HN user
She probably said that because might not actually own the copyright to it.
Based on what I read on her site, this image was created for her final coursework.
Although I haven't been able to find out which University she attended to eliminate this possibility, it is quite possible that the University in question may actually owns this image.
Certainly in UK some Universities have IP clauses written stating who owns what.
I should have been more clear, so let me correct that for you, of 99.9% of those that owned IOS and that downloaded his app - they did not pay for it. For the record it got 4.5 stars with over 800 reviews so it not by all means crap. That is the figure I was given. Given we were talking about mobile, I was using that as my guide for a platform not yet on the market.
China has some of the highest piracy rates in the world—with a piracy rate of 96% in PC software, 93% in motion pictures, and 85% in records and music. [“China Fever” F. Fang 2007, International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA) report, Feb. 18. 2010 ]
http://www.china-mike.com/facts-about-china/economy-investme...
Source: A friend IOS App collecting analytics data. Sure, I could make it up but that is the data he got back.
They aim to crack China and their reasoning is that the big players haven't got a foothold yet due to being a young-ish market.
At the same time they are looking to developers to create native apps for it and hardly anyone is going to develop for a phone if their primary market is China where 99.9% people steal.