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Vanced Discontinuation

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Re: Vanced Discontinuation

#81

Post by Zak »

squarefoot wrote: post #9

> Vanced is discontinued for "legal reasons" as vanced was infringing the logo and branding of the original YouTube app as the logo resembles the original logo in a similar way and was used without taking prior permission from Google for using the branding. Huh?!? That was the only reason behind the C&D letter and they killed the product when a simple logo redesign could have solved the issue? Or the C&D letter would…

Vanced is a modified version of the official Youtube app. I'm not a lawyer, but I'm pretty sure it's a copyright violation to distribute modified versions of someone else's software without their permission.

What's probably not illegal to distribute is the source code for the tools they used to generate those modified Youtube apps, so I'm a bit surprised by how adamantly they're refusing to do so in this post.

Re: Vanced Discontinuation

#82

Post by 8note »

saurik wrote: post #54
squarefoot wrote: post #9

> Vanced is discontinued for "legal reasons" as vanced was infringing the logo and branding of the original YouTube app as the logo resembles the original logo in a similar way and was used without taking prior permission from Google for using the branding. Huh?!? That was the only reason behind the C&D letter and they killed the product when a simple logo redesign could have solved the issue? Or the C&D letter would…

I'm the developer of Cydia, an alternative to the App Store for jailbroken iOS devices, a software ecosystem which was filled with both modifications to existing clients and complete re-implementations of clients, and this is definitely the #1 mistake that new developers would make (much to my annoyance, as it just seems so OBVIOUS of a thing to not do, but people really are idiots): you need to be extremely careful…

As a consumer, I'd only think of them as being Vanced, and also mostly forget their name

Re: Vanced Discontinuation

#83

Post by kapildev »

grishka wrote: post #80
post_break wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone else could make a better version of it. But if I had to guess, they are using some internal tools or hacks to make it work the way it does.

Top-secret internal tools like jadx, apktool, the Android SDK, and a text editor? This is all I used to build my patched version of Instagram.

1.How many hours did it take you to make the patched versions?

2. If you wanted to open source how you patched Instagram, how would you avoid lawsuit?

Re: Vanced Discontinuation

#84

Post by 8note »

netsharc wrote: post #40
DocG wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems legit. I think they think it's a warning shot, they are now on Google's list. This letter is a "nice" way of saying - guys well you are now on our list and shut down or well force you to shut down. Smart play, rather end on a high note, without months and months of C&Do letters and axety and stress. Learn and move on.

It could be that Google says they're infringing on the logo design, and Google demanded that they stop distributing the app due to this. "We were also asked to remove all links for the distribution of any vanced apps that led to the decision of discontinuation." Whatever the second half of that sentence may mean in plain English, the whole article is hard to parse.

Logos are easy to change though

Re: Vanced Discontinuation

#85

Post by 8note »

smoldesu wrote: post #76
saurik wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm the developer of Cydia, an alternative to the App Store for jailbroken iOS devices, a software ecosystem which was filled with both modifications to existing clients and complete re-implementations of clients, and this is definitely the #1 mistake that new developers would make (much to my annoyance, as it just seems so OBVIOUS of a thing to not do, but people really are idiots): you need to be extremely careful…

A little off-topic, but it's really cool to see that you're still floating around here. One of my first "hacker" moments was Jailbreaking a used first-gen iPod I bought off Craigslist in 5th grade. I remember seeing your name on a number of things, and people always mentioned you on forums/IRC when I had questions. Never got around to saying hello, but I suppose it's better late than never to say 'thank you' for expa…

its interesting to think of what future benefits youtube gets as a company by encouraging said hackers as possible future employees

saud justification seems much more important to the US government though

Re: Vanced Discontinuation

#86

Post by grishka »

kapildev wrote: post #83
grishka wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Top-secret internal tools like jadx, apktool, the Android SDK, and a text editor? This is all I used to build my patched version of Instagram.

1.How many hours did it take you to make the patched versions? 2. If you wanted to open source how you patched Instagram, how would you avoid lawsuit?

1. I didn't count, but probably less than 24

2. I don't keep my sources closed, I did publish them on xda-developers[1], but they've changed things around a lot since then and the links in my post broke. I need to reupload them somewhere. I avoid lawsuits by not being related to the US in any way whatsoever. And either way I don't think patching someone else's code is illegal, especially since no DRM is circumvented in the process. Making "get an official apk first" the first step, instead of distributing decompiled smali files, probably also helps.

[1] https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/app-mod-4-4-instagram-wit...

Re: Vanced Discontinuation

#87

Post by rryan »

> The main source of income for youtube isn't ads. YouTube revolves around the merchandise and YouTube Premium subscriptions.

> If you are talking about creators who are not earning money for using vanced, you should know they won't make millions out of those ads.

... right. Feel free to keep telling yourselves that.

Re: Vanced Discontinuation

#88

Post by rryan »

ZephyrBlu wrote: post #34
H8crilA wrote: post #2

> The main source of income for youtube isn't ads. YouTube revolves around the merchandise and YouTube Premium subscriptions. Lol. You can open Alphabet's 10-Q or 10-K and find out in a matter of seconds how untrue this is. Reminds me of the famous "Senator, we run ads " by Zuckerberg.

They're referring to creators, not the platform. For creators it's absolutely true that merch brings in more revenue than ads, and I assume by premium subscriptions they mean channel membership. I also assume English isn't the author's native language because there are some small grammatical and structural quirks like this platform vs creators thing. It's very readable though!

That makes no sense. Why is "YouTube Premium" capitalized?

Re: Vanced Discontinuation

#89

Post by ZephyrBlu »

rryan wrote: post #88
ZephyrBlu wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're referring to creators, not the platform. For creators it's absolutely true that merch brings in more revenue than ads, and I assume by premium subscriptions they mean channel membership. I also assume English isn't the author's native language because there are some small grammatical and structural quirks like this platform vs creators thing. It's very readable though!

That makes no sense. Why is "YouTube Premium" capitalized?

YouTube Premium is an actual product, but as far as I'm aware it doesn't generate much revenue for creators which I why I assumed they meant channel membership.

https://www.youtube.com/premium

Re: Vanced Discontinuation

#90

Post by jeroenhd »

Zak wrote: post #81
squarefoot wrote: post #9

> Vanced is discontinued for "legal reasons" as vanced was infringing the logo and branding of the original YouTube app as the logo resembles the original logo in a similar way and was used without taking prior permission from Google for using the branding. Huh?!? That was the only reason behind the C&D letter and they killed the product when a simple logo redesign could have solved the issue? Or the C&D letter would…

Vanced is a modified version of the official Youtube app. I'm not a lawyer, but I'm pretty sure it's a copyright violation to distribute modified versions of someone else's software without their permission. What's probably not illegal to distribute is the source code for the tools they used to generate those modified Youtube apps, so I'm a bit surprised by how adamantly they're refusing to do so in this post.

The author probably knows that Google could sue the ever living hell out of them for copyright and trademark violations, or maybe even go so far as to try to extract "lost revenue" from skipped ads by arguing that the trademark violation might have tricked people into thinking the app was official and therefore unknowingly deprived Google of ads.

I'm guessing the C&D was followed by a "we won't sue you if you do the following" proposal, which includes not releasing the source code for their tweaks.

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