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The author used other people's content, packaged them into an app, and then repeatedly submitted the same app (with one minor modification -- the use of someone

The author used other people's content, packaged them into an app, and then repeatedly submitted the same app (with one minor modification -- the use of someone else's content) to the Play store. 'Beta' apps or apps that you write for close friends/family can be distributed via other means than the main app market. This article admits that he ignored all of the warnings he was given, and now accuses Google of unfair business practice. I don't buy it. There's a lot of logical contortion going on to dump the blame for this back on Google. "The suspension email stated that I was trying to impersonate another company" is followed quickly by "Well since Google was silent about the exact reason for suspension..."; he even admits to intentionally ignoring the warnings he was given because "if I thought a human at Google was giving me the warning, I might have listened more carefully." That is, at best, negligently poor reasoning. At worst, it's a contemptuous disrespect for the other party you're engaging in business with, which is pretty good grounds for them exercising their option to terminate that business relationship. Google, Amazon, etc., are for-profit commercial service providers. If you're going to violate their policies, they will stop working with you, regardless of the impact on your business. Anyone who depends on a third party supplier for anything, in any business context, should keep that in mind -- they have no duty to you beyond whatever contract you have signed (if, of course, you have signed one).

Keyframe 12y ago
Judging by the names of the apps/wrappers (if they were same in the store) from here http://distantfutu.re/page/portfolio.html http://distantfutu.re/page/portfolio.html he is lucky to not get sued at the same time as well. He's even argumentative about trademark infringement in his post. I don't think he fully understands what he really did wrong.
- rrrx3 12y ago
  Agreed - the whole thing reads like a giant whine, to me. The author has zero concept of what he's done wrong, which is astounding to me.
  - TuringTest 12y ago
    The question is, was the punishment proportional to the crime? The 'whine' was about being banned for life because of novice mistakes made without bad faith. How is one supposed to learn the ropes? It's like learning to drive in a country where driving schools didn't exist and the full extent of traffic laws applied to you. How possibly could the author learn what he was doing wrong?
    - nl 12y ago
      How is one supposed to learn the ropes? Maybe listen to one of the many warnings he was given?
      - pbhjpbhj 12y ago
        Warning, your post is in breech of my policies, the policies of HN, the law local to you or some other policy that applies due to jurisdiction that applies to the server, you, me or HN. Please correct this error immediately or your account will be terminated. /s
    - danielweber 12y ago
      The majority of the post was "it's their fault that they didn't stop me!" When his first app was suspended, Google should have given a better response when he asked what he did wrong. But to just continue forward doing the exact same thing he was doing before was asking for trouble. If Google wouldn't give him a clear answer, he should have asked his friends or the community.
      - aceperry 12y ago
        His friends consisted of "99.9% of everyone I know uses iOS", are probably contemptuous of Android. Which seems to be a common attitude amongst the apple fanbois. I don't think his friends could've helped him.
      - TuringTest 12y ago
        According to the timeline, all the applications that got his account suspended were already in place when he got the first notice. So it's not as if he continued doing the same thing - he was sacked by inaction, and the warnings didn't contain sufficient notice that more action (removing the other applications, which hadn't got a warning yet) was required on his part.
- Renaud 12y ago
  On top of that, you can only use a .re TLD if you are a EU citizen or a company that resides in the EU... http://www.afnic.fr/en/products-and-services/the-re-tld/ http://www.afnic.fr/en/products-and-services/the-re-tld/
  - cookiecaper 12y ago
    This is pretty unfair. It's super common to get country TLDs just because they make your service or site sound cooler. I think it's well-accepted that such rules are meaningless at this point.
    - Renaud 12y ago
      They shouldn't be. When we registered a .re TLD we were asked to provide a business license to prove that the business in question was local. Desirable local TLDs get taken by squatters and opening them to the world at large dilutes the meaningfulness and availability of that TLD to local businesses who need the recognition.
  - ryan-c 12y ago
    There are companies that will set up a local shell company for you to own whatever TLD you want.
- icebraining 12y ago
  Here's a copy of the app information, copied by some app discovering site: http://www.myappwiz.com/home/getapp?platform=Android&appID=com.sickboots.sickvideos.theverge http://www.myappwiz.com/home/getapp?platform=Android&appID=c...
  - danielweber 12y ago
    Technically it's a very nice idea. I'd love to, say, funnel my younger son into the Schoolhouse Rock channel without him going off and watching teenagers swear at Angry Birds. But he completely botched the execution.
  - palakchokshi 12y ago
    he used their logo too? That is just wrong. the OP seems like a naive developer who doesn't grasp even the basics of trademarks and if he does then he has complete disregard for them and should be banned for life.
- naiv 12y ago
