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Comment by mh- | Hacker News Reader

Serve DMCA infringement notices on Apple for the offending apps. The apps will certainly be removed. You shouldn't expect their legal department to respond to non-legal correspondence.

edit: not to downplay the egregiousness here. just my advice if you want this "fixed"

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Per this comment: " I've been dealing unsuccessfully to try to get those removed; however as of today it's been taken up another level..."

Jon I know you're reading, read this : http://www.apple.com/legal/contact/includes/copyright-agent.... which will get the offending apps taken down (or you can hire a lawyer to sue Apple, which should be easy because lawyers love to sue companies with billions of dollars in the bank)

Since these folks are often "related" in that the developers that use these sorts of tactics to make a quick buck are related, if you are persistent they will get the message that your apps are a pain to copy and generally will stop, although you may find it useful to retain a law firm to go after them on your behalf.

Thanks for sharing that link. Apple has another link to submit copyright issues, but I hadn't found that one yet!

I have actually sent a DMCA notice to Apple.

While I would also suggest the DMCA route, I can tell you that you will experience the exact same effect (no obvious response) observed by the OP.

Shouldn't this be actually the better case (Apple not replying to a DMCA notification?). IANAL, but it seems the safe harbor policy of the DMCA don't apply if the service provider just ignores DMCA notification. Which means you don't need to go after the person who actually put a copy of your software into the app store, but you can directly go after Apple. The facts in that case seem to be relatively clear, so the risk of losing in court against Apple should be low.

The only problem is that Apple could retaliate and block the developer from using the app store in the future. In the end, Apple's store is Apple's, and they decide when a developer is more a nuisance than a boon for Apple's businesses.

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