This is very disheartening... Another BuzzTouch user is blatantly copying my app or violating copyright laws. I woke up this morning to see a text message from a friend who showed me a screenshot (from the App Store). This person has made an exact copy of my app, with the same name. Not only that, but this person has stolen all of my copyrighted images and is willfully infringing and deceiving people into thinking his app is mine. This is my app (the real Bible Lock Screens): http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bible-lock-screens-bible-wallpapers/id414174774?mt=8 And here is the copy... https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bible-lock-screens-bible-backgrounds/id720159390?mt=8 Even the screenshots are horrible copyright violations. I have already submitted a formal dispute with Apple and "cease and desist" letter is on its way. David, is there anything that can be done on BuzzTouch's end. I don't know if this person is self hosted or not, but they are intentionally trying to confuse my users and steal from me. Thanks for any assistance. My email is <a href="mailto:[email protected]">[email protected]</a> if anyone needs to contact me through email. (If the developer who copied my app reads this: Do the right thing & delete your copy immediately to prevent further action) Respectfully, Ryan Maher

The good news is... My app is back in the Top 100! I guess "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery"...

Hey, using the same idea is on thing, but full copy... thats just wrong. How do you know if it's a buzztouch user? Cheers. Miguel

I downloaded the app and its using the BuzzTouch interface. Without a doubt, its another BuzzTouch user. :/

@ryanmaher777, Send an email to Apple here http://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/appstorenotices/ And also let David @ Buzztouch know. https://www.buzztouch.com/pages/about-contact.php?leader=davidBook

Gosh :( So sorry to hear yet again another copy cat. I agree with cakebit, contact David @ Buzztouch. And to think they would copy a "Bible" app :(

EDIT. I removed my post, on second thought, it's probably not a good idea to post a link to the profile or say the name of the user. We all make mistakes, and I know this guy, he's a good guy, he will do the right thing. Best of luck getting this fixed - you have a beautiful app Ryan! David http://buzztouchmods.com/market

Not Cool. We have reached out to the individual in question and look forward to his response to our concerns. Buzztouch certainly does not condone such behavior and will do our best to help rectify the situation. We expect the individual will do the right thing and soon. Thanks

Yeah I'm surprised with this dude I was so impressed with his first app, considering language barriers. Do people use jail broken phones to grab the config then just copy it.

This is rather shocking, to be honest. It makes me want to be more aware about my apps. It is an exactly copy. The screenshots are using the same Pixeden graphics and such. The title is the same, the description is the same, the images are the same, the screenshots are the same. I do hope that the person takes it down. I would say that if it hasn't changed in 24 hours, you should report it to Apple. There can be little sympathy for people who copy apps like this. Your app looks great, by the way.

Hi Ryan, and everyone... Im so sorry about that. Im sorry this problem. I know that bad and not fair play. I have blank this app on BT server and i will update new version this app by another my app! Im so sorry! I dont know talk what is better now, but im sad and want to say sory to Ryan, im wroong :( Give me time for update by my app! Thanks all for understand!

How did you copy it so perfectly, just for info see if we can put measures in

This is one of the unfortunate things about Buzztouch. Any app, or any developer can simply rip off any BT app. I have experienced this myself... in fact it is not that hard to do. "No jailbreak required" :D Security is one place Buzztouch can definitely improve.

also curious on how. its important to protect yourself.

Yeah it will be hard to put security around open source... Encrypted code could be an option but of course it wouldn't make sense with open source..Not sure but its sick seeing apps copied to the T

@Thanh hoai... why would you do this to another of our fellow app developers. It was better that you admitted to doing it, but why? What was the temptation? Also, wouldn't the best thing to do is to remove this app from sale immediately. It's very easy to do in iTunes Connect, so I don't see why there is an excuse to 'wait for an update'. I think that I'd be correct in saying that we all have very little sympathy for this issue. It is taking away sales from the hard work that Ryan has put into making "his" app.

