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How my school rejected an app made for students

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Re: How my school rejected an app made for students

#41

Post by sxtxixtxcxh »

Alupis wrote: post #36
jeremycw wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel it's not as cut and dry as you are trying to make it seem. Imagine if this were a 3rd party Facebook client that stripped out the ads, I bet Facebook would sue you. Just last year there was the legal battle between Padmapper and Craigslist. The case got thrown out [0] but only after Padmapper did some sneaky stuff so that it wasn't scraping craigslist directly. Also because craigslist didn't own full copyright…

The OP didn't build the app to subvert the school's revenue model. That's the difference.

but it is most certainly subverting the school's technical partner's revenue model.

Re: How my school rejected an app made for students

#42

Post by Alupis »

pistle wrote: post #38
Alupis wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry but I strongly believe you are incorrect. I could make a paid HN aggregator... legally. So long as I provided proper attribution. The OP provided attribution. The OP never claimed the data was his. The entire purpose was to aggregate the schools data into an easily accessible format for students. Cultural norms or not, the OP violated no laws. It's pretty plain and simple. Yes, the school could play games a…

You can believe to any degree you like, but there would be no concern about "fair use" in the copyright law lexicon if it only took "proper attribution" to re-purpose others' content for commercial or non-commercial use. The content of the school's site is quite likely copyrighted and they can control the form and location of copies of their content/data. Try this... Play an artist's song, in its entirety, on a radio…

We may be arguing apples and oranges here.

The OP did not subvert anyone's revenue model.

Simply aggregating data is not violating any copyright laws nor protections. If so... most news sites would be in serious trouble. The OP was simply aggregating data into an easily accessible format for students.

The original creator retains copyright, but they can't prevent someone from linking to nor providing access to publicly accessibly information. If they truly want nobody to have access in this manor, they would have to block public access or restrict it in some form.

To use your book example. If the copyright holder of a new book posted the text in full on their website with no restrictions or payment necessary, and I reposted that text, provided attribution and a method to access the original content, then I would not be in violation of any law.

Re: How my school rejected an app made for students

#43

Post by Alupis »

sxtxixtxcxh wrote: post #41
Alupis wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The OP didn't build the app to subvert the school's revenue model. That's the difference.

but it is most certainly subverting the school's technical partner's revenue model.

I don't think I need to state this is irrelevant.

If the school's technical partner was threatened by this app, they could bring suit... not the school.

Re: How my school rejected an app made for students

#45

Post by megablast »

Alupis wrote: post #14
drchiu wrote: post #10

To the OP, I feel for you. Your app made someone over at the IT dept feel inadequate. Remember, some older IT person is trying to protect their job, no matter how crappy they're doing it. Your app, as you had mentioned, was much better than the one that they made. This, unfortunately, is the way the world is. Think about patent trolls, incumbents suing start ups that threaten to shake up the industry, etc. The way th…

I don't know where you live, but here in the US, you violated no copyright laws (or any laws or ethical clauses for the matter) by simply providing access to pre-existing works, ie. the schools website data. If the school's website is publicly accessibly, as-in anyone can find it online, then it's public information and you can use it at your will so long as you state where the information came from (ie. not your ori…

He is charging for the app, of course he is violating copyright laws.

Re: How my school rejected an app made for students

#46

Post by sxtxixtxcxh »

Alupis wrote: post #43
sxtxixtxcxh wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but it is most certainly subverting the school's technical partner's revenue model.

I don't think I need to state this is irrelevant. If the school's technical partner was threatened by this app, they could bring suit... not the school.

really? you honestly don't see how a school allowing their students to sell their technical partner's (not public[1]) content is relevant?

[1]: pre-emptive reply: no, it's not public, half the article is talking about how he's circumventing their authentication system. this is NOTHING like a news aggregator.

Re: How my school rejected an app made for students

#47

Post by Alupis »

sxtxixtxcxh wrote: post #46
Alupis wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think I need to state this is irrelevant. If the school's technical partner was threatened by this app, they could bring suit... not the school.

really? you honestly don't see how a school allowing their students to sell their technical partner's (not public[1]) content is relevant? [1]: pre-emptive reply: no, it's not public, half the article is talking about how he's circumventing their authentication system. this is NOTHING like a news aggregator.

You must be reading a different article. The OP does not circumvent authentication in any way. The OP caches it... that's it. And, that was only for some of the data, not the entire app.

So yes, his app is mostly like a news aggregator.

Re: How my school rejected an app made for students

#48

Post by xerophtye »

dethstar wrote: post #6

"This goes to show that as much as schools attempt to mask the image of a great environment for students to thrive, learn enterpreneurism and so on (mine does that a lot), they’re traditionalists to the point that it doesn’t make any sense. What do they have to lose with my app? How is that classification as copyright infringement even pertinent? They apparently just must have control of anything that has anything to…

Well at least my college let almost all ed tech come from the students. From the website, to the student portal etc. The only thing we didn't get to manage was the Teacher's suite (grading, attendance etc). And that was only for secuirty purposes. But we got to connect to it and display in our portal

Re: How my school rejected an app made for students

#49

Post by xerophtye »

pistle wrote: post #37
theiostream wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their app's feature set consists of contact information, maps to the school, a gallery of static photos about the school, and webviews that display their website's content directly. It doesn't even comprise grades, memos and so on, which is what my product's focus is. That's why I don't think that's the reason.

So, you requested written permission... didn't get it... charged for your app... and now they are just a bunch of luddite meanies turning you into an evil villain instead of fawning all over you? You are serving as a proxy for credentials into a system where the school is legally liable to protect the privacy of the students, families, and staff. Yeah. You get shut down NOW. It doesn't matter where your code is or ho…

I think there are tons of valid reasons why the app should be shutdown. The OP mentions some of them as well. What he finds ridiculous is that of all the things the school could object to, they complained about "copyright infringement" , saying that you're displaying our data to the people who it is meant for, who are authorized to view it.

Re: How my school rejected an app made for students

#50

Post by sxtxixtxcxh »

Alupis wrote: post #47
sxtxixtxcxh wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

really? you honestly don't see how a school allowing their students to sell their technical partner's (not public[1]) content is relevant? [1]: pre-emptive reply: no, it's not public, half the article is talking about how he's circumventing their authentication system. this is NOTHING like a news aggregator.

You must be reading a different article. The OP does not circumvent authentication in any way. The OP caches it... that's it. And, that was only for some of the data, not the entire app. So yes, his app is mostly like a news aggregator.

since we've established the data is not public, and is in fact restricted and controlled, how is it anything "mostly like" hacker news? hacker news does not store your NYtimes username and password, scrape the NYTimes site for an auth token, make a login request on your behalf to copy that article and display it, in full text stripping out the NYTimes attribution and branding, on hacker news.

what would happen if they did is a thought experiment i'll leave up to you.

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