Banned for Life • Hacker News Board

Re: Banned for Life

#81

Post by PeterisP » Mon, Jul 28, 2014, 1:04 PM UTC

Fuxy wrote: post #70

ascendantlogic wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

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 i…

"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.

Re: Banned for Life

#82

Post by Shivetya » Mon, Jul 28, 2014, 1:05 PM UTC

Fuxy wrote: post #70

ascendantlogic wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

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 i…

Packaging another person's content should result in an immediate take down of an app. A content owner should not have to opt out of other people using their material, that is akin to telling people you can use someone's stuff until they catch you. I put along the lines of, would you let people use your house just because the door was open? Take your car? It is content/stuff you own. Why do some many discount digital content in value?

In some ways the www is still the wild wild west, anything goes until they come looking for you. Looking for gold on another person's land and such.

Re: Banned for Life

#83

Post by hellbreakslose » Mon, Jul 28, 2014, 1:06 PM UTC

chrisBob wrote: post #71

The author should also do a quick search (perhaps with bing, DuckDuckGo, or Yahoo) on PayPal accounts being blocked. He recommends this as the safe option, trusted option, but I have seen more PayPal banned for life rants than google ones. With PayPal you can loose your account just because your customers are using stolen cards. The lesson should be that basing a business on any single external resource could be an i…

paypal shut off my account, cause 9 of the users that purchased my product wanted a refund claiming it wasn't their purchase... I had over 10.000 purchases at that time...

I provided proof that the customers received the product and there is no policy of refund in virtual products as well, and paypal never refunded those customers. But paypal saw me as a liability that they couldn't take... Cause they couldnt actually manage their own customers...

Re: Banned for Life

#84

Post by hoektoe » Mon, Jul 28, 2014, 1:07 PM UTC

jamesbrownuhh wrote: post #59

Keyframe wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Judging by the names of the apps/wrappers (if they were same in the store) from here 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.

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.

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

Re: Banned for Life

#85

Post by smeyer » Mon, Jul 28, 2014, 1:08 PM UTC

VLM wrote: post #26

"Google could have, and still could block my gmail" They have a different revenue generation business model for gmail. My son's account was blocked, couldn't figure out why, and they wouldn't say. I suspect some kind of data mining thing where watching more than 5000 blitzwinger videos on youtube "proves" you're a kid or a teen. He does like his video games... He falls into that gap between being old enough to have a…

Do you really think Gmail's business email is collecting arbitrary one-time fees of 50 cents on minors' accounts? Is this really any more than a rounding error compared to advertising revenue, charging for extra space, and providing email services to companies and schools? The whole $0.50 thing may be a scummy tactic, but it really doesn't seem to be their business model.

Re: Banned for Life

#86

Post by sergiosgc » Mon, Jul 28, 2014, 1:08 PM UTC

_petronius wrote: post #2

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…

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.

Re: Banned for Life

#87

Post by moron4hire » Mon, Jul 28, 2014, 1:08 PM UTC

VLM wrote: post #26

"Google could have, and still could block my gmail" They have a different revenue generation business model for gmail. My son's account was blocked, couldn't figure out why, and they wouldn't say. I suspect some kind of data mining thing where watching more than 5000 blitzwinger videos on youtube "proves" you're a kid or a teen. He does like his video games... He falls into that gap between being old enough to have a…

This is ludicrous. Do you have any evidence to back up any of this?

Re: Banned for Life

#88

Post by X-Istence » Mon, Jul 28, 2014, 1:10 PM UTC

Apple is banned in the household, because walled garden, and yet he doesn't see the Google Play Store as a walled garden... oh boy, this guy is going to go far.

Re: Banned for Life

#89

Post by icebraining » Mon, Jul 28, 2014, 1:10 PM UTC

hawleyal wrote: post #75

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #45

> Anyone using my simplistic beta quality app would know instantly that this is not “official” A silly assumption that both generalizes the audience and is ignorant of copyright laws, imo. Not a valid argument in a court situation either. I could make the crappiest Geocities site out there, but as soon as I put a Google logo somewhere, people may assume it is an official Google site or affiliated with it. > One of my…

Almost like how Youtube ignores copyright and trademark laws.

Except they don't, and in fact have built a state-of-the-art video and audio recognition system to deal with infringement[1], and of course respond to DMCA takedown requests.

There's plenty of infringement on YouTube, of course, but that's inevitable for any platform where anonymous users can submit media files.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouTube#Content_ID

Re: Banned for Life

#90

Post by Fuxy » Mon, Jul 28, 2014, 1:10 PM UTC

Shivetya wrote: post #82

Fuxy wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

Packaging another person's content should result in an immediate take down of an app. A content owner should not have to opt out of other people using their material, that is akin to telling people you can use someone's stuff until they catch you. I put along the lines of, would you let people use your house just because the door was open? Take your car? It is content/stuff you own. Why do some many discount digital…

How about a bit of text near your content warning me that I'm not allowed to use your stuff regardless of my intentions be it a free fan app that will actually spread your content further or whatever.

That would be helpful and remove all the confusion.

Edit: We don't all live in the US so don't assume your laws apply to everyone lawyer-san. Even if something equivalent did exist in every other country it still doesn't make it sane. We all know copyright is broken in many ways. The default should be open like it originally used to be.