  Copyright and trademarks don't seem to be his strength, I doubt that he licensed the pictures on http://distantfutu.re/page/team.html http://distantfutu.re/page/team.html .. But because he grew up "in the 70s/80s", these are public domain to him.
  - pbhjpbhj 12y ago
    Does he need a license to use those images in Reunion (or wherever his server is)? It looks like it could be a fair-use under USC too? Styling yourself as DeNiro in Taxi Driver might even class as parodical and so be an allowed use? But your general point in your first clause stands.
    - __P 12y ago
      "Fair-use" is a legal defence, when you get sued. Just like 'self-defence' is a legal defence if you murder someone. It does not mean you have the right. (Like in countries like Korea, or Australia, where you do have the right).
      - dragonwriter 12y ago
        US Copyright "Fair Use" is basically a statutory exception that closely follows the parameters of what courts found were Constitutional limits on copyright restrictions imposed by the First Amendment free speech/free press rights, so, no, despite the fact that it is procedurally a statutory exception, it also does reflect the existence of a more basic right that the statute would have no power to infringe even if it didn't encode the exception explicitly.
      - pbhjpbhj 12y ago
        I'm sorry but you're quite wrong. Fair Use under the USC is an exception allowing, primarily personal [but by no means exclusively], use of otherwise copyright material. Eg fair-use covers limited educational exceptions, incidental infringements (you take a photo and it happens to have a copyright protected work in that isn't the feature of the image), etc., etc.. Fair Use is a legal defence against a claim that you have tortuously infringed someone's copyright. The reason it works is because under Fair Use exceptions there is no tort committed, that is why you get off. It's _not_ the court saying "well you committed a tort against them but it was only a small one" it's the court saying that under the USC there has been no tort committed. If someone died whilst you were defending yourself, you don't "get off" it's ajudged to be (and considered in the relevant code or statute) acceptable, you didn't murder them. If you murdered them and you win on a legal-defence of "self-defence" then there was a miscarriage of justice. There are many good guides, http://copyright.columbia.edu/copyright/fair-use/what-is-fair-use/ http://copyright.columbia.edu/copyright/fair-use/what-is-fai... - note in particular the penultimate para on balance. Even some commercial uses are judged "fair use" just as educational or library uses aren't always allowed. For example Google are allowed to show thousands of DeNiro images on their site under a fair use exception (eg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_10,_Inc._v._Google_Inc. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_10,_Inc._v._Google_Inc.). IMO the de minimis use of single, low-pixel size, established cultural images for avatars where there is no actual commercial harm to the image maker and perceivably no commercial gain in the meets with the balanced consideration of the 4 characteristics of fair-use material. [I've no idea where the page is hosted nor the copyright system in place in the Reunion islands (which may or may not be relevant), do they use French law, are they signatories to the Berne Convention or TRIPs???]
- jamesbrownuhh 12y ago
  Releasing an application called "Top Gear TV" is remarkably naive on its own (it's one of the BBC's biggest worldwide commercial franchises) - doing it with 10 other major properties just turned something that was only a matter of time, into an absolute inevitability.
  - hoektoe 12y ago
    did his apps display ads over/with the content provided by third party? Did youtube ads still play in the viewer? Either way, don't really approve of his arguments
- Loque 12y ago
  From that website; http://distantfutu.re/page/team.html http://distantfutu.re/page/team.html Two Founders, Two PR people and One Engineer.... Good structure :¬P
  - jbigelow76 12y ago
    You'd think at least one of the PR people could have handled this fiasco. This would be their time to shine!
- Anderkent 12y ago
  >I don't think he fully understands what he really did wrong. Well, yeah, that's the point of the article. That google never made it clear what he did wrong, so that he could fix it.
- wolfgke 12y ago
  > I don't think he fully understands what he really did wrong. Google not making it entirely clear in their hellbanning email what he did wrong makes the hellbanning double unfair in my opinion.
  - Someone1234 12y ago
    They did make it clear and it is in the developer agreement the OP agreed to when signing up. https://play.google.com/about/developer-content-policy.html https://play.google.com/about/developer-content-policy.html > Impersonation or Deceptive Behavior: Don't pretend to be someone else, and don't represent that your app is authorized by or produced by another company or organization if that is not the case. Products or the ads they contain also must not mimic functionality or warnings from the operating system or other apps. Products must not contain false or misleading information in any content, title, icon, description, or screenshots. Developers must not divert users or provide links to any other site that mimics or passes itself off as another app or service. Apps must not have names or icons that appear confusingly similar to existing products, or to apps supplied with the device (such as Camera, Gallery or Messaging). The OP's apps clearly violate the "title, icon" provisions above. Google even sent him an email about it listing the exact reason in the email, but yet that too is still not enough? What is it people in this thread want? Do Google personally need to go around OP's house, sit him down, and explain through the developer agreement line by line?
Chinpokoman 12y ago
