

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

Hi HNers,<p>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.<p>Is there anything we can do? Any suggestions?
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jgeorge
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.

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

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jgeorge
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!

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mangoleaf
OP here.

You weren't harsh. You had a clear point and made it.

If someone's on HN, I value his thoughts.

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

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chrisBob
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.

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mangoleaf
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.

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chrisBob
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.

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Spoom
Lawyer up.

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MalcolmDiggs
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.

