Android app pirates plead guilty
Two men who ran Applanet have pleaded guilty to distributing more than 4 million pirated copies of Android apps, with a total retail value of more than $17 million.
This is according to the US Department of Justice (DOJ), which said the men “conspired to reproduce and distribute” copyrighted Android apps from May 2010 to August 2012.
Applanet was an alternative online marketplace for Android apps that made Android games and applications, which developers usually charged for, available for free.
Aaron Blake Buckley and Gary Edwin Sharp ran Applanet, while Sharp also lead another online piracy group – the SnappzMarket Group.
He admitted that the SnappzMarket Group conspired to distribute more than a million pirated Android apps, with a total retail value of more than $1.7 million.
The FBI seized the domains for Applanet and SnappzMarket on 21 August 2012. Buckley and Sharp are to be sentenced on 1 August 2016.
More on Android
Android keyboard gets massive upgrade
BlackBerry PRIV upgrade to Android Marshmallow released
Chromebooks set to receive Android apps
Android’s latest security release
Android factory reset protection is useless
Loading ...