Ryan is Lying – (well, actually stealing, cheating and lying - again)

Back in January I posted Hoisted by my own petard: or why my app is number two (for now) where I profiled the pirating of my app content (from A Pose for That) and the steps I took to have Microsoft remove the offending app from the marketplace. Well, Ryan Lan AG is still going strong on the Microsoft marketplace (with 37 apps – what’s up with that Microsoft?) even though my particular app had been removed – OR SO I THOUGHT! Thanks to an eagle-eyed phone user (thank you – you know who you are), I discovered a new publisher on the marketplace – Ryan AG. Coincidence? I think not. 

Ryan AG has an app called A Yoga Course – which is the identical app with my identical (pirated) content. I have filed the requisite infringement complaint document with Microsoft – but, obviously, this is like stepping on a single cockroach – it’s not going to make my food any safer.

I think, while Microsoft is analyzing app submissions, they should be building an index of resources and flagging cases of reuse. I think publishers should be able to register “ownership” of their content resources and be notified when those resources are showing up in submitted apps. Publishers can do nothing or register a complaint – of course this 

a) costs time, money and resources and 

b) can be easily circumvented with some effort on the part of the bad guys – so, it may not be practical (but I would also welcome a better suggestion).

A two foot fence that “deters the opportunistic” and clearly delineates acceptable from criminal behavior would have, in my view, a net positive effect.

Who actually are the people behind Ryan (Lan) AG? I can’t say for sure, but I have a strong suspicion that whoever owns the email ryenlan@qq.com knows the answer to that – why not email him and ask what he is thinking about as he steals my content (and a host of others from what I can see).

You might think I may be jumping the gun here – perhaps this is an innocent naively unaware that they are crossing some invisible theoretical line. Perhaps they have a strong moral stand against content ownership or some other flavor of that malarkey – so… check out Ryan’s profile picture that can be seen here. This is not an ethical, cultural, or language issue – this is an unrepentant thief.