And to be honest I don't know why he's scared to make a new google account. Yeah sure they track your IP address and whatnot but they certainly wont do anything about it. They wont ban an entire household, that's just bullshit. I don't know why he thought getting suspended wasn't a big deal because he was "innocent". That's also a fairly stupid idea as well.
- g051051 12y ago
  In addition to carefully making Google's case for them, he then descended into paranoia about Google's tracking. For someone supposedly so experienced in software development, he has some weird ideas about what's right and what's wrong.
- danielweber 12y ago
  If you are trying to monetize, you have likely given Google your real name and address and bank account information, and would need to do the same thing for your new account. Submitting fraudulent information in order to get money could cross you into serious trouble with the IRS or the law.
  - chrisBob 12y ago
    If you are making a business out of this then creating a new business entity shouldn't be that difficult.
- rgbrenner 12y ago
  Wait.. so Google's terms state that any new accounts will be terminated.. but you're saying he should just go ahead and violate that term of Google's policies as well? And assuming that Google won't carry out the threat is a poor way to run a business.. at any time, Google may decide any earnings he's made will be forfeited.
  - tomjen3 12y ago
    Well he has already violated the terms, might as well keep going - he has very little left to lose.
therobot24 12y ago
"I thought I was doing these guys a favor. The apps I wrote would have cost about $50,000 each if I had charged for my time. I basically donated $500,000 to the Android community. That’s how I saw things." This is where i stopped reading - the author is a bit delusional.
- bicx 12y ago
  Yeah, he clearly wasn't thinking straight on that one. Even if the time he spent on the first app was worth $50k, he said earlier that he created the other apps just by changing the YouTube channel on the first app and repackaging. Definitely not $500k of work by any stretch.
- mattstocum 12y ago
  "The app was simple. Launch it and it display the videos for a single YouTube channel. I made the app, and it was really nice and a pleasure to use." I'm assuming his hourly rate is $50,000/hr. Did he do anything other than wrap the web page for the channel in a web view? I'm not familiar with Android, but on iOS, you can accomplish this without writing a single line of code, everything could be done inside Interface Builder. I can't imagine it's any more difficult on Android.
  - therobot24 12y ago
    he probably factored in all the time he spent learning to build the first app, and then multiplied it by 10...if he's an independent developer i'd be very hesitant to contract him given his poor billing techniques
    - Dylan16807 12y ago
      On the other hand I would be quite hesitant to hire a developer to build a customized video player for tens of thousands of dollars if he was going to go on and sell that same code to others for $200 a pop.
      - 12y ago
ascendantlogic 12y ago
The only thing I side with him on is this: "I emailed Google back and asked them to tell me exactly what I need to change to be compliant with the rules. Is it the icon? The name? The disclaimer? What? Google refused to give me any additional information." If you ask why, you should be told exactly what is wrong. Or better yet, be told exactly what is wrong right away. Obviously packaging other people's content is the issue here, but you should be told exactly what rules are being broken so there's no ambiguity.
- Fuxy 12y ago
  I find it amazing that everyone here seems to be a lawyer or extremely well versed in the rules while agreeing with them. What's wrong with packaging other people's content as long as you're not profiting from it? If the content owner wants it removed there should be a way to request that while not negatively affecting the developers account. Plus the whole 3 strikes rule seems a bit too strict for me especially if it's going to be enforced so heavy handedly for what is obviously a minor issue that could have been resolved by a email conversation. Not to mention other Google accounts like Google Wallet and Google Music getting banned for something like this. What does one have to do with the other? Do you mean to tell me if i get banned in the Play store all Google account on all services get banned including my Google drive, Google docs, gmail etc Doesn't that seem a bit absurd to anyone? How would you like your entire music library deleted because your developer account got banned?
  - true_religion 12y ago
    Their policies don't necessarily need to be due to 'ethics' or laws, but just their opinion of what makes a good marketplace. Perhaps they feel that repackaging other peoples content leads to needless confusion about what is official and not, since anyone and their cat can put up an app that wraps a Youtube channel. Maybe they feel that apps like that are low quality, so to set a bar they'll restrict it to only the actual rights holders who have a more vested stake in making a good app. It's really a business decision.
  - PeterisP 12y ago
    "What's wrong with packaging other people's content as long as you're not profiting from it?" Everything, and the "you're not profiting from it" part is completely irrelevant and can be skipped from the sentence. Redistributing other people's content without their consent is simply not allowed, and the fact that they have made this content freely available on channel A doesn't give you permission to make it freely available on channel B. And no matter what position you take on copyright, impersonating their name, as the original poster had done, is clearly unethical and unexcusable.
mempko 12y ago
What this shows is how anti-user closed app eco-systems are. Some users probably found his app very useful but can't use it because lawyers.
- icebraining 12y ago
