It needs less than 2 minutes to notice that the crowd is identical on screenshots I posted years ago in Itunes page of my tennis game “Tennis Elbow 2013”, so the infringement is obvious.
Most other models are identical ; some textures have been changed ; it seems some animations are same but sped up.
I contacted Apple and their plan is to basically do nothing for a while. I have to settle down this with the “provider” of the game.
He’s lying non-stop to me so this is not going to happen.
An example of what he said through several emails :
“i found models and texture on internet but i didn’t know that they were under copyright”
“Ok but i bought those assets by a 3d modeller so he gave me the authorization to use them”
“all textures made by me and are original.”
So I sent a formal DMCA notice to Apple, to force them to lose their “neutral” state in this case.
What I’d like to know now is if he’s making any kind of decent money or not.
If he does, I should involve a lawyer. If he doesn’t, I just hope Apple will act on my DMCA notice and that I’ll never hear about this anymore in my life.
Would you know what kind of income this represents ?
On the Mac AppStore, that would be a few of hundreds of US$ at best, so not enough to get a lawyer in the dance. But on iOS, I have no idea.
Thanks in advance for any advice about this matter.
That’s very interesting. I would say (disclaimer - I’m no lawyer) that your not going to find any help here necessarily - but maybe consult a lawyer, and even if you don’t take action, find out what would be within your rights as far as that goes. It’s a shame to see people rip off somebody who put effort and time into something, possibly profiting from it. Maybe there is a chance someone more knowledgeable of the law will chime in.
@MD_Reptile ,
the main question right now is how much money he’s doing with his game ? It’s not a question for a lawyer, and maybe people selling on the AppStore here will have some good estimate…
And if it’s enough money, then yup, I’ll have to see a lawyer to know where to take this…
I couldn’t tell you as I’ve never launched on iOS, so yeah somebody should come along who might be able to speculate on an estimate of its value to them.
Again, I know just about jack about the law on this sort of thing - haha - but good luck getting it sorted out. Definitely an aggravating thing to find. Which brings me to my next question - how’d you even notice this asset theft? You just stumbled across the app?
Looks like it is only a few days old. One review and not enough ratings to have a score. Honestly, maybe a couple of sales, tops. A premium priced game without reviews/ratings (good or bad) usually means no sales.
Forget the money he’s making. Consider the money Apple is making. Get a lawyer. Make sure the proceedings are against apple as well as the developer. And it should disappear real quick.
@MD_Reptile ,
I check for my tennis game name every day on google, and in a forum announcing this new game, someone cited my game as the best one… (he might have thought it was a port of my game )
@elmar1028 ,
there’s no reasoning with this guy, he just talks to stall things… But just for the “fun”, here what he said yesterday about this mysterious “3d modeller” :
then when asked for details :
Who is that also mysterious “level designer” ? For a tennis game, there’s level to design ?!? So I asked him if he was the producer of the game :
What ?!?
But haven’t he told me that in his very 1st email of the day :
and so on… Oh and if you wonder, there’s no “michele” that contacted me today, but there’s a “michele” that sent an email yesterday to the studio who created the copyrighted assets for me…
@zombiegorilla ,
he got #13 for gross revenue in France, and got a few bad comments in Forums. Except that, there’s not much…
@Kiwasi ,
I’d not like to go against Apple, but if the DMCA rules mean something, then they’ll be responsible of letting this game in their store within a few days, so I could sue them (by US law, and I’m in France, so we might have a few technicalities to solve :p) ; but anyway, I hope they’ll choose to take my side ; if they take 20 minutes to check everything, they shouldn’t have much doubt about who’s wrong here…
One thing you should definitely not do, I mean it when I say this, is leave this to just be. If you leave it he will do it again to you and to others.
You must motivate yourself to pursue this until you have your desired result. Put as much energy in to this as possible to the point that, without pity or compassion, the message sent out to other idiots like this would not to even try it with you for fear of suffering the same fate as this data thief.
In the short term you will suffer, depending on your situation, financial loss but in the long term you will reap the rewards.
What happens if you just let it slide…This idiot will do it again to you. He will become ever more confident in his fraudulent practices, because he has never been brought to book, that he will want to expand and target others. He has no care for you and what his activities do to you.
The point is not so much to get Apple in a court room (that would be fun to watch, but not what you want to do). Its more to get Apple to take you seriously and move your claim to the top of the list to resolve. Lawyers and their associated mechanisms will move you past the front desk and the stock replies and get you to someone who has authority to resolve the situation and do it quickly.
As long as you properly filed the DMCA (as in you sent the email and included all of the required information) then Apple is legally required to comply. If you have $100 to burn, you may have a lawyer send him a certified (with tracking) cease and desist letter as well. Often times that’s enough to rattle their cage when they know you’re serious and think you might have the financial means to pursue them. Although, if he’s located in France that might be a bit more difficult.
Ooo, good call! Take a look at the advertising too! Fila, Corona, Rolex, Slazenger… all big brands and I guarantee they wouldn’t want their brand associated with a game using stolen content. You should maybe contact them and/or their legal departments as well. They would have more weight with Apple in getting that stuff yanked.
I don’t think any of those companies will be as patient with the developer if he starts playing dumb with them either. I know if I had a few million laying around that would be the point that I moved past “just take it down” to “I’ll see you in court.”
I’d only report it to Apple, and tell the dude that stole the assets about it too. I doubt the legal departments of those guys give a fluff about small matters, especially if the culprit isn’t making any money off of it, but it does make a nice umm nudge towards the desired outcome. Doesn’t feel right saying “threat”, but you know what I mean.
But if he was making significant money off of them, they’d be all over it, but I doubt that’s the case.
You might be surprised. Their sole job is to protect the brand. Having consulted for multiple corporations it’s amazing sometimes the lengths they go to for small potatoes. They don’t want the brand associated with that sort of thing. Especially if the IP owner is contemplating legal action… because they could generate publicity and that’s something they don’t want their brand associated with if they haven’t made a tempt to dissociate it.
I sympathise with this situation, but I think you guys are taking this way too seriously. It’s an extremely minor copyright infringement, it means absolutely nothing in 2015. Copyright law is (unfortunately) in its death throes. These guys (Nike, Apple, etc) are only going to do something about it if it’s a huge game like Flappy Birds or whatever. The cost and effort is just not worth it to them.
In the music industry we’ve been dealing with this for years. Google now gets over a million DCMA takedown requests every day. It’s part of living in the 21st century - just accept that piracy and IP theft are widespread and look for other ways around it.
Unless there’s a lot of cash at stake, it’s generally not a good idea to hire a lawyer to resolve a commercial dispute. Of course, the lawyer won’t tell you that.
Maybe, but there is always the issue of if you don’t pursue known violators, then this sets up a precedent. You can actually defend a copyright case in court by saying the owner didn’t take reasonable measures to protect their IP.
In short if you want it protected anywhere you have to protect it everywhere.
You’re confusing copyright with trademark. Copyright is quite clear and you can’t legally lose it by not pursuing infringers. The only thing not actively defending might do is encourage others to infringe, since you could give the impression that you don’t care. But that won’t give infringers any actual legal ammo. Trademark is different.
(he might have thought it was a port of my game 
)
