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Comment by eric_bullington | Hacker News Reader

I wasn't previously aware of apptopia -- looks very cool and I'm surprised I haven't heard of it before. There's always an interesting outlier project that escapes our notice, right?

But I'm a little confused about this situation. Who was listing this app? (i.e., who originally coded the app?) Was he/she consulted about the situation?

Perhaps I'm not yet understanding how Apptopia works, but I'm surprised you took this action without consulting with the app's author. Or do you own all the apps listed outright? Or did you pay him/her for the app, regardless of the chargeback?

Anyway, glad this made to to HN, I'll take a closer look at Apptopia.

EDIT: And just to be clear, I meant an outlier on the distribution of the projects that are on my screen, not a global outlier for everyone. Clearly, given your funders and growth, many people are aware of your project.

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Hey Eric,

So we brokered this app acquisition. The seller (original coder of the app) sold the ownership to this buyer. After paying for and receiving the app, this buyer initiated a wrongful chargeback (we paid out the seller already, so we took the hit as the broker and escrow provider).

So in essence, since he "returned" the app to us, we now own it, and therefore, the app developer community now owns it.

Does that make sense?

Just thinking out loud here - Is it possible for you to determine whether the buyer and seller were related somehow ?

Really wild point. So malicious, but i guess in the same sense that would be a "clever" way to "pay yourself". The seller is someone we have worked with before and has multiple listings with Apptopia (and has had them for a few months now). They also have separate payment profiles. So if they are the same, they have gone through great lengths to hide it...

Still good to keep an eye on. Thanks for making me think through it.

OK, totally clear now. It wasn't at first clear to me what had happened to the seller. In any case, I think your decision to open source the app was totally reasonable, given the buyer's failure to pay for exclusive ownership. Just glad to hear the seller was taken care of. And thanks for the BSD license -- it's a generous license.

You should clarify this in the blog post. (Also a good marketing tool!) I was reaching for my pitchfork as I was reading.

Just in case you're wondering, I sold my app on Apptopia and it was a great experience. My friend and I made a game that was very pretty and fun but wasn't obviously monetizable beyond ads. I put it up on Apptopia and Jonathan hustled his ass off and got me $2500 for the app, which was great considering it was a side project and I wanted to pass it on to someone with more time.

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