  You'd have the same problem if you were on the open web and the company sent a DMCA takedown request to your hosting company.
  - VLM 12y ago
    Mentioning that venue B is screwed up, is hardly proof that that venue A being screwed up, is a good thing.
    - icebraining 12y ago
      I'm not saying it is a good thing. I'm saying it's not a problem caused by "closed app eco-systems". Trademarks apply to both closed and open marketplaces.
  - ben0x539 12y ago
    At least the DMCA takedown wouldn't also somehow disable his google music subscription.
    - icebraining 12y ago
      That's a problem with bundling services under a single account, not with the closed-ecosystem part. For example, GoDaddy suspends all your sites when you get a DMCA takedown to any single one of them. I agree that the approach is bonkers, but it's not an issue exclusive to "walled gardens".
  - tomjen3 12y ago
    Actually no. The DMCA is a nationalistic piece of absolute garbage, but it does allow you to file a counter notification, google does not.
hawleyal 12y ago
Completely disagree. People at Google acted in a ridiculous manner. This is atrocious.
norswap 12y ago
"It's all your fault any way." Very mature, man.
sergiosgc 12y ago
Your position is a common response: paint the affected individual in such light that you can safely state he's different from you, and making it obvious this wouldn't possibly happen to you. The important facts, irrespective of the correctness of app suspension are: a) App suspension led to Google Wallet suspension. Google Wallet can be used as a payment processor, so this decision could have affected entirely independent revenue streams. It's inexcusable for Google to do this! b) Google support is awful. This is a known fact. AdSense suspensions are probably the most common. I've been affected by one. Google does not answer. Ever. Period. (well, if you're lucky you get a canned response). The conclusion is that an irresponsible and deaf company now holds power over huge swaths of people. I'm uncomfortable. And so should you be.
- byuu 12y ago
  B is probably a legal issue. If they give you any additional information outside of their canned, lawyer-approved responses, you may be able to use that in a legal claim against them.
- kazinator 12y ago
  I can't speak for _petronius, but what makes this guy obviously different from me is: * he thinks that an icon which links to something on the web is an "app", whereas I think that an app is something which contains a significant amount of program logic. * he thinks that changing the configuration (like YT channel id) generates a whole new app. This is like claiming that, at your Unix command line, "grep foo" is a different app from "grep bar" because we changed the string that it looks for. * he thinks that going from an "app" with a hard-coded YT channel to one with a user-configurable channel is a big step in development, the "real app". * he thinks he can no longer write apps for Android, whereas it is obvious to me that you can put a .apk file up for download anywhere you want, and get paid by means other than Google Wallet. * he cannot see what he obviously did wrong: make a spammy app that only re-frames other people's content, and infringes on trademarks, etc. In response to the first takedown, I would have pulled all copies of this app immediately. Google only holds power over those swaths of people who surrendered some aspects of their lives to Google.
  - 12y ago
spinlock 12y ago
That's just bad business. It's like the MPAA and RIAA suing their customers. In the short run you can bully a few independent people but, in the long run, you are eroding your user base -- or developer base in this case. I consider the apps in question fair use. Now, I've never read google's TOS but, then again, neither has anyone else. You'll notice that the op was working with the system to try to understand its rules. That's the quintessence of what a hacker does. It seems to me that google is making themselves vulnerable to an open app store. One where you can experiment and collect user feedback before committing resources to a project.
poopsintub 12y ago
Youtube provides videos that users specifically label as a creative commons license, and are available for commercial use. He may have not been in the wrong, though it's pretty doubtful considering his questionable judgement on everything else.
mangecoeur 12y ago
You're missing the nub of the issue - sure the guy made mistakes and ignored warnings. But the fact remains that he was banned by an impersonal, automated system with no chance of appeal, and as such is now effectively locked out of the entire android app ecosystem for ever - an therefore an entire possible line of business. Note there's also no possibility for him to mend his ways and be re-instated. Imagine if the same applied to people who run physical businesses - some shop owner skips some paperwork thinking it'll be harmless, gets caught, gets a fine... and then is banned from ever owning a shop ever again for the rest of his life, no appeal. This is our brave new cloud-oriented future - where all the power to regulate what content is available to millions of users lies in the hands of a couple of private companies. I find the whole thing very worrying, and am very glad that the FirefoxOS and Ubuntu phone projects are moving forward to provide some kind of alternative.
on_and_off 12y ago
I tried one of his apks : The Verge TV. It installs an app of the same name. The First Screen is the logo of the website on 2/3 of the screen and a description of the website. In a corner there is a disclaimer button, clicking on it leads me to a disclaimer explaining that 'The Verge TV is not affiliated with The Verge'. I find it hard to believe that he did not realize that an app copying the names & graphics of popular websites would get him banned for impersonation. Chances are that some of these websites reported him to Google.

