Apple is notably horrible at enforcing copyright law on their App Store, with the people put in place to stop infringement apparently unaware that Nintendo doesn't sponsor crap like Ultimate iZelda Climb.
Anyhow, though Nintendo can likely shrug off that kind of infringement, smaller developers are seriously damaged when their games have their games ripped off on the iPhone, losing not only money that would've gone to a legitimate release, but also having their brand hurt by the poorly programmed knock-offs. Such is the case with flash classic Kingdom Rush, a poorly programmed flash version of which has featured on the App Store for more than two weeks now, despite takedown requests from the owners at Ironhide Games.
Though Ironhide has their own legitimate version of Kingdom Rush slated for the device, its clear that this knock-off severely hurts their chances of success, as many gamers may end up purchasing this buggy knock-off, meaning they'll not be buying the real version, and may even give Kingdom Rush a bad reputation with their low review scores.
What Apple needs now is a serious revision of their copyright policy. Takedown requests should be swiftly dealt with, and all of the money that this fradulent developer has collected should be returned to the purchaser, with a note to consider buyng the real game. I'd honestly like to see a developer like Ironhide take Apple to court on this issue, with the massive computing juggernaut having failed to exercise due dilligence in cleaning up their download service. This isn't the first time this sort of thing has happened to a small developer, and until Apple shapes up their policies, it won't be the last.
