Apple summons legal eagles to hunt down sites which sell iOS beta access

Word on the street has it that Apple has started to kick off a legal procedure for copyright infringement towards a handful of websites which sell UDID numbers. Just what are UDID numbers? Well, they are necessary to install the iOS 6 beta without the need for a developer account with Apple. In addition, there is also a bunch of other websites in the wild that have been profiled recently, and it was alleged that Apple had already sent in a request for the hosting providers of the sites to take them down. Apple’s point of view is this – the services offered by these websites lean more towards copyright infringement than anything else, so under the whip of Apple’s legal standpoint, there is a very high chance that those sites will start to disappear.

I guess there was one particular loophole that those services took advantage of, where each registered iOS developer are able to generate up to a hundred UDID numbers, and these UDID numbers can be sold over to the general public. Basically, anyone with money are able to try out Apple’s latest mobile OS version without having to hand over a buck shy of a Benjamin for a developer’s account. Apparently, word on the street has it that one of the services have already earned around $75,000 to date, and its owner commented, “We do not believe our service was infringing and our services did not violate their guidelines for iOS 6”.

Edwin Kee
Categories: Apple
Tags: Apple Inc, ios 6