Yeah I agree @Thomas .. considering @Thanh hoai has created decent looking apps in the past. :/

I appreciate that @Thanh hoai is sorry for trying to profit from someone else's hard work. What might help even more is if he could educate us on exactly how he did it, so perhaps others could help protect themselves. There's no telling how many rip-offs are out there right now that haven't been caught. Ryan is extremely lucky that his friend happened to see the other app - otherwise it would still be there. I can't image too many developers will be eager to promote their Buzztouch apps and tell which ones are successful on the forum anymore if it's just going to be seen as an invitation to steal them.

Thank you for all the support BuzzTouch friends... You guys are great! To @Thanh hoai, thank you for apologizing. I accept your apology and I am requesting that you delete you app today, not wait for an update in the future. If you are sorry, than this should be the easy, logical next step. Please delete your app. I think that is fair. If you want to make an app similar to mine, please do. The World needs more of the Gospel out there. I just ask that you start with a new app that does not intentionally confuse my users and violate copyright law. Again, thank you BuzzTouch users for all your support and assistance in this matter. You guys are great! Sincerely, Ryan Maher

Ryan I think your answer is great. We all make mistakes and the way you are handling it is great. You're definitely an example of the Buzztouch community spirit. i'm sure the user will do the right thing. He has already come forward. Cheers Guys.

@CakeBit: What you're describing is not unique to Buzztouch. And its not always as carte blanche as you describe. For example, if someone wanted to copy some of my apps, they would have to be able to re-code a lot of custom plugins not available here. And in the big picture, any app can be copied. Its all a matter of scale, skill, and effort. This whole story is unfortunate, and I am not in any way undermining it. I just want to make it clear that a "Buzztouch app" is not necessarily an easier app to copy. But rather Buzztouch makes it easier to copy apps. (Thus the copyright clause that everyone HAS to click on and agree to when they create each new app here). In short, Congrats again Ryan. This would obviously be a non-issue if your app wasn't successful and worthy of being copied. -Chris

@Stobe, Thanks for posting! You are correct: any app can be copied. But, Buzztouch apps are (from a code perspective) are sometimes easier to copy because of how they are packaged. Also (without getting into too much detail) because Buzztouch runs off of a web server I could technically download each and every Buzztouch app's data and source code and upload it to any appstore. That being said if your app is popular it is almost guaranteed to by copied: http://arstechnica.com/apple/2013/08/how-app-store-grifters-clone-an-overnight-success-to-make-a-quick-buck/ Buzztouch has several (web) vulnerabilities that I have been meaning to bring to David's attention.

@CakeBit I'm sure it would be a Piece O' Cake to fix them ;) David http://buzztouchmods.com/market

@MadRod - Thanks for the kind words! Today has tested my patience, but I'm doing my best to respond graciously, yet firmly :) At the end of the day, I'm not playing. I'm going to do my best protect what I've built for the last 3.5 years. So thankful for the BuzzTouch community. @Stobe - Thanks a bunch! @Shenry - I'm thankful to have friends who have my back. I just recently had a strong promotional push, so thats why my friend saw it.

@MrDavid, Right! :D

Cheers to that.

@Ryan... this idea of yours could go in many directions, You could create multiple 'home screen' themes for apps. I have already thought of a dozen. Your general idea could be extended into multiple subjects (not just Bible graphics) and that could become your 'type' of app, in the same way that my type is 'map-based' apps.

Hey Thomas, Private message me :) I have many in the pipeline currently.

