The special cruelty of Lodsys
The thing that gets me riled up the most about this lodsys business is that they’re going after the little guys. Look at this comparison:
Companies sued by Lodsys: Combay, Iconfactory, Illusion Labs, Shovelmate, Quickoffice, Richard Shinderman, and Wulven Game Studios.
Companies making crazy-money off in-app purchase: Zynga, Pocket Gems, Capcom, The Playforge, SEGA, Haypi Co, Z2Live, KAMAGAMES, etc.
I understand that this is strategic. Those bigger companies would challenge Lodsys’ claims, and it would be years before a settlement or decision was made. Further, if you pick on a few little guys you scare the rest of them into compliance.
But it just hurts to see this happen to small companies, because many of them will be forced to settle because they don’t have the money to defend themselves. The moral and legal soundness of Lodsys’ case will not be the deciding factor in most companies decision to pay or fight.
I’ve been planning to add in-app purchase to CatPaint for some time now. For now I’ll be waiting to see how this plays out.
