[ChuckMcM]

I am not sure how to interpret this statement:

"Yes, we have benefitted financially from our work, just as many others in the jailbreak community have, including tweak developers, repo owners, etc. Any jailbreak from us will always be free to the users but we believe we have a right to be compensated in an ethical way, just as any other developer. "

In my world view people do work in exchange for money, there are two sets of people, people who make money through legal means, and people who make money through illegal means. On the border of those two realms are people who walk back and forth over the line between legal and illegal. If you're 'productizing' a jailbreak (nominally legal in some countries, illegal in others) the people you're going to get money from are the folks on the illegal side of the line.

Given that world view you want to be compensated in an 'ethical way' by people who threw ethics out the window? That is what I have trouble with.

[nitrogen]

It's almost certainly a copyright violation in the US, but is it illegal in China for a Chinese company to pay developers to modify another company's software for commercial gain?

Another relevant question, would developers in another country be breaking their country's laws by accepting such work?

Edit: note that I'm not intending to equate ethicality with legality.

[berberous]

How is this a copyright violation in the US? Or are you just talking about the fact that pirated apps seem to be on this Chinese app store?

[ChuckMcM]

Nitrogen is correct, the fuzzyness in the US is around whether or not jailbreaking your own phone is a violation of the DMCA or not (ruled "no", then ruled "yes", not sure where it is at the moment), and then the contractual (civil vs non-civil) issues with running software on your phone without Apple's permission) It is that "grey" area, where folks can give themselves a credible story about how it is "perfectly legal" and so take the money. My point was that they are dealing with people who don't care if its legal or not. (remember they don't "charge" the end users, they charge the app store bundle guy). That guy (or gal) doesn't care about what is or is not legal, they care about money any way they can get it so that the person they got it from can't get it back. Period.

[nitrogen]

AIUI, jailbreaking (or any modification of software) creates a derivative work, which is a right protected by copyright. In other areas of copyright law, it seems commercial uses are more stringently restricted than personal uses.