I think a blanked config.txt file would take care of this, if that copied app is attached to a url. Probably not though, sadly. Sincere form of flattery or not, this isn't right. We should do whatever we can to protect Ryan's work. Tim

As the publisher of apps, Hoang Hai (aka Black White) has been creative in making apps with his own content and style and design. I have showcased his Vietnamese Baby Food and HaLong Bay apps in my BuzzTouch tutorial classes. What a disappointment! Perhaps Hoang published a friend's app for him or he is the actual culprit. In any case, within iTunes, Hoang's name is affiliated with the app as the Developer. It is very easy to reverse-engineer any app -- no special tools required. I do it for the same reason we do "view source" on HTML pages. To learn different techniques, not to steal. To answer the copycats, one must rise above the fray, just as Ryan has. He is focused on making his app and his brand be the best that it can be. Soon, he will be expanding his app catalog, thusly increasing the reach of his brand. It will be a sincere pleasure to watch Ryan's growth! :-) -- Niraj

Been watching this thread today and a few things are painfully obvious. I'm pissed. The rest of you are too. For good reason. 1) Thieves exist. It sucks. 2) Buzztouch Members don't condone behaviors like this. We don't either. 3) All sorts of hacks exist for all sorts of things. Including grabbing data from Buzztouch's backend in a black-hat fashion is possible. I won't get into why it's frustrating to read these types of remarks in our own forums. Sigh... Let's see...spend a few years working on code. Lots of code. Give it away, for free. Spend a pile of money continuing to give it away. Spend countless hours, days, weeks, months, years keeping it all together. Continue to evolve the offering as quickly as the market demands and barely keep up. Watch the priority list grow and grow. Get derailed constantly with petty BS by petty thieves..... I digress. The fact is, these types of issues (all of them addressed in this post) are one of the core reasons things slow down around here. BT v3.0 release for iOS. Oh, wait, another fire started that needs attention. Lots of attention. You get the idea...Disengenous folks like this (the app thief) are the number 1 time suck around here. It's amazing how many things must move aside when each of these types of things happen. You'de be surprised at the number of issues that need resolved as soon as we hear about them. This particular issue raises lots of questions about lots of things. All of which need addressed. All of which will be addressed. When? Security always, 100% of the time, comes at a cost. It's a tradeoff between convenience and safety. There are all sorts of things we could do to lock-down the deliverables that come from BT control panels, secure download URL's with encryption, etc. BUT, you each of these concepts creates a TON of additional understanding for each of you. Like mentioned in this post...it's relatively easy to steal any type of technology, asset, image, etc. It happens everyday to all kinds of apps in all kinds of markets compiled with all kinds of tools and coded by all kinds of developers. The idea that it's "easier" to copy an app created with Buzztouch has some merrit. For lots of reasons. And, we could go to great lenghts making things copy-protected. We think that type of closed offering would lessen the magic-ness of how Buzztouch works. Like mentioned above, open-source stuff is inherantly less secure. With that said, we can do better at making it "easy" (as one of you put it) to copy data from our backend. I can assure you that we have a large amount of data on a large amount of users (Members and Guests) that do questionable things on our site. I was just looking at a log that helps us see who's downloading what, on to what type of device, from what IP address, etc, etc. Unathorized downloads don't happen often but do happen. If your the dude that understands how to get an API key and Secret for an app that isn't yours and paste it in your browser bar...shame on you. If your the guy that knows how to install a paid plugin from the plugin market but would rather hack your way around $5.00, shame on you too. You're a joke. We're tired of the distractions and time suck you create. Go find somebody else's time to waste and money to spend. Maybe the solution is to close everything up, not give anything away, work with highly credible Buzztouch Members and move on. Who knows, we may even make a few bucks. Keyboard out of ink...back to more pressing things...and THANK YOU for looking out for @ryanmaher777. He's a good dude, doing good work, and doesn't deserve what happened to him over these last few days. By for now...

@David @ buzztouch, Thanks for posting - "freedom is never free". I see all the hard work you put in Buzztouch, personally I know what you have done here is awesome! What I hate most is when something you have invested in used for malicious purposes! As weird as it sounds I know (and i'm sure this community will agree) we hate to disappoint you. You have high expectations for Buzztouch and it is upto us (members, guests, hackers, newbies, everyone) to live up to the Golden Standard. We know how much you work and have invested - thank you!

