Apple worried for getting sued for 3rd party app content | Hacker News Reader

Apple worried for getting sued for 3rd party app content

techradar.com

7 pointsnewacc5 comments

This is one of the key motivations behind the creation of a peer-review system, such as the one used by Xbox Live Indie Games: http://creators.xna.com/en-US/review_detail

By not approving games ourselves (in fact, Microsoft employees are banned from even looking at un-reviewed games), we achieve some sort of legal protections (which I lack the vocabulary to describe).

This process also scales better than a central review board model. Indie Games doesn't need that scale yet, but the back-end is generic enough to be used with other user created content which might demand the scale: http://creators.rockband.com/

This could set an interesting precedent.

If Apple is going to say that it is not responsible for content in iPhone applications then that could mean that the review process will have to be relaxed. And that the SDK agreement will have to be changed.

Because right now they do look in detail at content in applications and numerous apps have been rejected based on their usage of copyrighted content.

> ... numerous apps have been rejected based on their usage of copyrighted content.

that is untrue, Apple doesn't care if you violate copyright. They consider the violated party to handle that deal. (example: there was a blatant ripoff of mario, it was not by nintendo and still made it on the appstore)

I suspect that Apple will settle a lot of these out of court, like they have settled the recent ones out of court. And then quietly add more stringent requirements to the App approval process. After all, they already screen for content. Consider that you cannot get an App containing pornographic content through the App approval process. Somehow, the App in question got through because a reviewer did not recognize the image. What it probably means is that, in the future, Apple will probably ask for some proof of copyright for things like image content bundled with your app. That along with subtle changes to the TOS to include stronger indemnity clauses. Basically, Apple will be making the money, and the developer will be assuming more and more of the legal risk. Not good news.

That would be my guess anyway. That said, hey, here's to hoping!

I think its unlikely that Apple would settle these. IANAL so I have no idea of the relevant case law but likely Apple would want this to go to court to get a ruling saying "Apple is not responsible for the content provided by the app developers". Then they're off the hook permanently.

The device can download images and copyrighted content, apple can not control downloaded content so there's a nice out here.

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