Developer Exposes Copyright Infringers On Twitter 164
snitty writes "Wil Shipley, developer of Delicious Library, found some applications on the iTunes App Store that were using without permission some images from his popular desktop application. He outed them on Twitter. The team at Technically Legal broke down the story and the take-home messages for using other people's images."
Re:Hmm (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The Image (Score:2, Informative)
Seems to me like the real reason for him being angry is that the iPhone application he's complaining about looks to be basically an iPhone version of his desktop application. Someone beat him to it on the iPhone and he's mad..
Actually, he did have an iPhone version of his app but Amazon.com forced him to pull it http://twitter.com/wilshipley/status/2517428863 [twitter.com]
Re:He's complaining about... (Score:5, Informative)
Dude... thanks for telling.
I though this was about the icons and glyphs, which in many high-quality applications are actually designed by external design studios for lots of money. I can imagine getting pissed about somebody taking something which you actually had to pay quite a bit for.
But this is just a woodgrain texture, and a pretty ugly one at it.
I mean seriously, it isn't hard to make a woodgrain texture lots better than that one:
5 minute photoshop tutorial: http://www.tutorio.com/tutorial/photoshop-wood-texture [tutorio.com]
Free windows program for making wood textures: http://www.spiralgraphics.biz/ww_overview.htm [spiralgraphics.biz]
Heck, for all we know he actually used one of these or a source image, in which case he couldn't even claim copyright over it since anybody who made it themselves using such methods would end up with an identical texture.
Re:The Image (Score:5, Informative)
Outing someone for infringing your copyright is akin to vigilante justice.
WTF? No it's not, not at all.
Vigilante justice would be breaking into his house and stealing stuff worth what you consider to be the value of a license to use your copyrighted work.
Beating him up would also be vigilante justice.
Do you even know what "vigilante" means? Holy cow man. Yelling "Stop! Thief!" is not vigilantism, and neither is calling someone who steals your picture a copyright infringer.
If it does turn out it's similar but not his texture then he's opened himself up for law suits for defamation.
Not really, do you understand what defamation is? It's damaging one's reputation, character, or good name by slander or libel.
Now, slander is a false statement injurious to a person's reputation. Libel is essentially the same with print.
All that to say, if the person saying/writing it believes it to be the truth, then it is not slander or libel and therefor not defamation. Slander and Libel, and therefore defamation, are notoriously difficult to prove. Else we would not have the political system we have.
Re:The Image (Score:3, Informative)
So did this guy contact EVERY company and artist about offering to sell the cover images online? (His product is $40)
Yes. He gets the images from Amazon, and he's been in talks with them for some time on the subject, just to make sure that he accesses and uses the images and data in a legal manner. But hey, accusing him without looking into the situation is all the rage these days, so I can understand where you're coming from.