New episode in the case of Apple’s lawsuit against Corellium, which emerged last August. After the replica of the defendant company, it is now Apple who argues with new accusations before the start of the trial. Apple accuses Corellium of “copying everything”, from the code to the user interface, through the icons, in a clear “copyright infringement of great value.”
Operations that “infringe” Copyright disguised as security investigation
On December 27, Apple made a correction of the original demand that can be found here. In it, Apple explains that:
This is a clear case of infringement of copyrighted material of great value, at the same time that it is trafficked and benefits from the technology that allows this infringement. Corellium’s business is based entirely on the commercialization of illegal replicas of the operating system and applications running on the iPhone, iPad and other Apple devices. The product offered by Corellium is a virtual version of the hardware of Apple’s mobile devices, accessible to anyone with a web browser.
Specifically, Corellium sells boasting a perfect digital facsimile of a wide range of the leading devices in the Apple market, recreating with annoying attention to detail not only the visual appearance of the operating system and apps to buyers in good faith, but also the code that composes it.
Apple makes it clear that Corellium acts in a way that the company considers illegal and without a license granted by Apple to authorize it. Corellium offers on its website only a contact form with the sales team, without giving more information about the products or services it offers or its prices.
The defendant company claims that its product allows virtualization of mobile devices as part of the future of app development for these platforms. In its correction, Apple indicates that Corellium even sells a private installation of its product “for one million dollars a year.” A replica that Apple believes has no right to sell.
Corellium’s response
From Cupertino ensure that Corellium is presented as a security research tool for those who want to discover vulnerabilities in Apple software. But in reality, Corellium benefits from it, encouraging its customers to “deliver the information discovered to the highest bidder.” In addition, the biggest client admits that “he has never reported errors to Apple.”
It is convenient to remember that security errors that allow unauthorized access to the operating system reach large sums in the black market. Errors that are then used in forensic software tools, used by both security forces and bodies against criminals and by authoritarian governments against dissident citizens.
Apple says in the document that it does not seek to pursue security investigations in good faith but “to end the illegal commercialization of Apple’s copyright work.” For its part, Corellium has responded to this new document indicating that Apple seeks to “eliminate public jailbreak”:
Apple is using this case as a new angle probe balloon to end the jailbreak. Apple has made it clear that it has no interest in limiting this attack on Corellium: it seeks to set a precedent to eliminate public jailbreak.
We are deeply disappointed by the persistent demonization of Apple’s jailbreak. Throughout the industry, developers and researchers rely on jailbreak to check the security of their own apps and third parties. Some checks that cannot be done without a jailbroken device.
Corellium says that these investigations benefit users since security errors are located that may be being exploited maliciously. But it also indicates how Apple benefited from the jailbreak in the past, “copying” features that emerged in this community. Both companies seem willing to go all the way to the trial. For now and if there is no prior agreement, we will have to wait for a trial for which there is still no date.