Two days after Rupert Murdoch took to Twitter to describe Google as a “piracy leader”, it has emerged that the Android Market had been giving away illegal ebooks. Free apps offering hugely popular bestsellers such as the Harry Potter series appeared in Google’s store, and prior to their removal earlier today were unsurprisingly proving popular with downloaders.
The ebooks apps were added earlier this month by a publisher named “UKER” and featured the entire texts, albeit in rather poor quality. Aside from the Potter books (which were offered as one single download), UKER added novels by Stephen King, Patricia Cornwell and Stieg “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo” Larsson.
It now appears that all the illegal ebooks have been removed, but the fact that they were ever there at all shows that the Android Market’s loose approval controls are prone to exploitation by pirates – not to mention undesirables who’d fancy uploading, say, malware-infected apps to thousands of people’s Android phones and tablets. Google faces a constant battle to keep its store clean.
It’s hard to imagine this happening on the iOS App Store, which Apple rules with an iron fist and a set of approval regulations tighter than a gnat’s bum. Right? Well, actually no: last week it was revealed that a group of Chinese writers are suing Apple due to the App Store selling pirated versions of their works. Pirates, it seems, are not going to let pesky sets of rules stop them having their way.
Via paidContent
