[PeterisP]

"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.

[tim333]

Aside from the legal and policy issues, as a user this stuff can be pretty annoying. You just want say the Facebook app and you have to wade through half a dozen spam apps saying Facebook in their name before you get to the real one. With facebook it's fairly obvious but if you are trying to download some app you don't know well it's easy to get a bogus one by mistake.

[Fuxy]

The Description of the app clearly states that the app is not actually affiliated in any way with the original content creator.

So it's not really impersonation is it?

Plus they can always just request nicely for it to be removed if their really that bothered by it.

What is with this need of taking drastic measures for something as simple as this. Whatever happened to talking to the developer and sorting it out like gentlemen.

[dpark]

They did request for it to be removed. They sent Google the request, which is what I would do, because dealing with some spammy app developer isn't worth my time. And frankly, given how this guy doesn't admit to wrongdoing or even breaking the rules, I don't buy that he'd be particularly responsive. I expect I'd get a defensive and argumentative email in response.

[Fuxy]

This is why we can't have nice things you just assume he's not going to comply but you don't even make an attempt to resolve the issue in a gentlemanly fashion.

Why? Because you can't be bothered to.

You would rather give him a black mark on his account with the knowledge that only 3 in his life time would get him permanently banned.

[dpark]

The BBC should not be expected to reach our to every spammy app developer personally to politely ask that their infringing app be removed. Not only would this be more costly for them than interacting directly with Google, it would likely get some IP enforcement employees there fired when someone higher up noticed that apps were not being taken down promptly.

I don't like that Google banned this guy from Google wallet and from buying apps, but I have no issue with them banning him from publishing new apps. He blatantly violated trademarks repeatedly, and he published low-quality apps that by his own admission were identical except for an ID change, and provided no functionality aside from being a YouTube wrapper. He's a spammer.

[mootothemax]

This is why we can't have nice things you just assume he's not going to comply but you don't even make an attempt to resolve the issue in a gentlemanly fashion.

Why? Because you can't be bothered to

Yes, because it's a waste of time and resources.

One developer, one email conversation, fine, not the largest time investment.

What about all of the other developers in the world?

Especially if this became a recognised method of gaining work?

Suddenly you need full-time staff dedicated to the non-core-business activity of writing "gentlemanly" emails.

It's unworkable.

[GFischer]

Edit: wrong thread.

I would gladly pay for Google support, and I've stated as much in the past.

I have paid for Microsoft support, and it was a great experience. Microsoft is (or was) as big or bigger than Google, and used by a significant fraction of the population.

So, it can be done. Google doesn't want to do it.

[dpark]

Did you reply to the wrong comment? The discussion here is about whether the content owner should make a polite request to the creator of an infringing app rather than filing a takedown notice with Google. Google's lack of support is legendary, but not relevant.

[PeterisP]

Gentlemanly fashion would involve the guilty party to invest all the effort in resolving the situation and apologize to everyone involved, instead of demanding others to educate him and point out how exactly to improve his wrongdoings.

Noone is really entitled to free handholding from others in the first place, and doing harmful stuff (such as spamming the appmarket with those fake apps) doesn't offer any extra rights, it can only offer extra duties.

It would be harsh to punish someone after the first offense, but if someone is showing both with his words (the "clarification" sent to google) and actions (the other two strikes) that he perceives those actions as socially acceptable, then there's no duty for anyone to reeducate him when just putting him on lifetime ignorelist achieves the required result (protecting appstore customers from such publishers) much cheaper, faster and better.

[rmrfrmrf]

Even worse: he'd offer to sell you the app for $50,000!