

Ask HN: A competitor stole my iPhone app content — what should I do? - Padraig
http://padraig.tumblr.com/post/352537653/philip-kirwan-ripped-off-my-iphone-app-content

======
buro9
You're in Europe, you are protected. The database is copyrighted whilst the
data isn't itself copyrightable. It is when the act of compiling the data is
non-trivial and you can show that the data has resulted from this process
(which you appear to be able to given that you have used names and entered
routes in a way specific to your process) that you are covered.

I'd start off with talking to him. His website
<http://www.philipkirwan.ie/site/index.html> states that he's doing an
undergrad at Dublin City University, which no doubt includes lessons in the
social aspect of computing including Copyright, Patents and Data Protection,
etc.

My points: He will be well aware of copyright, and the institution really does
not want to bring itself into disrepute as a result of the actions of their
students. It would not do his study well at all to provable have stolen the
work of someone else having been made very well aware of copyright during
prior study. The question raised, "Is all of Philip Kirwin's work his own
work?". And that for a university, and for Philip himself is a very big deal.

So I'd simply appeal to his own sense of self-preservation in that if he has
indeed (as it appears) taken the content from your work and passed it off as
his own then he is playing with fire that will burn him far greater than just
losing the right to sell one iPhone application.

At this point, he's already potentially damaged his reputation through his
actions, now it is up to him to determine whether he wants to salvage this or
risk burning himself totally.

~~~
andywar
Except his own act of compiling is by ‘scraping’ the original source, against
_their_ own copyrights and T&Cs. In the case of a bus company’s timetable
their own data—the times they run to, routes, etc.—is not public domain unless
they release it as such. Both developers are equally at fault unless one or
both has written permission to use the data in this manner.

~~~
dantheman
Their time tables are facts and you can't copyright a fact. Please don't
express an opinion as a fact.

~~~
andywar
No, but it’s my understanding that you can copyright a collection of them if
the act of doing so involved considerable work, as pointed out by warp and
myself multiple times. So the original website that was scraped holds such a
copyright. Please don’t express _your_ opinion as a fact… Of course, IANAL and
don’t play one on TV, so both sides could be argued in court. But the original
poster doesn’t have any more rights in the data itself than the person who
allegedly ripped him off. He has rights in _his_ code, _his_ database schema,
etc., but not in the data itself.

------
andywar
I guess one obvious question is do you have permission from the Dublin Bus
company to use their data yourself? From their T&Cs
(<http://www.dublinbus.ie/en/Legal/>) ‘No part of this website may be copied,
performed in public, broadcast or adapted without the prior written consent of
Córas Iompair Éireann. All rights on this material are reserved.‘ Your own
‘scraping’ of the data is itself legally questionable.

~~~
Padraig
I was in contact with Dublin Bus during the development of the app. Sent them
screenshots, etc. Anyone who responded thought it was a good idea, but passed
me on to talk to someone else in the bureaucracy (it's a public company funded
by the taxpayer).

In the end, the leads fizzled out and I didn't get written permission to use
the data from Dublin Bus. I continued to keep them up to date on it, hoping
that they'd even call me up on it so that we could figure something out. My
objective was to get at the data cleanly without having to scrape, and also to
form a relationship that might allow me to use the upcoming real-time data.

As I mentioned in the post, there was no app available for this before mine.
Dublin Bus website is a mess (they've updated it in the last few months, but
it's still awful) and it's particularly awkward to use on a small screen.

They're a government owned company and others have pointed out that 'data'
can't have a copyright, but I'm not really sure to be honest. I suspect
they're aware of it and are choosing not to act since it's benefiting their
service.

