Apple Finally Gives Developers Tools To Report Infringing Apps

As the App Store continues to grow, Apple has had to combat a lot of copycat and spam apps that trick users into buying the app by making them believe that it is the original one. Despite Apple's stringent approval process, such apps have slipped through the review team's radar, often climbing to the top of the App Store charts.

To better identify and thwart such apps, Apple has put up new copyright infringement form on its website for content owners, helping them register their infringement claims with Apple and the app developer.

The form, hosted under the legal section of Apple's website, reads:

If you believe that an application available in the App Store violates your intellectual property rights, you can use this form to submit a claim to the App Store Legal Team. If you are looking for the form to submit a claim for any other type of content available on the iTunes Store, please visit here.

Apps on the App Store are made available by third party providers. Once you have identified the app and described the alleged infringement on the following pages, we will respond via email with a reference number and will put you in direct contact with the provider of the disputed app. Any further contact with the App Store Legal team should be made via email and should include the reference number in the subject line.

As pointed out in the above text, Apple has also hosted a similar form for other types of iTunes content like songs, videos, or podcasts.

 

In a related incident, reported a day before the news of these tools emerged, developer Benjamin Mayo noted that Apple rejected an app on the grounds of its icon being to similar to Clear, a to-do list app.

Putting these two pieces of information together, it looks like Apple's finally intensifying its stance against these copycat apps, which is good for both the buyer as well as the developer community.

[via TNW]