Keyframe 12y ago

Judging by the names of the apps/wrappers (if they were same in the store) from here http://distantfutu.re/page/portfolio.html http://distantfutu.re/page/portfolio.html he is lucky to not get sued at the same time as well. He's even argumentative about trademark infringement in his post. I don't think he fully understands what he really did wrong.

rrrx3 12y ago
Agreed - the whole thing reads like a giant whine, to me. The author has zero concept of what he's done wrong, which is astounding to me.
- TuringTest 12y ago
  The question is, was the punishment proportional to the crime? The 'whine' was about being banned for life because of novice mistakes made without bad faith. How is one supposed to learn the ropes? It's like learning to drive in a country where driving schools didn't exist and the full extent of traffic laws applied to you. How possibly could the author learn what he was doing wrong?
  - nl 12y ago
    How is one supposed to learn the ropes? Maybe listen to one of the many warnings he was given?
    - pbhjpbhj 12y ago
      Warning, your post is in breech of my policies, the policies of HN, the law local to you or some other policy that applies due to jurisdiction that applies to the server, you, me or HN. Please correct this error immediately or your account will be terminated. /s
  - danielweber 12y ago
    The majority of the post was "it's their fault that they didn't stop me!" When his first app was suspended, Google should have given a better response when he asked what he did wrong. But to just continue forward doing the exact same thing he was doing before was asking for trouble. If Google wouldn't give him a clear answer, he should have asked his friends or the community.
    - aceperry 12y ago
      His friends consisted of "99.9% of everyone I know uses iOS", are probably contemptuous of Android. Which seems to be a common attitude amongst the apple fanbois. I don't think his friends could've helped him.
    - TuringTest 12y ago
      According to the timeline, all the applications that got his account suspended were already in place when he got the first notice. So it's not as if he continued doing the same thing - he was sacked by inaction, and the warnings didn't contain sufficient notice that more action (removing the other applications, which hadn't got a warning yet) was required on his part.
Renaud 12y ago
On top of that, you can only use a .re TLD if you are a EU citizen or a company that resides in the EU... http://www.afnic.fr/en/products-and-services/the-re-tld/ http://www.afnic.fr/en/products-and-services/the-re-tld/
- cookiecaper 12y ago
  This is pretty unfair. It's super common to get country TLDs just because they make your service or site sound cooler. I think it's well-accepted that such rules are meaningless at this point.
  - Renaud 12y ago
    They shouldn't be. When we registered a .re TLD we were asked to provide a business license to prove that the business in question was local. Desirable local TLDs get taken by squatters and opening them to the world at large dilutes the meaningfulness and availability of that TLD to local businesses who need the recognition.
- ryan-c 12y ago
  There are companies that will set up a local shell company for you to own whatever TLD you want.
icebraining 12y ago
Here's a copy of the app information, copied by some app discovering site: http://www.myappwiz.com/home/getapp?platform=Android&appID=com.sickboots.sickvideos.theverge http://www.myappwiz.com/home/getapp?platform=Android&appID=c...
- danielweber 12y ago
  Technically it's a very nice idea. I'd love to, say, funnel my younger son into the Schoolhouse Rock channel without him going off and watching teenagers swear at Angry Birds. But he completely botched the execution.
- palakchokshi 12y ago
  he used their logo too? That is just wrong. the OP seems like a naive developer who doesn't grasp even the basics of trademarks and if he does then he has complete disregard for them and should be banned for life.
naiv 12y ago
Copyright and trademarks don't seem to be his strength, I doubt that he licensed the pictures on http://distantfutu.re/page/team.html http://distantfutu.re/page/team.html .. But because he grew up "in the 70s/80s", these are public domain to him.
- pbhjpbhj 12y ago
  Does he need a license to use those images in Reunion (or wherever his server is)? It looks like it could be a fair-use under USC too? Styling yourself as DeNiro in Taxi Driver might even class as parodical and so be an allowed use? But your general point in your first clause stands.
  - __P 12y ago
    "Fair-use" is a legal defence, when you get sued. Just like 'self-defence' is a legal defence if you murder someone. It does not mean you have the right. (Like in countries like Korea, or Australia, where you do have the right).
    - dragonwriter 12y ago
