Blender Foundation."

[madmarx]

Concerning the 3D Magix Pro, I read in the blender news that blender fondation won't try to stop it anymore. From my point of view, they seem ultra fed up with it, and prefer to spend their time on more intelligent matters.

Concerning the Lugaru, what it means is that you can't give your full sources if you distribute on iphone, otherwise anybody can re-submit your own application and Apple will still let it on the store, even if the software is illegal (in both case Apple gets a few cent for each download). I would not feel confident going to the court against Apple! If only Apple had sued the bad guy...

[spookyboo]

Also this kind of news makes me sad. http://www.ea.com/crysis-2/blog/crysis-leak

[Kojack]

The real question is who at Crytek screwed up. The leak has the drm master key, so it's not a leak from the dvd production like most are, this must have come from inside Crytek. Bad network security, leaving a laptop or flash drive at a convention, or an employee giving it to friends.

[CABAListic]

I don't understand how anyone can get away with this. After all, you have to leave a bank account or a postal address in order to receive money from the scam. Is it really that easy to get a non-traceable offshore bank account?

[madmarx]

Is it really that easy to get a non-traceable offshore bank account?

IMHO, I don't think it easy. I suppose it is more a question of "how quick can a justice decision be taken?", and "who has the will/time/money to sue a bad guy ?". I suppose that if they sue the bad guy, they will get their coins back ... in 1 year at best. And it is a big stress to go to the court, even more when you are the victim, because you will always loose something (either money/time/mental sanity). This is just my point of view of course, and I may be completely wrong.

[Kojack]

I guess most people don't even know to complain. In both the Lugaru and 3D Magix Pro cases, people paid money and received a product. So while it's a scam, it's not one that leaves the scammees knowing they were scammed.

The 3d Magix one is tricky because it does have some extra content. It includes 6 hours of exclusive video tutorials (well, I assume they are exclusive, maybe they are just the standard blender video tutorials). Part of the advertising is focused on the tutorials. If they were selling the tuts for $47 and included blender to save people downloading, that would be fine. But the product is advertised primarily as their own modelling/rendering package which happens to include some tutorials. They use the price of Max and Maya to show what good value it is. Nowhere do they say they are including a free product they had nothing to do with. Most of the claims about how powerful it is are true too, blender is damn good and would cost a lot if it was commercial.
Even that is still kind of ok legally (as long as they give out the source code to blender on request), it's the fact that they use artwork to advertise their product without permission that is the real issue.

[CABAListic]

I guess most people don't even know to complain. In both the Lugaru and 3D Magix Pro cases, people paid money and received a product. So while it's a scam, it's not one that leaves the scammees knowing they were scammed.

Those who bought won't know the scam, but the original developers certainly do and I would expect them to report it. I mean, if someone stole 100 euros from me, I might forget about it because it's not worth the trouble (not for me personally, at least; could still save others from getting scammed). But this incident has a single victim and a damage far exceeding 100 euros. As the scammer you can't expect them not to go to the police.

[kat]

...Part of the advertising is focused on the tutorials. If they were selling the tuts for $47 and included blender to save people downloading, that would be fine. But the product is advertised primarily as their own modelling/rendering package which happens to include some tutorials...

The tutorials in the package are a mixed bag, some are available under open-source, others licensed with attribution/licences inclusion, and yet others included expressly without author permissions (one such author got in touch to ask me what he could do about that). I've been keeping tabs on this 'guy' and this particular scam for some time and it's saddening that both people are getting scammed by it and that the Blender Foundation isn't that bothered by it (which is short-sighted IMHO but their prerogative).

[voyvf]

I've been keeping tabs on this 'guy' and this particular scam for some time and it's saddening that both people are getting scammed by it and that the Blender Foundation isn't that bothered by it (which is short-sighted IMHO but their prerogative).

Wow. I'd heard about this when the Lugaru scandal first occurred, but hadn't thought they were still in "business".

What's even worse is that they advertise "An easy to use interface"; I mean, c'mon, even the Blender dev's know that the current, stable version needs a lot of work (though from what I've seen of the beta I installed they're doing a really good job of fixing it), yet from what I can tell they're selling a pretty old version.

To add insult to injury, they flat out mention Blender on their 3dmagix scammer pro site.

It's just terrible.

[kat]

To add insult to injury, they flat out mention Blender on their 3dmagix scammer pro site...

And there in a nutshell is the Achilles heal in all of this; his doing that technically makes what he's doing 'legal' (in his eyes).