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Android Game Devs Worry Over Ease of Copying
The Guardian reports on problems faced by game makers on Android Market. Some independent developers are finding that their games are too easily copied and sold by competitors, and they say Google isn't reacting quickly enough to reports of infringement. Quoting:
"One of my customers emailed me three weeks ago, and informed me that another company was selling a version of my app – pirated and uploaded as their own. Of course I contacted Google right away. It took Google two days to take the app down. This publisher was also selling other versions of pirated games. I contacted the original developers of those games but they were still being sold a week later. You'd think [Google] might have a hotline for things like that! I would also note that the publisher selling the pirated games is still trading on the Android Market. They didn't even get their account suspended. ... Why are these accounts still allowed to be trading? It's negligent as far as I'm concerned."
Even to piracy.
how the person who feels he is being victimized here would feel if his app was instantly removed via a hotline telephone call by someone with a false DMCA claim?
Google, like Apple, have to review the alleged infringement thoroughly before they can decide to take any action. If they don't, they run the risk of removing a legitimate app that was reported by a competitor, or a troll, or for any number of reasons. This is bad for business, and bad for PR. Unfortunately these investigations take their time, and even though you can throw more people into the pool of investigators, the final resolution is never going to be quick enough for app developers who want the infringing app remove IMMEDIATELY as it potentially costs them sales.
Irrelevant if the 'other party' is based out of communist China who aren't shy to publicly admit they have no appreciation copyright infringements.
This is not just copyright infringement. This is plagiarism and misappropriation. Criminals are claiming other's work as their own. And they are capitalizing on this fraudulent claim to take money that should go to the real authors. This is quite different from random persons copying songs. This is actual theft.
Be careful with the terminology. Big Media likes the conflation of plagiarism and counterfeiting with mere copying. They want to be able to hit someone who snagged a copy of some tune off a P2P service with the same punishment as these software thieves deserve.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
This and only this should be what claims of copyright infringement is.
As others have said, this story is about "plagiarism and misappropriation", ie stealing real sales by selling someone else's software as your own. Copyright infringement doesn't only apply in situations where you feel it's to your own advantage.
Normal people downloading crap instead of buying them should just be labelled smart people.
Actually, they're very obviously copyright infringers who are making copies of things without the legal right. It might be "smart" to avoid costs where you can, though if you're breaking the law to do so, it's risky, and seen by many (including myself) as immoral. The record companies are pretty immoral too of course. It's not a black and white decision, but there's nothing particularly noble about infringing copyright.
For what it's worth, I think of you as just the same type of scum as these guys who are sell other people's software for their own gain. You're saving money by not buying music. You're not getting the same level of financial benefit as these professional pirates, but you still are on the same scale, just at a lower level. I'm not saying you'd buy all of the music/movies/software you download, but presumably if you like any of it enough to keep it, you'd have bought some of that if piracy wasn't an option.
which is totally what she said
In particular, our infringer with a sick mother could absolutely find an ambulance chaser to sue google for his own lost legit revenue
Hardly. If he's doing anything illegal with his account, Google are well within their rights to terminate it. It's their private service, they are probably legally allowed to terminate people for any reason, even outside of abuses of the system.
I don't get your "my mother was sick, so I'm entitled to break the law" bullshit. Real courts might "take it into account", but the guy is still responsible for his own actions. By doing something illegal, he's just increasing the chances his sick mother won't have anyone around to help her when he goes to jail.
As for "cheating to test the waters" - wtf? I don't understand your reasoning behind any of this. Who the hell even thinks like that? Would you illegally upload someone else's work and charge people for it? If I was wanting to test the waters, I'd write my own app, or read blogs and ask questions to other developers. I certainly wouldn't start off by doing something illegal. If someone is willing to do that, why would they bother to even write their own software later on?
which is totally what she said
Imagine a developer with legit games too who just posted that infringing game because his mother needs an operation.
That's not an excuse. Like others have said, if you rob a bank to pay for your mother's operation, you still go to jail.
Imagine two co-developers have falling out, one registers their new game first, reports the second's game as infringing, and gets the second account banned. Imagine a developer reposts another's game because he owns part but got cheated by the official developer. etc.
Not the right way to get the other developer to respect your IP rights. Complain to Google and get the game taken down, don't just submit it again.
Second, you don't want to scare away infringing users who might become legitimate non-infringing users and improve the Android market place.
Yes you do. "Cheating to test the waters" is a cop-out. Some of us write legitimate software to test the waters.
Third, Google can actually process future infringement claims more efficiently if infringers continue using the same accounts.
That makes no sense at all.
What were you saying about morons?
Wow. You really are an idiot in this case. From the examples you gave, are you still in high-school and hijacked or bought a low user id account?
Shh.
As for the "mother's operation" scenario: I doubt Google cares whether someone was trying to pay for their mother's operation or their own drug habit. Nor should they! If I were Google, I would not want infringing content on my store, no matter what the reason. I would feel no qualms about banning someone who tried selling Angry Birds because they needed to pay their mom's medical bills..
Your whole argument makes no sense. How would punishing infringement ever encourage people to infringe more? How would it "punish the partially or potentially developers much more than the wholesale infringers?" You make a lot of blanket statements, but say absolutely nothing to back them up.
Google's best move is to get rid of as much infringing content as possible. You could make the case that if an aspect of a game (or even the main subject of the game) is infringing, then Google should be judicious in assessing the situation. For games that are straight-up copies, however — as in, if the game is a straight-up pirated version that's been uploaded as the infringer's original work — then an auto-ban is not at all out of the question.
And FYI, the reason this is different from Google Video, YouTube, Google Docs, etc, is that here people are making money from infringement. It's a whole different ballgame.