US authorities target app pirates

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"

Apps: new bottles for old wine, or is there more to them?

Via Robert Bolick comes this query from Martyn Daniels of the Read 2.0 Discussion Group, a mix of publishers, librarians, techies and e-reading enthusiasts. The comments of the 1709 Blog team and their readers are requested.  The issue is as follows:

"I had an interesting discussion with someone managing a major (Video,TV, film) rights/production who has been challenged with a secondary agent who they use creating and selling what they deem as ‘app rights’ to a publisher which contain more than the permitted minutes within the hour of moving image footage laid down in the contract (ie the app contains x minutes film footage which is way over that permitted without commercial agreement) . The agent is trying to claim that ‘app rights’ are outside and separate. The owners are adopting a hard line and saying no way and see their element within the app is governed by the contract and do not recognise an app right. 

I thought this starts to explore a new rights issue which at the outset looks simple but as we slice and dice, cut and paste, sample and mould new digital works based on multi media how do we control the rights to the elements and infringement? To date we have merely poured content into a new container but as we enhance that with secondary materials how do we control the rights elements and is there an increase in the levels of rights that need to be managed and what do we believe is an app and does it have rights which can overrule primary ones?"

This blogger is in the process of surrendering his old phone in favour of a smart new device that runs apps. Once he has had a chance to become better acquainted with them personally, he will feel more confident to express one or more opinions about them and the legal issues they stir up. In the meantime he is happy to hear from his colleagues and from readers, from whom he is more than willing to learn.