Apple sends takedowns to stop pirate-friendly iOS apps
updated 05:55 pm EST, Fri December 30, 2011
Apple shuts down cracked iOS app culture
Pirate app haven Apptrackr revealed in an update for its Installous app installer that Apple has been cracking down on its bootlegs. "Huge" volumes of takedown requests have made it move servers to areas with looser copyright laws and impose Captcha checks to avoid the legal ramifications of direct links. New hosts were also coming to diminish the impact.
The group is warning that it can't afford the offshoring solely through donations and will have to run ads at the same time.
Little sympathy is likely to exist for Apptrackr, whose site essentially revolves around getting normally for-pay apps for free and outside of the App Store. Piracy has been a known issue for most mobile app stores, but Apple has done little to publicly acknowledge it or curb it in a conspicuous way.
Google's piracy situation is believed to be worse by its nature. As Android owners only need to check a box to install apps that aren't available in Android Market, they can visit third-party stores or download directly from the web. The company is known to take a reactive approach even to apps within the Market and hasn't pursued pirates itself. [via iJailbreak]
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Mar 1999
How ironic...
So these guys are asking for donations and wanting to earn ad revenue so they can give away pirated apps that developers have worked hard to build? How ironic that they are trying to make a living by steeling other people's work. Perhaps they need to spend their valuable time building apps themselves and then watch helplessly as other people steel their work too.