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Software Apple

Fake Princesses, Pulled Teeth, and a Whole Lot of IP Infringement (inputmag.com) 104

Apple says it goes out of its way to protect the safety and security of its young users. The App Store of 2019 tells a different story. Laura June, writing for InputMag: One of the most insidious forms of abuse on modern content platforms is the way unknown creators can co-opt well-known characters. Off-brand Spider-Man and fake Elsa and Anna pop up all over YouTube. I discovered this the hard way two years ago, when I found my daughter watching fake Peppa Pig videos on YouTube, many of them horrific and violent, and preying on the very young (Peppa Pig is a very popular television show for preschoolers). But YouTube, unlike Apple's App Store, is a platform where pretty much anyone can upload anything. And Google, which owns YouTube, doesn't peacock on stage like Tim Cook does, looking down his nose at Facebook and other companies for their lax attitudes on user safety. Given Apple's reputation, it was with some surprise that I found myself in a very similar position several weeks ago, while browsing Apple's App Store for games for my nearly 6-year-old daughter.

[...] Keep in mind, I was not looking for fakes. I fully expected to find only official apps for these company's characters. I didn't expect to find Paw Puppy Smashy Patrol in the store above the official Nickelodeon app PAW Patrol Pup Rescue Pack. Some apps boldly use the official Disney characters in their titles, literally advertising themselves with the copyrighted, intellectual property of a currently airing Disney show. But even the ones that aren't using Disney names in their titles depict characters that look nearly identical to Vampirina, Elsa and Anna, Sofia the First, and so on. The quality of the design varies, but some of them really do feature characters who look exactly like the ones you've come to know and trust (even if they've not-so-cleverly disguised themselves with names like Paw Puppy Smashy Patrol and Ice Queen Adventure). The apps are designed to fool you; fooling you is the goal. They're designed to make you think, "Oh right, Disney! We love Disney, we trust Disney. Let me download that for you, kid!"

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Fake Princesses, Pulled Teeth, and a Whole Lot of IP Infringement

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  • by Anonymous Coward

    "And Alphabet, which owns YouTube, doesn't peacock on stage like Tim Cook does"

    FTFY

  • The fact is that these companies need to hand approve (by a human) all the stuff they serve up. They don't want to, because it would cost a lot of money to do it. And lets cue all the apologists who say "that isn't possible. there is too much stuff". Well, too bad. It is possible, it just changes your business model. You might need to hire 100,000 people to do it, because AI methods don't work, but these companies are making hundreds of billions in profit. They can afford it. Eventually they will be sued an

    • The fact is that these companies need to hand approve (by a human) all the stuff they serve up.

      Apple does do that already. A human is looking at every app approved.

      They may not be taking a long look at it, and they are also relying on some automated scanning of the code - but real humans are looking at apps.

      There are a number of steps where an app owner has to specifically state they have authorization to provide assets used in an app, like copyrighted images - I have seen app submissions rejected because

      • No they aren't. As usual you are taking what corporations say to be the truth. Why do people just keep parroting their favorite corporate lines? Very strange. Obviously they aren't hand approving apps, because there are a lot of infringing apps in the store. Go take a look yourself.

        • There is no "Truth" anymore, haven't you heard? Everyone is free to believe whatever they like. My ignorance is the same as your knowledge, just another point of view. What matters is not some arbitrary "Truth" but how often, and how loudly something is said. And whether or not it was said by someone in your tribe. It's "True" if your tribe says it is true.

        • No they aren't. As usual you are taking what corporations say to be the truth.

          My spouse has an app business, and when she submits a new app, she gets interaction from a real human. Every time.

          Furthermore, if her app is rejected, she often resubmits it with no changes at all. It is then reviewed by a different human, and approved. It is not plausible that a machine would produce such sloppy and inconsistent results.

          Obviously they aren't hand approving apps, because there are a lot of infringing apps in the store.

          Oh, so the process isn't perfect, therefore no human can possibly be involved. Whatever.

          Look, an automatic process to match a list of trademarks with a list of companie

          • It is not plausible that a machine would produce such sloppy and inconsistent results.

            Optimist.

            Wildly, deluded, disconnected from reality optimist.

    • They'll keep trying to divert the pressure to the people uploading the videos, they already are sanitizing all the content for the advertiser overlords.
      • Yes...Youtube has been doing this a lot lately. That is fine too, but Youtube needs to review their videos by hand. Yes, I know: they can't possibly do it because there is too much content, yada yada.

    • A smart company will have other ways of assessing risks.

      Let's assume I am a company like Apple running something like the App Store and, like Apple, I have and want to keep a reputation for being "safe" for my users.

