As the creator of a very popular Mac application, I've seen many of the strange features that annoy the Mac community. An example of this is the application known as GamePedia, a download manager that lets you upload and download files from the Internet without ever touching the disk. The feature makes sense only to people who know nothing about software development. Unfortunately, it doesn't make sense to me, and so I decided to do some research to find out why GamePedia exists in the first place.
Many people claim that there are "free downloads" for any Mac application that they don't like. So I decided to try GamePedia and see what I could find. Although the application makes it easy to download and upload files, it offers you the security of downloading a file using your Web browser, without actually running it anywhere. This obviously isn't much of a security risk because GamePedia has no use for the downloaded file; it just stores it on its own server. After installing the application, I downloaded a large number of video files that took a long time to download.
So when will GamePedia cease to exist as a downloadable application for the Mac? Most applications like this exist in a legal gray area, with no clear legal status. Anyone who builds an application that allows users to download, upload, or download files from the Internet without actually modifying or opening the file themselves can be sued by the copyright holders. Anybody building such a product that contains copyrighted material would be sued, and GamePedia is no exception. This would probably send GamePedia packing, but as it stands now, the community seems happy. Even though downloading GamePedia might not be legal, they will continue to distribute it anyway.
