According to MacStories, several websites providing non-developers with iOS developer device slots have been shut down. One site owner confirmed to the publication that Apple had filed a copyright infringing complaint with the domain’s hosting provider. Since the company started seeding iOS 6 betas to its developer community last month, he reportedly made $75,000.
The site owner asserts the services offered on the website weren’t infringing on Apple’s iOS 6-realted guidelines. He also added that his company is currently at work on a new website with improved and more secure data lines to meet Apple’s copyright requirements.
In the meantime, the chief of a web hosting company allegedly described Apple’s actions as “rather heavy-handed,” as the website hosted by his company that were selling UDID developer activations received Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedown requests.
For an annual fee of $99, people involved in making iOS apps can purchase a developer account, which will enable them to actively up to 100 devices to test their products. Given one UDID activation-offering website was charging $8.99 per service, such activity could bring the tricksters $800 per developer account, say nothing of other costs like advertising or hosting.
In 2011, Apple developers were warned that their account device slots can’t be sold under any circumstances. Accounts of some app makers who were spotted to be selling UDID activations were closed to demonstrate how serious the issue is.
