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Installous legal question ( I know it's illegal)

N

ninjaw95

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Nov 30, 2011
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First of all. I KNOW USING INSTALLOUS IS ILLEGAL AND THIS IS NOT ABOUT PIRACY

So I jb iPods for friends sometimes for $5 or so which is legal. The other day a friend asked to put installous on it for him, so my question is...

Is the act of adding the <removed> repo and installing the app Installous on an iPod illegal?
 
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ninjaw95 said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

First of all. I KNOW USING INSTALLOUS IS ILLEGAL AND THIS IS NOT ABOUT PIRACY

So I jb iPods for friends sometimes for $5 or so which is legal. The other day a friend asked to put installous on it for him, so my question is...

Is the act of adding the <removed> repo and installing the app Installous on an iPod illegal?
Click to expand...

I think it's more a question of moral and ethics than law. But to answer your question, I don't THINK its illegal since you aren't pirating any apps technically. He would be the one responsible if he downloaded any app.

Look at it this way, you wont get arrested for selling guns. But if the guy who bought the guns from you used it to kill someone, he's the one responsible. Not you.

At least, that's the way I see it. ;)
 
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^ I agree with the above. I'm guessing it doesn't become illegal until you actually download something from it!

And anyway, why not just let your friend install 'Installous' and then your conscience will be clear :)
 
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$5.00 is a awesome price, took up your time to do it and you did the research to learn how to do it. Now installing installous, I wouldn't do it just because I don't support it and if they need to steal let them learn on their own.
 
Nope its not illegal and chances are your friend want to jailbreak for the free apps which is installous.

If you are his friend you should help him, faced with the same scenario, I would install the repo without hesitation for my friends.
 
I believe no legal action can be taken to you since you are downloading a program that is not illegal on itself but of the contents that are redirected to it. But, is different if you download some programs from within it for your friend.

$5 is not bad, I charge nothing to my friends and they usually buy me a drink or two when we go out or I save the favors for future endeavors.
 
Technically, it isn't illegal just to have it on your phone.

But Installous has no other use than to steal. It's not like it can serve any other purpose.

So while installing it isn't illegal, it certainly will only used for illegal activities.
 
adnbek said:
Technically, it isn't illegal just to have it on your phone.

But Installous has no other use than to steal. It's not like it can serve any other purpose.

So while installing it isn't illegal, it certainly will only used for illegal activities.
Click to expand...

Technically that's not 100% accurate. Installous also lets you download some of the free apps that you'll find in the Apple App store, like Facebook for example, although I don't understand why. Or it hosts apps that aren't allowed in the Apple App stores, like VLC player (I think...).

But of course you're right, that's not what it is actually used for at all.
 
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MastahRiz said:
Technically that's not 100% accurate. Installous also lets you download some of the free apps that you'll find in the Apple App store, like Facebook for example, although I don't understand why. Or it hosts apps that aren't allowed in the Apple App stores, like VLC player (I think...).

But of course you're right, that's not what it is actually used for at all.
Click to expand...

Yes but you can also get them in the App Store (VLC excluded) which is why I see no reason why anyone would get Installous for that.

VLC is also available on Cydia so no need to get it through Installous.

Anyway, you're right. While you can use Installous legally, I doubt anyone who's installed it has any intention of just using it for that. :D
 
adnbek said:
Yes but you can also get them in the App Store (VLC excluded) which is why I see no reason why anyone would get Installous for that.

VLC is also available on Cydia so no need to get it through Installous.

Anyway, you're right. While you can use Installous legally, I doubt anyone who's installed it has any intention of just using it for that. :D
Click to expand...

Well, some may need to downgrade pandora to use a pandora skip hack. Also, some companies are bought up and then there app is no longer in the app store.
 
Thedeathbear said:
Well, some may need to downgrade pandora to use a pandora skip hack. Also, some companies are bought up and then there app is no longer in the app store.
Click to expand...

I suppose. I'm sure it's overwhelmingly used for more nefarious reasons, but I'm sure it *can* be used for legit reasons too.
 
theres no specific laws about any of this, so I am just using reasoning here

something like torrent apps/limewire/etc, though used to distribute illegal content, are technically legal because the argument can be made that they were designed for and in many cases are used for legal filesharing, but since the illegal bits come from the users themselves, not the software itself, it isn't considered illegal to have/install for someone (because that would be like calling a web browser illegal for letting you access stolen files). However, this is an argument that has proven to not be sound in the past (limewire has been shut down for example)

However, installous is an application that is specifically designed for installing illegal content. It doesn't just provide a method by which users are able to distribute stolen applications, it promotes it, is designed for it, and (I believe) the company or dev behind it is personally responsible for generating some or all of the hacked content for it. Its a different situation entirely, one in which I believe the software itself could be considered illegal

another user used a gun analogy, which I believe could be somewhat applied to my statement as well: selling a gun for self defense/hunting/etc is legal. That the users use it to kill someone is not the liability of the gun maker (under current law, don't let this erupt into an argument over the politics of that). However, if the gun manufacturer sold it as a weapon intended for (and advertised as) a tool for murder, then it would be an illegal product
 
MastahRiz said:
Technically that's not 100% accurate. Installous also lets you download some of the free apps that you'll find in the Apple App store, like Facebook for example, although I don't understand why. Or it hosts apps that aren't allowed in the Apple App stores, like VLC player (I think...).

But of course you're right, that's not what it is actually used for at all.
Click to expand...

they could very well be on there just as a means of deniability, to say that it is intended for that purpose, but gets used for illegal means by the users
 
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