I would argue that this is a different issue to what this other developer has
done: He has taken my schema and my translation of the data which is my own
original work.

~~~
andywar
Two wrongs don’t make a right, but I agree you have done work that should be
protectable. I commend you for approaching them, but you shouldn’t have given
up. Without written agreement from bus company that you have permission it’s
going to be very hard to go after him. Get that and you are golden.

They have original creator rights and recourse for the way you extracted data
without those permissions in place. <http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si1997/73032--
c.htm#15>

While you could argue he has ripped you off, without that written permission
to use the data you can’t effectively argue your case.

I’d say your sin was less deliberate and more from a position of ignorance,
but sadly in law that’s little defence.

(IANAL, usual caveats apply. Seek legal advice, blah, blah.)

------
blantonl
I think a lot of folks are missing the point of this blog post, and that is
the App Store ecosystem has turned into the wild-wild west of development.
I've never seen anything like how bad it has gotten.

In my case, I run a Web services platform that approximately 10 or so iPhone
app developers have licensed and coded applications to. In the beginning,
there was only one app that used our services and it became a top-10 paid app.
Within weeks I found there were 6 or so apps that sprouted up in the App Store
with similar names, exact functionality, yet they were not licensed to use our
API and content.

The common thread? They stole the original app's SQLite database, repackaged
the interface, and off they went. We blocked these apps from using our
platform until they were licensed, but to this day I weekly see apps sprout up
that are following the same nefarious business practice. They steal content
from a popular innovative app, repackage as their own, and throw it to the
masses for the quick buck.

It is disgusting ecosystem. I'd be willing to bet that 80% of the app store
content and market is teams stealing and repackaging the 20% of actual true
innovation that is occurring.

~~~
wmeredith
This sounds like most markets to me. (Not passing judgement one way or the
other; it is what it is.)

------
flashingpumpkin
Obviously the guy knew that he's onto something shady. Why else would someone
name an sqlite database .png2?

Can't give you any legal advice though. I reckon you should go after what
others recommend here.

~~~
durana
Maybe he renamed the database that way so anyone trying to extract data from
his app would have a harder time.

------
viae
Don't waste your time on legal action on this iphone app. Yes, notify Apple
and publicize it. But, your energy is better spent innovating and hacking.
While screen-scraping is hard work it doesn't bring success and other good
programmers can re-implement your work without stealing it. Hell, this might
be a good opportunity to open source your screen scraper. Publicize it so that
others will collaborate on improving it. Then you can focus on more
interesting work. Data gathering is hard work, more people doing it make it
easier.

What can you do with your app that isn't so easily stolen (and reproduced) and
turned into a carbon copy? As you've already seen, public transit apps are a
dime a dozen. How about a bigger/better itinerary application that includes
trains, planes, and automobile times so that one can put an itinerary together
of vacation travel across all of Ireland? Add hotel info, confirmation info,
etc, etc, etc...

I don't have the links handy put there have been other articles on HN about
lessons from stolen work. Big lesson: it rarely matters because the people
stealing ideas and work don't have the skillset to do it themselves. In the
long term they can't compete with the new features and directions that you'll
go.

What I'm trying to say is, use that energy from your anger to create something
f _cking awesome that that stupid muppet_ won't be able to compete with.

* I'm from the US. Yesterday, I learned about the use of the word muppet over on that side of the pond. BRILLIANT!

~~~
Padraig
Thanks, I appreciate that.

I'm not sure that it's as clear cut as doing something that can't be easily
copied — any iPhone app that stores data locally is vulnerable to this. (In
fact, I'd advise other iPhone developers reading this to have a close look at
any suspicious competitors). I'm cool with someone 'stealing the idea', just
not when they go selling my implementation of it.

~~~
viae
I understand your frustration, but from a different perspective, I think this
helps bolster the case for moving on. Since iPhone apps store data locally,
making it easy to steal, your iPhone secret sauce can't be the database or
database scheme. The secret sauce has to be what you do with that data.

All that said, if you really feel that this is something that you want to do
something about in the future, apps like 1password encrypt local data. I
haven't done it, and other people have said it's a PITA because documentation
is lacking... so YMMV. But, think of it this way, put that anger into learning
how to encrypt/decrypt things on the iPhone. You'll gain a great skill while
at the same time getting to code a project that allows you to mutter, "Let's
see that stupid muppet steal THIS data..."

* Did I really mention that I like the word muppet? :D

------
bensummers
Check out "Database rights".

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Database_right>

In the EU, while the data itself may not be copyrightable, the act of
compiling it into a usable database makes the database defensible.

~~~
xsmasher
In that case the copyright belongs to Dublin Bus, doesn't it? In which case
the author of this post may be the original violator.

~~~
david
Nope, because although Dublin Bus provided the data, the author did the work
of compiling it into a database.

~~~
xsmasher
By following the buses around, or by copying the data from Dublin Bus?

------
haasted
Map makers often add a bit of erroneous information to their maps, which
allows them to detect when competitors copy their data outright. A similar
approach seems applicable to this kind of application.

~~~
xinsight
Great idea. If your competition gets his data from you, then you can leverage
that position of power. First, you'll need to make sure you have the latest
data. (If you're both updating with the Apple release cycle, then that will
give you at least a week of lead time.) Second, a few booby traps in the data
that your app knows to parse out will create angry customers for your
competitor (after they wait or a bus that never comes) and you'll have
"smoking gun" evidence that he's stealing your DB.