      US Copyright "Fair Use" is basically a statutory exception that closely follows the parameters of what courts found were Constitutional limits on copyright restrictions imposed by the First Amendment free speech/free press rights, so, no, despite the fact that it is procedurally a statutory exception, it also does reflect the existence of a more basic right that the statute would have no power to infringe even if it didn't encode the exception explicitly.
    - pbhjpbhj 12y ago
      I'm sorry but you're quite wrong. Fair Use under the USC is an exception allowing, primarily personal [but by no means exclusively], use of otherwise copyright material. Eg fair-use covers limited educational exceptions, incidental infringements (you take a photo and it happens to have a copyright protected work in that isn't the feature of the image), etc., etc.. Fair Use is a legal defence against a claim that you have tortuously infringed someone's copyright. The reason it works is because under Fair Use exceptions there is no tort committed, that is why you get off. It's _not_ the court saying "well you committed a tort against them but it was only a small one" it's the court saying that under the USC there has been no tort committed. If someone died whilst you were defending yourself, you don't "get off" it's ajudged to be (and considered in the relevant code or statute) acceptable, you didn't murder them. If you murdered them and you win on a legal-defence of "self-defence" then there was a miscarriage of justice. There are many good guides, http://copyright.columbia.edu/copyright/fair-use/what-is-fair-use/ http://copyright.columbia.edu/copyright/fair-use/what-is-fai... - note in particular the penultimate para on balance. Even some commercial uses are judged "fair use" just as educational or library uses aren't always allowed. For example Google are allowed to show thousands of DeNiro images on their site under a fair use exception (eg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_10,_Inc._v._Google_Inc. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_10,_Inc._v._Google_Inc.). IMO the de minimis use of single, low-pixel size, established cultural images for avatars where there is no actual commercial harm to the image maker and perceivably no commercial gain in the meets with the balanced consideration of the 4 characteristics of fair-use material. [I've no idea where the page is hosted nor the copyright system in place in the Reunion islands (which may or may not be relevant), do they use French law, are they signatories to the Berne Convention or TRIPs???]
jamesbrownuhh 12y ago
Releasing an application called "Top Gear TV" is remarkably naive on its own (it's one of the BBC's biggest worldwide commercial franchises) - doing it with 10 other major properties just turned something that was only a matter of time, into an absolute inevitability.
- hoektoe 12y ago
  did his apps display ads over/with the content provided by third party? Did youtube ads still play in the viewer? Either way, don't really approve of his arguments
Loque 12y ago
From that website; http://distantfutu.re/page/team.html http://distantfutu.re/page/team.html Two Founders, Two PR people and One Engineer.... Good structure :¬P
- jbigelow76 12y ago
  You'd think at least one of the PR people could have handled this fiasco. This would be their time to shine!
Anderkent 12y ago
>I don't think he fully understands what he really did wrong. Well, yeah, that's the point of the article. That google never made it clear what he did wrong, so that he could fix it.
wolfgke 12y ago
> I don't think he fully understands what he really did wrong. Google not making it entirely clear in their hellbanning email what he did wrong makes the hellbanning double unfair in my opinion.
- Someone1234 12y ago
  They did make it clear and it is in the developer agreement the OP agreed to when signing up. https://play.google.com/about/developer-content-policy.html https://play.google.com/about/developer-content-policy.html > Impersonation or Deceptive Behavior: Don't pretend to be someone else, and don't represent that your app is authorized by or produced by another company or organization if that is not the case. Products or the ads they contain also must not mimic functionality or warnings from the operating system or other apps. Products must not contain false or misleading information in any content, title, icon, description, or screenshots. Developers must not divert users or provide links to any other site that mimics or passes itself off as another app or service. Apps must not have names or icons that appear confusingly similar to existing products, or to apps supplied with the device (such as Camera, Gallery or Messaging). The OP's apps clearly violate the "title, icon" provisions above. Google even sent him an email about it listing the exact reason in the email, but yet that too is still not enough? What is it people in this thread want? Do Google personally need to go around OP's house, sit him down, and explain through the developer agreement line by line?

