Apple Removes Game Boy Emulator iGBA From App Store Due to Spam and Copyright Violations

[MacRumors]

Apple today said it removed Game Boy emulator iGBA from the App Store for violating the company's App Review Guidelines related to spam (section 4.3) and copyright (section 5.2), but it did not provide any specific details.

iGBA was a copycat version of developer Riley Testut's open-source GBA4iOS app. The emulator rose to the top of the App Store charts following its release this weekend, but some people complained that the app was a blatant ripoff overlaid with ads.

"So apparently Apple approved a knock-off of GBA4iOS," said Testut, in a Threads post on Saturday. "I did not give anyone permission to do this, yet it's now sitting at the top of the charts (despite being filled with ads + tracking)." He quipped that he was "so glad App Review exists to protect consumers from scams and rip-offs like this."

An excerpt from section 5.2 of the App Review Guidelines, related to intellectual property:

Make sure your app only includes content that you created or that you have a license to use. Your app may be removed if you've stepped over the line and used content without permission. Of course, this also means someone else's app may be removed if they've "borrowed" from your work.

It is unclear if Apple removed iGBA because it felt the app ripped off GBA4iOS, or for other reasons. We have asked Apple for clarification about the app's removal, and we will update this article if we receive any additional information.

Notably, iGBA allows iPhone users to load any Game Boy game ROMs downloaded from the web, but the app's removal makes it unclear if Apple will allow ROM-loading apps on the App Store. On its customer support website in the U.S., Nintendo says downloading pirated copies of its games is illegal. It is unclear if Nintendo contacted Apple.

iGBA appeared in the App Store just over a week after Apple allowed "retro game console emulators" on the App Store, but the guidelines are somewhat vague, so hopefully Apple will clarify exactly what is and is not permitted. iGBA can continue to be used by anyone who installed it on their iPhone before it was removed from the App Store.

Testut has not said whether he will make his newer Nintendo game emulator Delta available on the App Store, should it be permitted, but he does plan to distribute it through his alternative app marketplace AltStore on iPhones in the EU.

Update: Apple says that while iGBA's functionality was approved, it removed the app from the App Store after learning that it was a knockoff app that copied another developer's submission, which presumably refers to GBA4iOS.

Article Link: Apple Removes Game Boy Emulator iGBA From App Store Due to Spam and Copyright Violations

 

[Apple$]

Hopefully there will be more emulator apps in the App Store, this was a great taste of what's coming up!

 

[Nihilvor]

Hopefully there will be more emulator apps in the App Store, this was a great taste of what's coming up!

That's funny. I dloaded it and read online that there was a tracking permission screen that I missed (including a way to block consent). I toggled delete app to then redownload it to be certain, but it was already taken down and thus unavailable.
Well, I did get one game up and running, but now I'm in the same boat as anyone else who didn't get this dloaded earlier in the day.

Hopefully, there will be more options in the future. Cheers!

 

[TigerNike23]

Emulators are kinda sketchy to begin with on copyright infringement.

It would not surprise me if Nintendo sent something to Apple.

 

[STOCK411]

yup. Companies like Nintendo do not f around.

I would bet my life savings that Nintendo sent its army of Lawyers after apple and the developer. (And they have every right to defend their IP).

 

[DFZD]

Somebody bring Ryujinx to iPad already. Can’t wait to rip some Switch classics on this bad boy.

 

[eqquito]

Nintendo should bring their official emulators on the Nintendo Switch to the iOS/iPad/MacOS.

 

[Chaos215bar2]

Emulators are kinda sketchy to begin with on copyright infringement.

Emulators for older systems like the Game Boy absolutely aren’t, much as Nintendo might like you to think otherwise. So long as you source the games legally, of course, but that also really shouldn’t be Apple’s concern here so long as copyrighted ROMs aren’t being distributed along side the app.

Emulators for newer systems do get a bit tricky since the games are usually encrypted, and of course the DMCA makes circumvention of encryption in itself a crime. (Even if everything else you’re doing is perfectly legal otherwise. Which of course is why it’s a popular strategy these days for companies to rely on the DMCA to criminalize things like self repair of products you own.)

 

[grantishere]

Wasn't Apple the company that lost to a lawsuit regarding a website emulating iOS?

 

[Ctrlos]

Glad I managed to snag it then beforehand…. Or I would if it was any good. It’s stuck in 16:9 and you cannot move the controls. It is wonderful on an iPhone 6 but horrible on anything later than an X. It does play games at full speed though.

