Piracy Articles on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

Chinese authors want Apple to pay $1.88 million for allegedly hosting pirated ebooks

by Steven Sande (Jan 10th, 2012)

Last July, a group of Chinese authors petitioned Apple to stop distributing their books through multiple apps in the App Store. The group, called the Writers Rights Alliance, is now suing Apple for US$1.88 million for allegedly hosting pirated books. The nine writers in the group say that 37 of ...

Apple reportedly cracking down on App Store pirates

by Steven Sande (Jan 4th, 2012)

According to a post this morning on Ars Technica, Apple is taking legal measures to make it more difficult for pirated copies of App Store apps to make their way to the hands of iOS device owners. The company is sending takedown notices to Apptrackr, a site that commonly directs users to ...

Miramax CEO says Apple is a threat to the music industry

by Michael Grothaus (Oct 5th, 2011)

Miramax CEO Mike Lang told the audience at MIPCOM that Apple is a bigger threat to the music industry than piracy. Miramax was a Disney property (of which Steve Jobs is the largest shareholder) until it was sold last year. Lang told the packed audience that "Apple is the strongest company in ...

Former EMI boss says Limewire users were major iTunes customers

by Mike Schramm (Jul 26th, 2011)

Douglas C. Merrill used to work for record label EMI, one of the biggest members of the RIAA. He was forced out just a year later, but now he's sharing information from inside the company. And some of that information points to an interesting conclusion about music pirates: they often end up ...

Developer frustrated over Game Center use by pirates

by Michael Grothaus (Jul 15th, 2011)

The developer of an iOS game that offers Game Center support is frustrated with Apple over their apparent inability to block pirated games from the Game Center leaderboards. GAMEized developer Luís Fonseca said in a blog posting that he had high hopes for his FingerKicks soccer game when ...

Mac App Store devs need careful code validation, otherwise downloads can be copied

by Michael Terretta (Jan 6th, 2011)

John Gruber of Daring Fireball reports that Mac apps whose developers didn't follow Apple's advice on validating apps (link for registered Apple developers) can easily be copied by users. Gruber notes if Mac App Store developers are following Apple's advice, the technique for using a copied app ...

Lack of receipt checking could enable Mac App Store piracy

by Megan Lavey-Heaton (Jan 6th, 2011)

Not long after the Mac App Store opened, several warnings via Twitter began to surface. "You did implement receipt checking so that people can't pirate your app. Yes?" developer Nik Fletcher (also one of our former writers here at TUAW) asked his followers. Ged Maheux at the Iconfactory also ...

Japanese publishers censure Apple over App Store violations

by Kelly Hodgkins (Dec 14th, 2010)

A group of Japanese publishers are censuring Apple after copyrighted material was reportedly scanned and distributed through the iOS App Store. The group points to numerous App Store applications that are illegally re-publishing the works of well-known Japanese authors, including Haruki Murakami and ...

StarDunk going to a free demo model

by Mike Schramm (Sep 25th, 2010)

StarDunk is one of my most favorite apps recently, ever since I covered it back for Daily App a little while ago. It's an amusing little 2D basketball game, made even more impressive by the fact that it juggles online multiplayer across the world -- as you throw baskets, you're also playing in ...

Mac indie dev asks The Pirate Bay to keep a torrent of his software

by Richard Gaywood (Aug 25th, 2010)

As a software developer myself, I know how hard it is to see your product being ripped off. We have recently reported on how even $2 iPhone games (like Stardunk) or iPad games (like Aqua Globs HD) are not immune despite their low cost and closed platforms. Their developers have reported piracy rates ...

iPad app dev sees 50% piracy rate

by Mike Schramm (Aug 24th, 2010)

We've heard horror stories of piracy from iPhone developers before, but PocketGamer has news of an iPad developer also suffering from a surprising amount of customers who likely didn't actually pay for their software. Qwiboo says that its iPad app, Aqua Globs HD, is seeing about 50% of its ...

Arrrrr. The pirates have plundered StarDunk

by Steven Sande (Aug 16th, 2010)

You'd think that an iOS game that was originally priced at $0.99 and is now selling for $1.99 wouldn't have a piracy problem. You'd be wrong. French game developer Godzilab recently tweeted that they've seen a 37.5% piracy rate for their massively mulitplayer online basketball game, StarDunk. ...

Don't get too excited about the App Store's Try Before You Buy

by TJ Luoma (Aug 6th, 2010)

As Steve mentioned earlier this morning, 9to5Mac spotted a new section in the App Store called Try Before You Buy. Don't get too excited about the idea of demos finally coming to the App Store, however. As of right now, this is only an index of "Lite" or free versions of apps. If you were hoping ...

The iPad and eBook piracy

by Sang Tang (May 18th, 2010)

In the week following the launch of the iPad, six of the top ten selling business-related paperbacks saw a significant spike in unauthorized downloads on BitTorrent, according to BitTorrent news blog TorrentFreak. This cohort saw average increases of 78 percent over the week prior to the iPad ...

Humble Indie Bundle moving towards $1 million, still being pirated

by Mike Schramm (May 11th, 2010)

The Humble Indie Bundle that we posted about the other day is doing quite well -- they've raised almost US$800,000 by selling five indie games (playable on Mac, Linux, and Windows) for pay-what-you-will. In fact, they've done so well that they've added another game into the mix -- you'll also get ...