Serious situation that could affect the whole community.

[thack]

Serious situation that could affect the whole community.

BBC News - US seizes Android app piracy sites in copyright crackdown

Quote start:

WASHINGTON – Seizure orders have been executed against three website domain names engaged in the illegal distribution of copies of copyrighted Android cell phone apps, Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney Sally Quillian Yates of the Northern District of Georgia and Special Agent in Charge Brian D. Lamkin of the FBI’s Atlanta Field Office announced today. *The department said that this is the first time website domains involving cell phone app marketplaces have been seized.
*
The seizures are the result of a comprehensive enforcement action taken to prevent the infringement of copyrighted mobile device apps. *The operation was coordinated with international law enforcement, including Dutch and French law enforcement officials.

The three seized domain names – applanet.net, appbucket.net and snappzmarket.com – are in the custody of the federal government. *Visitors to the sites will now find a seizure banner that notifies them that the domain name has been seized by federal authorities and educates them that willful copyright infringement is a federal crime.

“Cracking down on piracy of copyrighted works – including popular apps – is a top priority of the Criminal Division,” said Assistant Attorney General Breuer. *“Software apps have become an increasingly essential part of our nation’s economy and creative culture, and the Criminal Division is committed to working with our law enforcement partners to protect the creators of these apps and other forms of intellectual property from those who seek to steal it.”

“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,” said U.S. Attorney Yates.
*
“The theft of intellectual property, particularly within the cyber arena, is a growing problem and one that cannot be ignored by the U.S government’s law enforcement community. *These thefts cost companies millions of dollars and can even inhibit the development and implementation of new ideas and applications. *The FBI, in working with its various corporate and government partners, is not only committed to combating such thefts but is well poised to coordinate with the many jurisdictions that are impacted by such activities,” said FBI Special Agent in Charge Lamkin.*
*
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 our international law enforcement partners assisted in obtaining or seizing evidence stored on these servers. *Nine search warrants were also executed in six different districts across the country today as part of the operation.

End of quote.

Do this mean the end of apps sites for IOS too?

Comments please....

Thack

[MrElectrifyer]

Hohoho, it could mean the end of such iOS sites for sure, especially Apptrackr.cd regardless of the fact that it's not hosted in the US. Oh well, it will just slow the process down; it can't eliminate it.

These officials have the money printers in their office, so they don't really care if they have to throw away a some cash in order to take down a few sites and just see new ones replace them.

[basicreece]

Sites will always pop up and close down.
As long as sites like us keep cracking, hacking and sharing it all be fine.

[GorgonSin]

blah blah blah ... bootlegging cant be stopped..lolo

---------- EDIT ----------

Originally Posted by basicreece

Sites will always pop up and close down.
As long as sites like us keep cracking, hacking and sharing it all be fine.

yeah same story every 6 months..lolol

[fletch_lives59]

Do devs copyright all iOS apps they create?????

[l0k0]

/me waits for Apple to jump on this band wagon.

[multipazz]

so what can be so serious about some android site going down

they obviously were doing it wrong if they got caught

they will not stop the scene, they can only drive it underground

all the drama a few months back about file hosters
and guess what... we still have file hosters

[mrbob2]

Ok maybe the android sites were taken down as they were fucking embarrasing!!! lol

have you ever been on snapzmarket? about 200 games/apps and most were demo/clone/rubbish.

probably google wanted them removed as it made android look rubbish lol


ok serious point, i know nothing about the law, file hosting, web takedowns etc so what about sinful iphone? this is the daddy of iphone websites and it offers links to cracked games.

Is mr sinful worried? is anyone "in the know" concerned?

yeah sure sites get taken down and new ones appear but thats no good for places like this with a community.

ok so they have been taking down app sites rather than forums which is good and prob be another round of nonesense like filesever/megaubpload/filesonic going tits up but not actually making any difference to the world of piracy what so ever.

i was thinking today actually how sites like emuparadise etc can host every game for every retro system and never get taken down.

while there is the internet there will always be piracy and if all else fails, wel swap files via email! lol

Fuck em! Sinful iPhone MAKES the iphone a phone!!

[cloudyweather89]

Well said mrbob2

[multipazz]

history lesson anyone ?

this is a good place to start....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topsite

unless they shut down all communication systems... permanently !

they will never stop the scene

[Corsair1274]

It will not be long before Apple goes clamoring to the government to shut down sites as well. You can count on that after this bit of news. They cannot stop any of this they are wasting their time seriously.

[mrbob2]

Originally Posted by multipazz

history lesson anyone ?

this is a good place to start....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topsite

unless they shut down all communication systems... permanently !

they will never stop the scene

Looks like they just have as i get this error message hahahah ;-)

Did you mean: Topsite (warez)
Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. Please search for Topsite (warez in Wikipedia to check for alternative titles or spellings.

Search for "Topsite (warez" in existing articles.
Look for pages within Wikipedia that link to this title.

Other reasons this message may be displayed:

If a page were recently created here, it may not yet be visible because of a delay in updating the database; wait a few minutes and try the purge function.
Titles on Wikipedia are case sensitive except for the first character; please check alternative capitalizations and consider adding a redirect here to the correct title.
If the page has been deleted, check the deletion log, and see Why was the page I created deleted?.

[multipazz]

link fixed

tnx mrbob2

[mrbob2]

Thanks, great read. quite complex but i much prefer this method of doing things lol i loved the fact one site sued the authorities for entrapment

[multipazz]

that link was posted as a starting point....

there are many links on that page...

like this one
27 Years of Warez Scene Release Info Leaked in Giant Database | TorrentFreak

in 2007 a database of all warez releases dating back 27 years was stolen and leaked

that makes the scene more than 30 years old

and still going strong

[Heist]

Put the sites on a foreign server with a foreign hosting company, say in Costa Rica or Tuvalo, a little country or Island Nation like most of the sports betting sites, a nation that has no treaty with the US or most all other nations and they US will not be able to do a thing.

Punch sand - kick rocks.

[boogles1]

^^^WOW!
If only we could "proxy" through those IPs' , we could download without much worry!

[King Kaos]

Yea it won't stop the scene, they only will provoke more piracy. As for google they have became greedy so I say screw them

[Dangerranger]

For fucks sake, i remember when the scene wasnt just about getting free shit. Ya we all do our thing with piracy, who doesnt. Id like to see it go back to its roots, which clearly isnt going to happen.

[fireishott1]

Originally Posted by Heist

Punch sand - kick rocks.

Great fucking quote thought I was the only one that said punch sand