Not cool. As always a few spoil things for the others. It pains me to read that David considers closing everything up and working with highly credible Buzztouch Members. I love the buzztouch concept as it is, and I love the community born from it. Locking things up will change EVERYTHING. @ryanmaher777, sorry to hear about your misfortune, it sucks. Shame on the copycat user. Personally I concentrate on making app for clients so if somebody copies them I won't take it personally. Farcat A big thank you to @David @ buzztouch for... well, for everything! Farcat

@Farcat - well said friend. David@buzztouch - what you have done in creating this site is awesome and there are many people (like me) who are extremely grateful for the work you, and the rest of the buzztouch team / key forum members put in to this site. For every one that is making life difficult, there are one hundred that are right behind you.

i think the biggest irony of this…is that it was done on a bible related app. once again, the Bible is in the middle of a controversy. :) oh Bible! some things never change. @Ryan - glad u caught this pretty early and were able to get it resolved. You know you’ve made it when u’re being copied. (welcome to the big leagues) @Thanh - Will be interesting to see how u recover from the amount of credibility u lost within this group. Hope it was worth it. btw. removing the app from only the main appstores is NOT THE SAME as deleting the app (from ALL 151 stores). come on man…do the right thing already and be done with it. @everyone else - glad to see the community standing together on stuff like this… and keeping David@Buzztouch from doing anything…. rash. You’ve come way too far to sweat the small stuff. Do let us all know how we can further help the cause…and allow u to focus on the important stuff. €

@David - Thanks so much for your kind words and for your hard work! Thank you for the awesome community that you and your team have developed here. Your hard work is why my app has been able to grow and flourish in the App Store. My deepest thanks and appreciation! To everyone: Thank you again for the outpouring of support and encouragement that you have shown over during this event. I truly appreciate it! There is no other app developer community like this! @Uelsimon - Thanks for the kind words and for bringing to my attention that @Thanh has not removed the app from all App Stores. @Thanh hoai - Are you deliberately trying to upset me and everyone else? Delete your copycat app from ALL App Stores, not just the ones you think we would notice. A quick view of the Taiwan App Store shows that you have blatantly stolen from me and continue to try... Don't be shocked when you continue to hear from me and from Apple (I've filed a format dispute) since you are continuing this nonsense. At this point, I hope you are banned from this community. You have said you are sorry, but actions speak louder than words. Do the right thing please and delete the app for ALL App Stores.

The more I hear of this story, the more I get upset and annoyed. I think it is very unreasonable how this person has copied your app in the first place. But what makes me surprised is that the guy doesn't want to take this off the app store. He obscures his real buzztouch profile (with another one he set up ages ago). The real identity for this guy is BlackWhite. But it's the attitude he is taking that really bugs me. Yes, he may have taken it off all the app stores now, but it took a lot of persuading. He wanted to keep the pirated app out on the store (just outside the US). What a cheek. All I can say is that I'm happy it is now over. I have checked on many app stores and all state that it is not available. Luckily, he came up against the kind resistance of Buzztouch. If this had been somewhere else, this could have been a lot worse. Good luck to Ryan for the future of app development. I look forward to your next apps. Let's hope no more are copied.

It's solved. But he's a good guy. Wonder what might have happened. Cheers.

@Thomas - Thanks for checking the different App Stores, it appears to be gone from all the ones I have spot checked as well. The first response I received from him when asking him to delete it was, that he "wasn't able to & that he needed Apple's help to delete it". We all know how to delete an app from iTunes Connect, but I informed him how anyways. He later intentionally deleted the app in only the App Store's most popular countries... Days later it was still online in many countries. Not the actions of a "good guy" but the further actions of a "thief." Okay, I'm done :) Last comment, thank you again BuzzTouch community for your outpouring of help and assistance during this time. I believe this hassle has come to an end (hopefully). Thanks again! Ryan

Is there any way to prevent from this happen again?