8
\$\begingroup\$

A friend of mine has had his Flash game stolen and published on the iPhone app store without his consent. What is the best way to get Apple's attention about this?

\$\endgroup\$
4
  • \$\begingroup\$ I thought that iPhones cannot execute Flash? \$\endgroup\$ Jan 16, 2011 at 10:39
  • 4
    \$\begingroup\$ They might have made an identical clone that ran natively on the App store. \$\endgroup\$ Jan 16, 2011 at 14:52
  • 2
    \$\begingroup\$ Since it's most definitely a re-implementation... how much of the original game actually is there? If they "stole" the graphics it's one thing, if they just copied the gameplay don't even bother. \$\endgroup\$
    – o0'.
    Jan 16, 2011 at 15:10
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ There's an iPhone packager put out by Adobe that will convert Flash apps into native iPhone apps. \$\endgroup\$ Jan 17, 2011 at 1:15

3 Answers 3

12
\$\begingroup\$

At the bottom of every app's page in the app store on the phone is a "Report a problem" button you could try, but I suspect the best way is to have your friend's lawyer handle it (and if your friend does not have a lawyer, he or she may want to consider finding and talking with one).

\$\endgroup\$
6
\$\begingroup\$

IANAL but unless they directly copied art resources you are likely out of luck. Game mechanics are incredibly hard to defend and frankly it's in the industries interest that they remain that way.

You can attack someone for directly coping the wording of your games rules, and art coping is an obvious point of contention. However if their game just plays like your game then you are pretty much out of luck.

\$\endgroup\$
1
  • \$\begingroup\$ This is why you see stuff like "Boggle. Rules copyright 1985". Because they can't copyright the mechanics. \$\endgroup\$
    – Almo
    Apr 15, 2015 at 0:34
0
\$\begingroup\$

Here is a interesting thread regarding copyright and games.

How closely can a game legally resemble another?

\$\endgroup\$

You must log in to answer this question.