As the community of BT grows I wanted to throw a question out there. Where do the powers that be, and the members sit on the aspect of Plagiarism within BT? Do people feel there is an unsaid 'etiquette' not to directly compete with apps created by those here? It's kind of a difficult one seeing as we all benefit from each others knowledge but I personally would not go near an idea that someone came up with here. Interested in thoughts.

I'm the king of confidentiality in here lol, the amount of projects that get sent my way for a tweak a bit of facebook integration a face lift here and there. I see some of the ideas and am amazed at what people come up with, but no I would never steal someones ideas not really fair is it. But on the other hand how fair is it to take others code without giving them credit for the work done. If you come up with an idea get me to basically build it for you with tutorials, quides and then a little polish and then sell it on.

I haven't done it, but I wouldn't bother me at all if somebody "stole" one of my ideas. I've made three apps based on the band One Direction and they've all done quite well - I saw that 1D themed apps were ranking well all over the place in the app store, so technically I guess I stole the idea from somebody else :P If somebody else wants to have a go with the same subject matter then I wish them all the best. Ultimately I think the person that puts the most time into their app and has the most creative ideas is going to rank the best and have their app stand out from the crowd. Really, if somebody wants to be protective of their ideas all they have to do is not post them in their "published apps" section and not announce them here when they are released

I wish I had one original idea lol

all of my original ideas have failed miserably :( R.I.P: Tiny Puppies iPencil The Coffee Quiz My Tattoo Fantasy Football Pro Scary Pranks you shall live on in the memories of none

I'm definitely more of an engineer than a designer/creator

The original question has me confused a bit. "Plagiarism" is copying, bit by bit (or very close) without attribution, and is very bad. "Competition" however, is usually very good, even if the app in question is "inspired" by another app.

tiny puppies intrigues me.

Tiny Puppies caught my eye also .. Btw I did look at ff pro and like it ..

IMHO, if an app is on the app store, and yours is similar, then it's pure competition. If your app is better then why deny the customer a better product. If I read here in the forums that Joe Blow was developing app ABC, then I think it would be poor form to speed to market a competing product. There's a raft of Angry Bird clones out there, many made money, Angry Birds made the most. That said, there's a market niche option too. I know one of the frequent helpers targets a certain market segment, lets say Libraries. He writes apps for his local ones. If I wrote my own app for our local libraries I may use a similar concept, but I'm not in direct competition unless I lived in the same area. Just some general thoughts.

This is an interesting question and one that gets at the grey nature of copyright in a digital era. If it were a literary work, it becomes clear whether you are plagarizing another person's work in many situations. Using the basic plot line is okay ... Using the same words/names/situations is not. But with programming it's much harder to discern. Looking at someone else's product and trying to make something similar is generally okay. That's how small businesses are born every day. But taking insider info about how the product is made is not okay. With a physical product, patents help draw that line. But not so with coding. Sure, you can identify large sections of code fairly easily in traditional programs. Single lines aren't so easy of course. But in today's world of open source, the lines become much more blurred. With Buzztouch, that's even more so. Lets say you come up with a good idea for a Buzztouch app that I want to duplicate. Assuming you don't make custom plugins or major changs to existing plugins, I can easily look at your app and recreate it using the control panel. That would *seem* to be within current legal and ethical guidelines ... Especially if I try to improve upon it. Bilut let's say I use a tool to inspect the resources of your app to look at your config.txt file (something I could easily do in about 30 seconds on any BT app, iOS or Android). Does it then become a violation to recreate/improve upon the app? In terms of the courts, there would be no way to tell. I could argue that all the "code" was open sourced and that all I did was tak the idea and try it myself using the tools available to me, which just happened to be the same for you. Likely the courts would rule in my favor. But there is very much an ethical and moral issue at stake here. And I'm not sure the answer is clear. When you haven't done any coding its hard to say you have a valid ethical claim to an idea once and for all. But copying someone else's idea when you know how they executed it and can/will do the same might be. For me, I believe the moral decision should begin by asking the question "if this was a close friend or family member that I'm taking the idea from, would I be okay with what I'm about to do? Or perhaps another question to star with is: "if this was my original idea, how would I feel about someone doing this to me? Ultimately, moral decisions will differ by person. Legally I think you're probably safe. Morally is between you, your conscious; and God (if you so believe).

This is an interesting conversation.. I'm definitely the more creative type and dont' have the "balls" or interest to copy those ideas of others. Most of my original works have had success.. Lots of ideas come late at night or in the shower lol. However, researching different apps in the appstore do help me get something from each app. idea wise and most of the time I look at a different niche to get inspiration so that I'm not copying per se. I do appreciate those with originality honestly and never understood those who out right copy. Maybe because I was born an artist who knows.. But my thoughts on BT Plagiarism -- ugly! @Fingers Crossed -- i agree with competition as well. my first successful bt app (first type in the app store of this particular kind) was copied a little over a year ago. My app has way more features but because of the outside traffic my app dived.. after which others copied and have way less features and its just pure trash. Honestly, I was hurt at first but later I realized my app was so "great" that i had a ton of copy cats...So its a bitter sweetness yes.. My way to combat the copying is to make it great and keep it updated and provide great customer support. Something you can't always duplicate..

