One of my minor tasks is to occasionally troll around the ‘net looking for people reselling certain Intellectual Property I am responsible for. I only hit the main sites that resell books and apps as sites the offenders set up themselves can’t be shutdown easily. Here’s a quick rundown on my experiences
eBay
Best experience, they have a “VeRO” program set up which works pretty well. You jump through a few hoops once (write a letter, scan it and email in) and after that just send a form email with the item number. Takes 2-24 hours and normally they don’t ask any questions.
Apple
Wow, for a company that is so extreme with their IP (illegal to run the OS on any hardware you didn’t buy from them) it is almost impossible to get something removed from the App Store. Takes several months including multiple exchanges with the app “developer.” By the time the app is down the developer has put it back up under a new name and the process starts again. Apple just cashes the fees and continues on.
Amazon
Has a page for IP claims. In my experience it’s like a black hole – there is no response past an initial “we got your email” automatic message. The apps and books eventually were not longer offered (8+ weeks later) but I have no idea if it was my email that did it or not.
Kobo
Complete joke, per their customer support the authors are responsible for the content of their books. Refused to get me in touch with their legal department or comment on if they had IP/copy write policies in place.
Andriod
I am about to investigate their policies. Wish me luck!
