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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?
At the end of the day, it's all about whether they're selling more ads or increasing the value of them. Android is just another means to that end, so it shouldn't surprise anyone that Google has trouble policing their market place. It's simply not something they're used to doing. Same goes for Apple and Microsoft.
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.
That's criminal copyright infringement. If it's for commercial gain, and the total retail value exceeds $1000, and distributed over a computer network, the criminal provisions apply. At $2500, it becomes a felony.
Here's how to report it.
Of course all the software through it is free (as in freedom).
If I am doing something wrong, please let me know, but browsing the market is absolutely painful. My biggest problem is the fact that you can go to a top category like "Business" and you are limited to THREE filters, "Top Paid", "Top Free" and "Just In". They are all irrelevant for me, because cost is not really an issue for under $20 apps, and "Just In" can list anything from first release betas to minor updates. Searching for a specific term is even worse because then you can't apply any further filters. As a related issue, when browsing categories or searching specifics, apps seem to be listed at random.
I would like to be able to sort apps by rating, developer, price, date uploaded, number downloads, and a whole bunch of other criteria. You know, stuff that I take for granted while searching through Google. You would think that the leading search company would be capable of implementing more than a rudimentary market application...
There are three explanations.
First, I could be incompetent. This is very likely, since I got my first Android phone less than a week ago. However while I'm not a developer, I am not exactly computer illiterate. I was able to unlock and root my HTC Desire, and I already tried 4 different ROMS (currently running Cyanogenmod 7 nightly 22) and a few dozen apps. My last phone was a Nokia N900, and its repository system automatically contained only free, and mostly GPL apps searchable on a variety of criteria. The Market was a very negative culture shock for me. If however I am incompetent, I welcome any suggestions how to better search for apps THROUGH THE MARKETPLACE (I'll come back to this in a second).
Second, Google engineers are inept and can't implement better searching in their own market app. I seriously doubt it, given the extensive features of any other Google app. FFS, think of the analysis Google Goggles, Voice Search or even Maps have to perform, while Market can't even sort apps properly? If the phones themselves are too slow, offload the computing to the Google servers just like Goggles and Voice Search.
Third, it's in Google's interest to force users to browse hunderds of apps, try out a lot of garbage before finding what they are looking for. This also ties in with TFA. Maybe Google wants the bragging rights to say they have hundreds of thousands of apps. Maybe they don't care, but the OP is not the first developer to complain about copied apps. One ADW theme designer stopped releasing the template for his themes because people were copying them and reselling them throu the Market. This is a very serious issue for Google, because Balmer was right. DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS! If they start bailing out, your platform dies out, which incidentally is what happened to my Nokia N900.
The ONLY reliable way to find Android apps is to either search through Google's site that we all use, or go to specific Android development forums like XDA and search past threads.
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"
Send a DMCA notice to Google and the other company and take the other company to court. If Google doesn't respond by removal as per DMCA rules, take them to court, too. These tools exist, so use them. They're not *just* around for the MPAA, RIAA, and BSAA to use.
I'm no star dev, but I have a few free applications on market. One of the things I noticed is for a while Google have had a message stating that copy protection is being deprecated, and replaced with "Licensing service". More information here: http://developer.android.com/guide/publishing/licensing.html. Not sure if this would affect OP's situation; whether he was/is using the old licensing services and/or if it will improve the situation in general.
Imagine a developer with legit games too who just posted that infringing game because his mother needs an operation.
You lost me right there.
Don't quote me on this.
http://developer.android.com/guide/publishing/licensing.html
I'm not entirely sure because I've not seen the need to use it personally yet, but wouldn't the Android Market Licensing service stop this? Been around for a while this API...
Perhaps he could mug someone instead, or rob a bank. He'd get the money faster, and I'm sure we'd all turn a blind eye because of his poor old mother right? No.
It would be trivially easy for Google to structure their store contracts in such a way that account revocation and loss of earnings were explicitly accepted in the case of infringement. You say it won't deter 'pro' criminals, yet if they consistently are denied revenue and forced to create new developer accounts ($15 IIRC), they'll quickly realise it isn't an effective money maker.
Your argument against detering infringers in case they go straight is as illogical as suggesting stores give shop lifters carte blanche in case they choose to start paying one day. Google may be able to get away with ignoring the needs of legit developers, due to the size of the android userbase, but it doesn't mean they should.
For YEARS now they have allowed spammers free reign to crap all over Usenet using their Googlegroups interface. They do nothing to block or remove spam, when clearly they have the technology, as they use in filtering GMail, to do so.