The first app that was a big success for me was 'Dooors Walkthrough', which was simply a text walkthrough for the puzzle game 'Dooors' . I was the first one with the idea...it topped out around the #210 overall paid app spot at which I made $450 in one day. It was great, I was on cloud nine...until a week later when a free dooors walkthrough appeared (mine was $0.99) which totally crushed mine. Mine plummetted fast, but I can honestly say I didn't have any feeling of resentment for the person responsible. It was a smart thing to do on his part and it worked out for me as a great learning experience. Because of that, I learned a long time ago the huge benefits of making an app free vs paid, and now that model is working out great for my apps. So I guess i would echo the stance that competition is definitely a good thing. Competition constantly keeps me motivated to update my apps with new features, and every time I do an update I learn something new. Of course blatant plagarism is not cool, but I'm hoping that isn't an issue here at BT. Maybe it's because making apps is my only source of income that I can't help but look at it from a "business" point of view. If there is a good idea floating around, people are going to jump on it. I guess the only thing that might come between that is whether or not you sincerely want to see that idea succeed for it's original creator. There's a lot of people I have a ton of respect for on these forums and I wouldn't go near thier ideas, but if I see a successful idea in the app store that I can re-produce via Buzztouch then I am gonna be all over it...so I guess I draw the line at familiarity? Kind of funny to think about it that way

I'm with Chris, fingers crossed and mysps. The reason I see it as a tricky one is the open source nature of BT and the fact most are using other peoples code to create something. However, most are paid for and all have the creators consent to use. When I first started developing on the app store in 2011 copying didnt happen. I'm not talking about BT, i'm talking about on the appstore. If someone thought of it, it was usually left well alone. I brought out an app in 2012 that cleaned up. It was only the second of its genre on the app store, but, being a music band it was only a matter of time before everyone cottoned on. Two months after its release numbers started to dwindle and the number of apps made on the subject defied belief. I accept this is what happens on the app store now, I'd just find it a little cheap if it started happening here. One of my mates is on here and has had an app in the top 5 UK finance chart for must be a year. It would take nothing for me to copy it exactly, maybe to add a few bells and whistles. His was not the first of its type so to some its fair game. To me its not. Not at all. As the numbers grow here I thought it an interesting debate worth having. The last thing we need is some kind of apocalyptic, 'lord of the flys' type scenario where we all turn on each other and the whole thing implodes on itself! OTT of course but interesting none the less.

I don't have any apps listed in my profile for a reason ;) I've also been burned by customers that have me start to develop an app only to see them take my ideas/advice and make their own out of it. It's tough because you're trying to "WOW" them to get a project going - but when you realize they are taking notes and mining you for ideas >:( and decompiling Android apps is apparently pretty easy. back to working on my Snap Chat app...

lol... still interested in Tiny Puppies...

Interesting debate. I think the real die hearted BT user will respect others within the community and to users others work as inspiration which is what I do. I make it my interest to look at all of you's work but only to get inspiration not to copy. This topic is why I would like to see all non BT plugins, in fact most BT plugins kept behind the membership scheme and for the price of the plugins to be increased and that's saying something concidering I can't build plugins, but all these plugins make it easier for people to copy ideas. Unfortunately copying is a way of life, we all do it unconsciously.

Make something great. Make a few copycats. Make a few competitors. The original will always win - always. I realize this is a tough thing to deal with in our era of endless opportunity, low barriers to entry, and seemingly un-cool folks all over the darned place. I spend literally an hour each day answer emails from kind folks looking out for us. The nature of the messages: "I found this cool app site that looks and feels an awful lot like buzztouch!" I had no idea that working for years on something "cool" would end up consuming an hour a day defending. Sometimes I wonder if it's worth it? I'm convinced that my time is better spent out-executing the copy-catters than it is chasing a low skilled hack trying to re-create buzztouch. The kicker of course is that all of these projects start with the Self Hosted package we give them for free. Open source, gotta love it. This app thing has quickly (a few years) turned into a super competitive landscape. Make an app, make a copy-catter. But, like anything worth doing, if you're the real-deal, if you're the original Beatles, or if you're the actual Facebook, hacks and unethical "competitors" will generally HELP you, not hurt you in the long run. If you're in it for the short-term, well, that's another issue altogether. See ya'll in St. Louis...

Great post David, spot on!

STILL Want the tiny puppies!

Most interesting post in a long time!! What if a client ask you: "can you make an app similar to that one?" (under their name)? Farcat

>> I had no idea that working for years on something "cool" would end up consuming an hour a day defending. Sometimes I wonder if it's worth it? I'd say YES- Look at the community you've created :) See you Saturday!

Perhaps the answer is to move some of the self-hosted php files to buzztouch.com and force a little more reliance? It might take away some flexibility that self-hosted users have, but it would probably help prevent others from stealing the code. Always a fine line to walk.