In the USA, Federal authorities have seized three domains which they believe are
involved in the illegal distribution of pirated Android apps. The three domains are applanet.net, appbucket.net and snappzmarket.com. Anyone visiting those sites will now see this alert:
US Attorney Sally Quillian Yates said “Criminal copyright laws apply to apps for cell phones and tablets, just as they do to other software,music and writings. These laws protect and encourage the hard work and ingenuity of software developers entering this growing and important part of our economy. We will continue to seize and shut down websites that market pirated apps, and to pursue those responsible for criminal charges if
appropriate". The
Department of Justice said this was the first time it had seized websites to
prevent the infringement of copyrighted mobile device apps.
During the operation, FBI agents downloaded thousands of copies of popular copyrighted mobile device apps from the alternative online markets suspected of distributing copies of apps without permission from the software developers who would otherwise sell copies of the apps on legitimate online markets for a fee. In most cases, the servers storing the apps
sold by these alternative online markets were being hosted in other countries, and so international law enforcement partners assisted in obtaining or seizing evidence stored on these servers in countries including the Netherlands and France. The DOJ said nine search warrants were also executed in six different districts across the US as part of the operation.
http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2012/August/12-crm-1033.html
Deloitte's Technology, Media and Telecommunications (TMT) predictions here and more on apps here by clicking on 'telecommunications' and find "So many apps, so little to download"
Two stories in the Times this Saturday neatly illustrate the sharp divide between the approach of ‘old media’ and ‘new media’ to copyright and content. First up we have the Times’ owner itself, News Corporation, and Rupert Murdoch’s announcement that he wants ‘fair compensation’ for content produced by his media companies – and that in addition to looking to monetise his newspapers in the online arena, he would be seeking re-transmission fees from US cable and satellite operators that carry his Fox Television network. Murdoch has said that he will ask cable companies and other distribution partners to pay over a small proportion of the profits they make by reselling the channels. On the other side of the fence are Google, who Murdoch refers to as ‘content kleptomaniacs’. Google have announced that their Android search engine for mobile telephones will take the group into a new profitable area – advertising around mobile searches. To facilitate this, Google has made the operating code for Android open source and all handset manufacturers and operators from Nokia to T-Mobile to HTC can use it for free in their mobile phones – which is a distinct advantage for handset manufactures in quickly bringing product to market, and a distinct advantage for Google allowing it early domination of the mobile search market – and associated advertising revenue In it’s 2009 fiscal year News Corps operating income was $3.44 billion and net income for Google in the third quarter of 2009 was $1.64 billion.