I don't know if they have a policy of making Usenet into a shitpile to make their own hosted groups more attractive. Or if they just don't care at all.
Take your lessons from the leader in the field. You don't need it pirated, you need to give it away - sort of. You also need to work the buyer a little.
The lite version of Angry Birds with 15 levels is a cute introduction to the game that rewards the downloader for the trial by providing a few hours of entertainment. Sound is used throughout to influence the player. The play control is simple, which hides some complexity that lets the player think he's smart for figuring out the puzzle. Progress is incremental - you have to defeat a level before you go on, which rewards the user with frustration - this is good to a point, but they have to be well onto the hook before you pull them forward with frustration so the first few levels have to be fairly easy - but not pathetically so. Lessons: Hook 'em with a freebie that starts easy and gets harder fast, but doesn't turn impossible. The global competitiveness thing with top scores is trite. It's overdone. Avoid it.
The game is a moral play and the player is cast as the good guy destroying the evil pigs that steal the eggs. Even my 2 year old grandson gets this. Every world starts with a cartoon video that tells a story, each level starts with an intro that builds suspense. Do pigs really steal eggs? No. But that's the premise built by the opening animation that we consent to when we play the game. Idling is nefarious pig grunting to encourage play, and play includes enthusiastic bird charging sounds. It starts easy, with one star for each level, but is very difficult at three stars each level. Each time you beat a level you get an audio reward (birds crowing and a little instrumental piece) - and a trumpet for a new high score for the level. And when you don't beat it, a punishment - pigs laughing and grunting. You can get in and out very quickly and without too much loss (you can try a level in 30 seconds or so). Quicker is better. For the cheaters there are YouTube walkthroughs. It has no ads. This is the beta they used to get people into the game and its main screen includes a link to the market where you can buy the full version now that there is one. Lessons: Tell a story. Work the user emotionally with audio, give a lot of entertainment in the beta and it'll go viral and get you lots of beta testers and the feedback you need to perfect your game. It wouldn't kill you to post the first few YouTube walkthroughs for the cheaters yourself under a nym. Cheaters think they're clever for resourcing YouTube, and they're only hurting themselves. Reward them even for just running the app, with a happy greeting. Cast the player as the good guy in a moral play.
It's a great intro to the ad-supported full version. In fact, it's such a good intro that they've now a non-beta "seasons" freebie game that has more levels that is ad supported, that gets updated every major holiday with even more levels. Lessons: free spinoffs amplify the viral nature of the freebie and can be a good little earner all by itself. Save this for after the game itself is profitable.
For the full version that's ad-supported there are far more levels of course, and more all the time. Naturally there would be, or your customers would stop viewing ads when they completed the game. The full, no-ad version isn't supported on my phone yet (Android) and I suspect that's because they're making so much money on the ads. Lessons: if the ad-based game goes viral you can hire some cheap level designers to generate more content as time goes on - and you should to keep the money rolling in. And that pays for improving the value of the for-pay game as well.
The for-pay game includes an additional cheat: the Mighty Eagle, that you have to buy in-game to use. I don't get this option on Android yet I don't think, not that I'm the cheating kind. In-game purchases are the sort of thing you probably shouldn't think about right off. But the for-pay game is ridiculously cheap: 99c on iOS. That makes it so cheap that people don't even think about buying it, and d
Help stamp out iliturcy.
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
Google's motto is "Do no evil", but I wonder if they think they're not responsible for evil if it spreads because they do northing.
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
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?
Google lets you install anything you want. There is a user setting to ensure that you are only installing "official" apps
Are you referring to the Settings > Applications > Unknown sources checkbox or to Android Debug Bridge? If the former, then AT&T leaves that checkbox at the "official apps only" setting and hides it from the user. If the latter, then Google requires device makers to leave the ADB backdoor open, but AT&T makes one register as a company in order to download the drivers to use ADB.
As a business, setting up a public marketplace is about the marketplace, not about the policing. Policing is secondary -- way secondary. There's zero profit in policing the marketplace for Google. There's simply no money to be made. None, until it becomes so rampant that developers like you stop using the marketplace as a result.
There is lots of money to be made in policing the market. Apple polices the its own App Store and it is much more successful than Google's.
Developers want a market so that makes their app easily discovered and their copyright will be protected. If they don't get this, they will focus more resources on iPhone development.
Customers want high quality apps without worrying about filtering through spam and malware. If they don't like the experience, they will buy an iPhone.
The only people who benefit from Google's hands off approach are spammers and criminals. Apple's approach maybe overreaching, but it benefits high quality developers and that is where they will flock until Google gets it's act together.
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.