Chinpokoman 12y ago

And to be honest I don't know why he's scared to make a new google account. Yeah sure they track your IP address and whatnot but they certainly wont do anything about it. They wont ban an entire household, that's just bullshit. I don't know why he thought getting suspended wasn't a big deal because he was "innocent". That's also a fairly stupid idea as well.

g051051 12y ago
In addition to carefully making Google's case for them, he then descended into paranoia about Google's tracking. For someone supposedly so experienced in software development, he has some weird ideas about what's right and what's wrong.
danielweber 12y ago
If you are trying to monetize, you have likely given Google your real name and address and bank account information, and would need to do the same thing for your new account. Submitting fraudulent information in order to get money could cross you into serious trouble with the IRS or the law.
- chrisBob 12y ago
  If you are making a business out of this then creating a new business entity shouldn't be that difficult.
rgbrenner 12y ago
Wait.. so Google's terms state that any new accounts will be terminated.. but you're saying he should just go ahead and violate that term of Google's policies as well? And assuming that Google won't carry out the threat is a poor way to run a business.. at any time, Google may decide any earnings he's made will be forfeited.
- tomjen3 12y ago
  Well he has already violated the terms, might as well keep going - he has very little left to lose.

therobot24 12y ago

"I thought I was doing these guys a favor. The apps I wrote would have cost about $50,000 each if I had charged for my time. I basically donated $500,000 to the Android community. That’s how I saw things." This is where i stopped reading - the author is a bit delusional.

bicx 12y ago
Yeah, he clearly wasn't thinking straight on that one. Even if the time he spent on the first app was worth $50k, he said earlier that he created the other apps just by changing the YouTube channel on the first app and repackaging. Definitely not $500k of work by any stretch.
mattstocum 12y ago
"The app was simple. Launch it and it display the videos for a single YouTube channel. I made the app, and it was really nice and a pleasure to use." I'm assuming his hourly rate is $50,000/hr. Did he do anything other than wrap the web page for the channel in a web view? I'm not familiar with Android, but on iOS, you can accomplish this without writing a single line of code, everything could be done inside Interface Builder. I can't imagine it's any more difficult on Android.
- therobot24 12y ago
  he probably factored in all the time he spent learning to build the first app, and then multiplied it by 10...if he's an independent developer i'd be very hesitant to contract him given his poor billing techniques
  - Dylan16807 12y ago
    On the other hand I would be quite hesitant to hire a developer to build a customized video player for tens of thousands of dollars if he was going to go on and sell that same code to others for $200 a pop.
    - 12y ago

ascendantlogic 12y ago

The only thing I side with him on is this: "I emailed Google back and asked them to tell me exactly what I need to change to be compliant with the rules. Is it the icon? The name? The disclaimer? What? Google refused to give me any additional information." If you ask why, you should be told exactly what is wrong. Or better yet, be told exactly what is wrong right away. Obviously packaging other people's content is the issue here, but you should be told exactly what rules are being broken so there's no ambiguity.

Fuxy 12y ago
I find it amazing that everyone here seems to be a lawyer or extremely well versed in the rules while agreeing with them. What's wrong with packaging other people's content as long as you're not profiting from it? If the content owner wants it removed there should be a way to request that while not negatively affecting the developers account. Plus the whole 3 strikes rule seems a bit too strict for me especially if it's going to be enforced so heavy handedly for what is obviously a minor issue that could have been resolved by a email conversation. Not to mention other Google accounts like Google Wallet and Google Music getting banned for something like this. What does one have to do with the other? Do you mean to tell me if i get banned in the Play store all Google account on all services get banned including my Google drive, Google docs, gmail etc Doesn't that seem a bit absurd to anyone? How would you like your entire music library deleted because your developer account got banned?
- true_religion 12y ago
  Their policies don't necessarily need to be due to 'ethics' or laws, but just their opinion of what makes a good marketplace. Perhaps they feel that repackaging other peoples content leads to needless confusion about what is official and not, since anyone and their cat can put up an app that wraps a Youtube channel. Maybe they feel that apps like that are low quality, so to set a bar they'll restrict it to only the actual rights holders who have a more vested stake in making a good app. It's really a business decision.
- PeterisP 12y ago
  "What's wrong with packaging other people's content as long as you're not profiting from it?" Everything, and the "you're not profiting from it" part is completely irrelevant and can be skipped from the sentence. Redistributing other people's content without their consent is simply not allowed, and the fact that they have made this content freely available on channel A doesn't give you permission to make it freely available on channel B. And no matter what position you take on copyright, impersonating their name, as the original poster had done, is clearly unethical and unexcusable.

mempko 12y ago

What this shows is how anti-user closed app eco-systems are. Some users probably found his app very useful but can't use it because lawyers.