~~~
gridspy
I love the exploding data idea.

------
jerguismi
File a complaint to Apple, it may work.

~~~
Padraig
I just sent a message through a general app questions in iTunesConnect... does
anyone know of a specific Apple e-mail address for these kinds of issues?

~~~
ConorWinders
try AppStoreNotices@apple.com that's where all of my C&Ds have come from :)

------
gabrielroth
In future versions you might include made-up data for a nonexistent bus line,
in the same way that cartography companies include nonexistent streets on
maps. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trap_street>

------
Luyt
Have you considered encrypting your database, so that only your app can make
sense of it? That's what a friend of mine used to do, and it indeed stopped
some superficial copying.

~~~
Padraig
Good idea — well.. good advice for next time, anyway.

~~~
nudded
put false values in it yourself, if you notice them in the other app then he
copied your database

~~~
angelbob
Amusingly, (old-school, paper) mapmakers would do this, partly to defend
against these problems.

------
JunkDNA
I think once you have sent him a forceful note or two asking him to back off,
I would probably drop it. If you want to try and drum up some publicity over
it on some other blogs, you might be able to make some headway. But I wouldn't
expend lots of energy on him. This sort of thing is akin to people who have
their blogs stolen and mirrored by SEO sites using their RSS feeds. You can
spend all infinte time and energy chasing after people like this.
Alternatively, you can use that same time and energy making new apps and
improving existing ones.

I haven't looked at both apps, but I would venture to guess that someone who
is cutting corners by stealing from other people is probably also not spending
a whole lot of time on design, polish, and user experience. Those are things
that are hard to copy effectively and a place where you can set yourself
apart.

~~~
Tichy
Having dropped small things on occasion, I am not entirely sure anymore it is
the right thing to do. Chances are, it will keep gnawing at you - maybe it is
better to just fight for one's rights? It could also be good practice in case
something bigger comes up eventually. Then you would already have established
contacts with lawyers and what not.

On the other hand, lawyers are costly and in the end might not be able to
help. They are prone to suggesting the most expensive course of action,
because they get a share of the worth of the case. At least in Germany.

~~~
techiferous
"Chances are, it will keep gnawing at you - maybe it is better to just fight
for one's rights?"

There is a large opportunity cost here, since fighting could involve lawyers
fees and lost time. I don't think assuaging "that gnawing feeling" is worth
thousands of dollars. Learning to let go could be the more lucrative path.

~~~
Tichy
I guess it can only be decided on an individual basis after all.

I think there was a similar discussion here recently, about somebody breaking
lose all hell because a company screwed him over 20$. On the one hand it
didn't make sense, on the other hand society needs somebody to step up and
make a stink, otherwise companies that rip us off small amounts of money would
proliferate.

I am not experienced with lawyers. It would be nice if it would be possible to
just delegate this nasty stuff to somebody and forget about it (for a fixed
fee?). I suppose rich people would just tell their secretaries to deal with
it... Maybe some Indian company could step up and provide that service for
cheap? Or would it work like that if you already had an established
relationship with a lawyer you trust? First negotiations with lawyers seem
painful.

------
acangiano
This Philip Kirwan is a real class act:
<http://www.philipkirwan.ie/site/android.html>

~~~
david
One would hardly think the author of farty farty could stoop so low...

also: look at the time of day on this screenshot:
<http://www.dublinbusapp.com/dbmaps/Dublin_Bus_Maps.html>

------
tjic
Raw data isn't copyrightable, at least here in the US.

It is perfectly legal to go through a phone book and copy it.

~~~
swombat
Actually, as far as I understand it, though a specific item of data is not
copyrightable, the whole collection that you call a phone book is
copyrightable.

