When you’re the progenitor of an entire gaming genre and holding the reigns of a billion dollar intellectual property, imitation, it turns out, is not the sincerest form of flattery. It’s the sort of thing that gets you dragged into US federal court. And that’s exactly what Krafton, maker of PUBG Mobile, is doing to Garena Online over accusations that the Singapore-based game developer has once again infringed its battle royale IP. What’s more, Krafton has named Google and Apple in its complaint.

This isn’t the first time that Krafton has sued Garena Online. In 2017, Krafton filed suit in Singapore over the sale of Free Fire: Battlegrounds, Garena’s suspiciously PUBG-like mobile shooter, but ended up settling that case. Now, Krafton is suing Garena again, over Free Fire again, but this time in US federal court.

Krafton alleges that after settling in 2017, Garena immediately resumed selling Free Fire on both Google Play and the Apple App Store without entering into any sort of licencing agreement to use the litigated game content. Additionally, Garena started selling of another battle royale game of questionable copyright pedigree, Free Fire Max, this past September. As such, Krafton is suing Garena for copyright infringement claiming that “Garena has earned hundreds of millions of dollars from its global sales of the infringing apps,” and holding both the Google and Apple marketplaces liable for damages for hosting the content. Krafton, which is headquartered in Seoul, South Korea, has not specified damages outside of a statutory $150,000 per infringement. 

Copyright infringement claims like this are wildly common throughout the tech industry with legal departments constantly on the prowl for potential IP violations, be they intentional or not. For example, earlier this week, the App Store were inundated with knock-off and clones of the newly-minted hit mobile app, Wordle, prompting Apple to intercede and remove the offending iterations.     

Source: Engadget – ‘PUBG Mobile’ maker sues copycat game and app stores that hosted it

It’s one thing to steal from the government, but stealing from children is a whole lot worse. Sadly, that’s precisely what one New Mexico school district employee did. Kristy Stock was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison for her role in a scheme to steal and resell more than 3,000 iPods intended for Native American students.

A release issued by the Department of Justice details the charges against Stock of tax fraud and transportation of stolen goods. According to her plea agreement and court documents, the scheme began back in 2013 when she was in charge of a program for the Central Consolidated School District of New Mexico designed to provide devices to Native American students living on tribal reservations.

While overseeing the program, Stock was supposed to use federal grant money to buy iPods to distribute to students. However, thanks to help from other conspirators including her friend James Bender and Saurabh Chawla, the group ended up shipping the stolen iPods to Maryland where they were listed on eBay before being sold at a “substantial” markup.

Due to his own account having previously been suspended due to security concerns, Chawla was forced to use Bender’s eBay account to list the stolen devices for auction, with Bender serving as an intermediary. Later, between 2015 and 2018, Stock communicated directly with Chawla, providing info on the make, model, color and quantity of devices before agreeing on a price and putting them up for auction.

All told, Stock admitted that she made more than $800,000 from selling stolen iPods between 2013 and 2018. To make matters worse, Stock also filed fraudulent tax returns on the income, resulting in tax loss of around $270,000. That said, while Stock faces an 18-month prison sentence, she actually got off lighter than her co-conspirator Chawla, who was sentenced to 66 months after failing to pay more than $700,000 in taxes. Meanwhile, Bender was sentenced to just 366 days in prison.

So while Stock and her crew eventually got caught, the real lesson is that here is that crime doesn’t pay–especially if you’re stealing from children and then lying on your taxes about your ill-gotten income.

Source: Engadget – Woman sentenced to prison for stealing 3,000 iPods intended for students