icebraining 12y ago
You'd have the same problem if you were on the open web and the company sent a DMCA takedown request to your hosting company.
- VLM 12y ago
  Mentioning that venue B is screwed up, is hardly proof that that venue A being screwed up, is a good thing.
  - icebraining 12y ago
    I'm not saying it is a good thing. I'm saying it's not a problem caused by "closed app eco-systems". Trademarks apply to both closed and open marketplaces.
- ben0x539 12y ago
  At least the DMCA takedown wouldn't also somehow disable his google music subscription.
  - icebraining 12y ago
    That's a problem with bundling services under a single account, not with the closed-ecosystem part. For example, GoDaddy suspends all your sites when you get a DMCA takedown to any single one of them. I agree that the approach is bonkers, but it's not an issue exclusive to "walled gardens".
- tomjen3 12y ago
  Actually no. The DMCA is a nationalistic piece of absolute garbage, but it does allow you to file a counter notification, google does not.

hawleyal 12y ago

Completely disagree. People at Google acted in a ridiculous manner. This is atrocious.

norswap 12y ago

"It's all your fault any way." Very mature, man.

sergiosgc 12y ago

Your position is a common response: paint the affected individual in such light that you can safely state he's different from you, and making it obvious this wouldn't possibly happen to you. The important facts, irrespective of the correctness of app suspension are: a) App suspension led to Google Wallet suspension. Google Wallet can be used as a payment processor, so this decision could have affected entirely independent revenue streams. It's inexcusable for Google to do this! b) Google support is awful. This is a known fact. AdSense suspensions are probably the most common. I've been affected by one. Google does not answer. Ever. Period. (well, if you're lucky you get a canned response). The conclusion is that an irresponsible and deaf company now holds power over huge swaths of people. I'm uncomfortable. And so should you be.

byuu 12y ago
B is probably a legal issue. If they give you any additional information outside of their canned, lawyer-approved responses, you may be able to use that in a legal claim against them.
kazinator 12y ago
I can't speak for _petronius, but what makes this guy obviously different from me is: * he thinks that an icon which links to something on the web is an "app", whereas I think that an app is something which contains a significant amount of program logic. * he thinks that changing the configuration (like YT channel id) generates a whole new app. This is like claiming that, at your Unix command line, "grep foo" is a different app from "grep bar" because we changed the string that it looks for. * he thinks that going from an "app" with a hard-coded YT channel to one with a user-configurable channel is a big step in development, the "real app". * he thinks he can no longer write apps for Android, whereas it is obvious to me that you can put a .apk file up for download anywhere you want, and get paid by means other than Google Wallet. * he cannot see what he obviously did wrong: make a spammy app that only re-frames other people's content, and infringes on trademarks, etc. In response to the first takedown, I would have pulled all copies of this app immediately. Google only holds power over those swaths of people who surrendered some aspects of their lives to Google.
- 12y ago

spinlock 12y ago

That's just bad business. It's like the MPAA and RIAA suing their customers. In the short run you can bully a few independent people but, in the long run, you are eroding your user base -- or developer base in this case. I consider the apps in question fair use. Now, I've never read google's TOS but, then again, neither has anyone else. You'll notice that the op was working with the system to try to understand its rules. That's the quintessence of what a hacker does. It seems to me that google is making themselves vulnerable to an open app store. One where you can experiment and collect user feedback before committing resources to a project.

poopsintub 12y ago

Youtube provides videos that users specifically label as a creative commons license, and are available for commercial use. He may have not been in the wrong, though it's pretty doubtful considering his questionable judgement on everything else.

mangecoeur 12y ago

You're missing the nub of the issue - sure the guy made mistakes and ignored warnings. But the fact remains that he was banned by an impersonal, automated system with no chance of appeal, and as such is now effectively locked out of the entire android app ecosystem for ever - an therefore an entire possible line of business. Note there's also no possibility for him to mend his ways and be re-instated. Imagine if the same applied to people who run physical businesses - some shop owner skips some paperwork thinking it'll be harmless, gets caught, gets a fine... and then is banned from ever owning a shop ever again for the rest of his life, no appeal. This is our brave new cloud-oriented future - where all the power to regulate what content is available to millions of users lies in the hands of a couple of private companies. I find the whole thing very worrying, and am very glad that the FirefoxOS and Ubuntu phone projects are moving forward to provide some kind of alternative.

on_and_off 12y ago

I tried one of his apks : The Verge TV. It installs an app of the same name. The First Screen is the logo of the website on 2/3 of the screen and a description of the website. In a corner there is a disclaimer button, clicking on it leads me to a disclaimer explaining that 'The Verge TV is not affiliated with The Verge'. I find it hard to believe that he did not realize that an app copying the names & graphics of popular websites would get him banned for impersonation. Chances are that some of these websites reported him to Google.