If I recall correctly, in fact, phone book producers usually include fake
numbers in the phone book, so they can tell if you copied their version of the
phone book, and sue you for it.

~~~
mcherm
Your understanding is incorrect. In the US (which doesn't apply for this
case!) the original case showing that the collection of data is NOT
copyrightable was, in fact, a case about copying a phone book. See
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feist_Publications_v._Rural_Tel...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feist_Publications_v._Rural_Telephone_Service)

------
Tichy
I discovered today that I have a similar problem, even though I don't even
have an iPhone app: someone copied graphics from my web site for his iPhone
app.

So far I have contacted apple and the designer of the graphics to clarify the
rights (designers provided the graphics but I don't know where they are from).
Not thrilled, but I can't imagine just letting that person get away with it.

Although what the other comment said certainly applies: the quality of the
ripped off app seems rather low. He uses some of my icons, but the rest of it
looks ugly.

Anyway, would be curious to hear how your story unfolds.

------
nym
The guy's twitter handle is @fluter, as <http://twitter.com/fluter> ... hope
he shares light on his side of the story. Also I'd like to see a diff on the
databases.

------
thinkbohemian
Artistic works have a "natural" copyright. (in the united states anyway). You
could potentially argue that the schema of your database was a geeky but
artistic work. (Layout of data structure, naming of tables etc.) or maybe some
other feature of your app.

Anyone with some legal background agree, disagree??

------
pclark
techcrunch europe would be all over this. You should reach out to Mike Butcher
(@mikebutcher) and chat to him.

------
durana
Does anyone know how iPhone apps are licensed? If this Philip guy bought the
app and the database was included with it, are there any terms that say he
can't do whatever he wants with the database (e.g., use it for his own app)?

------
medianama
I have observed most such issues get resolved after sending a threatening mail

------
Padraig
We worked it out:

<http://padraig.tumblr.com/post/355936709/resolved>

------
orblivion
Maybe avoid getting law involved and see if Apple has a way to arbitrate this
sort of thing?

------
sfall
it's not that the information that is being stored but rather that the method
and some user choices and UI are the same

------
anonjon
Do nothing? This isn't worth it.

Spend your time/money making an application that isn't so easily duplicated.
You said it yourself that you weren't planning to make a mint on this. No
point in dealing with the hassle of lawyers, paying the lawyers etc.

If you only had one competitor, it would be possible, but being that you have
five competitors, and some of them are free, I'd have to say that the market
is saturated and its time to get out anyway.

~~~
Eliezer
He's certainly not worth trying to sue. But he's worth reporting to his
school, publicly nailing to the wall, and the resulting story posted on one's
website to discourage anyone thinking of ripping off future apps, if that can
be done. Remember, the expectation of punishment for misdeeds like this is an
expensive public good, those who maintain it are social altruists.

~~~
cabalamat
Agreed. Philip Kirwan -- <http://www.philipkirwan.ie/site/index.html> \-- is
clearly a dodgy person. I certainly wouldn't do business with him.

~~~
pistoriusp
I don't understand - From the link you provided I can't tell if he's a dodgy
person or not?

Sure - He have the submitters story, but he hasn't provided us with evidence
beyond a reasonable doubt that Philip has stolen his database.

~~~
Padraig
You can verify this for yourself, but it'll cost you the price of both apps:
about $7.

1\. Buy them, right click on both apps in your iTunes Apps list and choose
'Reveal in Finder'.

2\. Copy both to your desktop.

3\. Rename them to .zip and unzip them

4\. Click on the app file and choose 'Show Package Contents'

5\. Compare dublinbus.db with dublinbus.png2

They are not totally identical, but there is a very significant overlap that
cannot be down to chance.

Also, his e-mail to me admits that he copied my 'layout'.

Though, I agree that his website doesn't him look 'dodgy' by itself.

------
Nassrat
Cheers mate, you got ripped off, that's why I embrace open source.

You should only blame yourself though, you could have had a simple crypt on
the db, with a key stored inside the binary. At least it would take a bit more
work to rip you off.

I would suggest you go ahead and release your database to the public. The one
thing you have that they do not is that you still have your scraper script(s).
If it was me, I would create a (restful) web service that allows anyone to
utilize your data, moreover, allow people (maybe with a nominal fee) to
download the entire database, or if you really wanna get into it, implement
keys (kinda like google maps) to access you bus timetable api.

~~~
dhume
_You should only blame yourself though, you could have had a simple crypt on
the db, with a key stored inside the binary. At least it would take a bit more
work to rip you off._ Well, there's one I didn't expect to see on HN. A
developer gets ripped off and told it's his fault for not including some form
of DRM.

------
stevoo
Basicly you should have done this from the start.

Since you know that you will not have a profit , why didnt you add the app
free and add commercials to it.

That way yours will be free and there will be no need for anyone to copy it
and at the same time have some profit from ads.

