My son won a gold medal. Then was robbed. Apple involved. HELP

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8129559

by mangoleaf • 12 years ago

3 11 12 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Hi HNers,

MY son won a gold medal for video game design and programming. His game was displayed at the Parsons School of Design in NYC starting in May 2014. Just over a month later, an exact duplicate was released in the Apple appstore (not by my son). It is now #10 in the rankings (called: No Brakes). It even used the exact shape for the vehicle.

Is there anything we can do? Any suggestions?

mkal_tsr• 12 years ago

What was Apple's response when you contacted them about this before posting on HN?

Spoom2• 12 years ago

Lawyer up.

MalcolmDiggs• 12 years ago

Sad but true. No way around it, IP (intellectual property) claims are a very tricky pursuit. An attorney would at least be able to tell you if you have a case or not.

chrisBob2• 12 years ago

Gold Medal! Robbed! Apple!

That's quite a headline. Unfortunately simple games are easy to copy and a style is IP that is almost impossible to protect. I would tell your son that he should be flattered that someone liked his free game enough to reproduce it from scratch.

If he is trying to make a business out of this then this is a good chance to learn about how marketing is a good differentiator. If this is just for fun or for a portfolio then don't worry about it, and start working on the next project.

mangoleaf3• 12 years ago

OP here.

First of all, thank you [and everyone here] for adding your thoughts.

The goal of using hyperbole in the title was twofold: 1. hope to get out of the slush pile of "new" 2. someone might have specific knowledge of a similar situation wrt apple. Even with the click-bait title, it just BARELY got out of slush with 3 votes.

My son and I had a good talk. He teared up a bit, but I could see determination to not get ripped off again. I think he will internalize that motivation to his benefit. He will not likely, though, submit his best ideas to contests. He does all the design, code, graphics and music.

chrisBob2• 12 years ago

That is one of the things that is always hard to judge here. I will respond to, but not upvote a post with a click-bait title. The Ask and Show sections also help posts some attention even if they never make it near the front page.

I appreciate the response, and I hope your son continues to work at it.

jgeorge2• 12 years ago

Apple is "involved" in the same way that the city government is "involved" when someone steals your car and drives off down the street with it.

I sympathize with your son's situation, but starting out with "Apple involved." just makes me think your initial interest is seeing how much you could sue Apple for because some developer released a clone of your son's game. App cloning happens all the time. It sucks, but it's no more Apple's responsibility than it is that the city didn't stop the car thief from driving off with your car.

The developer is apparently UK based, so if there's any way you think they could have seen your son's game and cloned it in a month, you're free to complain to Apple and see if they'll pull the game, but beyond that I don't think they have any responsibility to help you at all.

I'm sorry for your son's rapid experience to learn that there are people out there who clone apps to make money off of someone's work. He should go have lunch with Dong Nguyen and Gabrielle Cirulli, they'll have something to chat about.

BTW, if you're on the "lawyer up" warpath, don't forget Google too for another fat purse to poke at. No Brakes is in the Play store as well.

Spoom2• 12 years ago

Don't get me wrong, I don't think Apple or Google owe money here; I think OP should pursue the cloned game developer.

jgeorge2• 12 years ago

Oh, I'm not disagreeing with you in the least. Lawyering up may be the right thing to do, but going after a developer cloning apps for the in-app ad revenue isn't usually worth the effort. The original post had the distinct smell of chum around the edges, and thats what generated the harshess of my response, not your comment!

mangoleaf3• 12 years ago

OP here.

First of all, thank you [and everyone here] for adding your thoughts.

Neither Apple nor Google are complicit, but they might have gone down this road before and have suggestions. My son releases his music through them so targeting them would make even less sense. [he's currently making car-payment/mo. on the music]

re: cloned it in a month. We were there and wondering why some people were taking copious photos. Also, they stripped out all of the artistry, and music [all made by son], and just boiled it down to basics. So yes, a month is feasible.

Again, thank you.

My son won a gold medal. Then was robbed. Apple involved. HELP

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