 

[Darren.h]

are there not gameboy emulators for Android?

Just install an Android emulator on your Mac and try a gameboy emulator that runs on android.

The best Android emulators for PC and Mac of 2024

We talk a lot about emulating PC experiences on our phones, but what about putting phones on PC? Let's look at the best Android emulators.

www.androidauthority.com

 

[Ctrlos]

As for legality, emulators are not illegal so long as they don’t include original encryption methods and BIOS files as these are proprietary software. There is a reason the GBA and PSP tend to be the most emulated consoles!

Copyright law is massively outdated when it comes to software. If you clone a digital file the original is still with the owner so you haven’t actually ‘stolen’ any property, merely prevented a sale which are not the same thing in the world of digital goods. This gets murkier still with abandonware, software that is no longer available for purchase from the original vendor. How can you prevent the sale of something that isn’t on sale to begin with? In other words if a company like Nintendo no longer provides a storefront for a title then playing it with an emulator isn’t piracy because nobody has lost any property or any money.

For the record playing ROMs of titles that are still available for sale is massively illegal. Games developers should always be compensated for their work where possible.

Copyright law for software should be changed to give the end user fair use rights when it comes to abandonware. This helps with game preservation, lets public archives put titles on show and lets newer generations of people enjoy older titles.

Of course if Nintendo released an official GBA emulator for iOS with an internal catalogue available for purchase or via sub they can shut up and take my money.

 

[zapmymac]

This incident does not bode well for Apple's "we closely examine all app submissions, trust us." mantra #forshame

 

[delsoul]

Unless things have changed, the rule of thumb is emulators are not illegal if you already own the game. That was the legal and commonly accepted manner.

 

[OnePieceIsReal]

Unless things have changed, the rule of thumb is emulators are not illegal if you already own the game. That was the legal and commonly accepted manner.

Not just if you own the game, it can also be if the software is no longer supported or able to be sold

 

[SanderEvers]

I wonder how fast Nintendo is going to issue a DMCA complaint.. I think.. 3 days.

This is what I posted in the original thread. Looks like it took them even less.

 

[JapanApple]

GOOD! so, they are looking at strange apps. TY

 

[SanderEvers]

Unless things have changed, the rule of thumb is emulators are not illegal if you already own the game. That was the legal and commonly accepted manner.

There is a difference between what is legal and what is commonly accepted. And this emulator did NOT stop you from running pirated games. Which very easily places it in the 100% illegal section.

 

[svish]

Hopefully other game emulators will be available in the future.

 

[goobot]

There is a difference between what is legal and what is commonly accepted. And this emulator did NOT stop you from running pirated games. Which very easily places it in the 100% illegal section.

There are manny things you can do illegally with legal things, I could use a knife to cut my steak or use it to attack someone

 

[TheMountainLife]

"Apple today said it removed"

I noticed many press releases starts off with this. Where is Apple officially speaking on subjects like these? Twitter?

 

[Schmitti81]

If someone makes an app from an open source project, Apple may need to check with the project to make sure they are okay with it. e.g. they could require to have a special file in the repository with the allowed bundle identifiers.

 

[SanderEvers]

There are manny things you can do illegally with legal things, I could use a knife to cut my steak or use it to attack someone

And there are many things you can do legally with illegal things as well. Not my point.

 

[ethanwa79]

Dude is already making 10's of thousands of dollars daily now from this app with ads, and all the people who downloaded it will continue to use it for months/years to come. It's like Flappy Bird.

Even though it's pulled, he hit the jackpot. Probably made more money today than he's made from his entire combined previous earnings on the App Store with all his apps.

 

[shadowboi]

I felt there is a chance they remove it, so I downloaded it. Hehe, now its mine. Good that Apple cannot remove apps that I already downloaded. Maybe will play it some day.

Tho I didn’t even test the app yet. Could be that it is utter dog💩. Hoping maybe original developer comes up with his own solution, I am not really into jailbreaks, AltStores and all this stuff just to emulate some ancient console.

Maybe I am stealing from Nintendo because I don’t pay them money for their subscription-based overpriced emulators, but until I buy hardware stuff from them and owned few items that I got ROMs for – I think I am clean. After all, thanks to ROMs I have learned a lot from game development history. For example I never knew about Luigi’s Mansion games for their vintage consoles. It is interesting for the sake of comparison between what we had then and what we have nowadays