Orn Malik for GigaOM is shocked that terrible free game Cut the Birds (which manages to simultaneously rip off Angry Birds and Fruit Ninja) ended up on the App Store. I’m not. Despite reports that Apple’s policing of the store is draconian, it’s anything but these days. It’s commonplace to see IP rips on the store, and I’ve chanced upon lifts from Pac-Man, Mario and other famous brands.

Generally, Apple’s pretty good at removing infringing properties when challenged (and that was even the case with an indie dev I know whose game and game name were stolen wholesale), and it’s tough to think what Apple should be doing instead. It could act as more of a gatekeeper, rejecting more IP that obviously infringes, but such action is likely to be inconsistently applied, and most likely to only protect big companies by default. Furthermore, it’s not like Apple’s alone in this—myriad cases of IP theft also exist on the Android Marketplace, for example.

Still, that such blatant IP theft has made it to the App Store does no-one any favours, not least SolverLabs (amusing strapline: “The world class software labs”—OHO!), who may find themselves minus one iOS dev account once Apple’s team lumbers into view.