      If a big company with a lot to lose by doing it wrong uploads an item to my App Store, I'm probably going to do no more than 1) authenticate the uploader, 2) do some very cursory automatic analysis to make sure the uploader didn't do anything obviously wrong/boneheaded, and maybe 3) on a random

      • by tepples ( 727027 )

        How would you go about assessing whether someone is "a developer with a good personal reputation"? Does offering the application's source code under a free software license, as all apps on F-Droid do, boost reputation any in your formula?

        • by davidwr ( 791652 )

          How would you go about assessing whether someone is "a developer with a good personal reputation."

          The specifics of assessing a "personal reputation" are something that each large company would need to decide, but philosophical things like "makes source code available as FOSS" seem mostly or completely irrelevant.

          Here are two things to consider:

          * The whole point of the initial and ongoing assessments is to decide how much time and effort needs to be spent examining a developer's submissions.

          * Very few developers will have a "personal reputation" that is worth my time to look at. That is, very few will h

    • by jeff4747 ( 256583 ) on Monday December 16, 2019 @02:22PM (#59525210)

      The fact is that these companies need to hand approve (by a human) all the stuff they serve up.

      There are such systems, but they're much more limited than the regular one.

      For example, YouTube Kids only serves videos that have been watched and approved by a human....but because of that there's far less content than regular YouTube....but has the advantage of not running into Elsagate crap.

    • by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday December 16, 2019 @02:40PM (#59525282)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Here's the deal: parents may want to take advantage of a given medium, but if that medium is engaging and enabling predatory tactics with its apps then the parent is left with the choice of wading through a lot of time and effort to screen content, or the parent can choose to ditch the medium all together in favor of other offerings which are easier to monitor and don't engage in predatory behavior. So: a parent's responsibility to monitor what their child engages with does not exclude the app store from e
      • No it's the parents job to sacrifice and make time to

        That statement can be applied to everything we have automated or replaced in the past 100 years which has resulted in us getting ever more advanced as a species. You're prescribing solutions not prescribing results. It is absolutely not the parents job to do everything before their child and protect them from the world of ills. A large portion of everything you do as a parent is offloaded on technology and on regulation.

      • it's the parents job to sacrifice and make time to preview what their children see, download it and presented to their children for offline viewing and interaction.

        You're not a parent are you? Did your parents do this for you? Or did they let you watch TV? Were you allowed to walk around your neighbourhood interacting with the world, or were they always with you, making sure you didn't talk to anyone who might swear or expose you to unsanctioned ideas?

        Fact is - there is a middle ground you can walk between locking your bubble wrapped child in a padded room & allowing them to see or do whatever they like. Curated TV / streaming is part of that middle ground.

  • Rule #1 (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Pikoro ( 844299 ) <{hs.tini} {ta} {tini}> on Monday December 16, 2019 @12:57PM (#59524762) Homepage Journal

    Don't let tablets and phones be your babysitters.

    • Re:Rule #1 (Score:5, Insightful)

      by barcarolle ( 581253 ) on Monday December 16, 2019 @01:01PM (#59524776)
      This. Ms. June s a bit off when she suggests the aim is to mislead parents into believing these are real apps. The goal is to get the children themselves to download the apps, because their parents gave them a smartphone without any parental limitations and unsupervised app-store-access to do whatever they want with.
      • How would a parent know the difference between "Paw Puppy Smashy Patrol" vs. "PAW Patrol Pup Rescue Pack"? One is an "official" app and one isn't. Also, the FIRST one (the fake one) appears first in the list. So many "libertarians" (a.k.a suburban white guys) here that obviously don't have children or life experience.

        • Re:Rule #1 (Score:5, Insightful)

          by sinij ( 911942 ) on Monday December 16, 2019 @01:20PM (#59524844)

          How would a parent know the difference between "Paw Puppy Smashy Patrol" vs. "PAW Patrol Pup Rescue Pack"?

          The same way parents suppose to know the difference between "Debbie Does Dallas" and "Dora the Explorer" - you screen content you show to your kids. Instead, these people want to ban all adult content so it doesn't exist, so they don't have to be responsible parents.

          Maybe parenting is not for them?

          • Oh shut up. How would a PARENT KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN "Paw Puppy Smashy Patrol" vs. "PAW Patrol Pup Rescue Pack"? They have the same name and same icons and preview screenshots. Debbie does Dallas is a porno and Dora the Explorer is not. Debbie does Dallas doesn't attempt to look like Dora the Explorer. "Libertarians" need to get out of their basement.

            • by sinij ( 911942 ) on Monday December 16, 2019 @01:32PM (#59524896)

              Oh shut up. How would a PARENT KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN "Paw Puppy Smashy Patrol" vs. "PAW Patrol Pup Rescue Pack"?

              You could try watching a short sample. You could also try Googling. You could also try kids-only filters.

              The only reason you know the difference between "Debbie Does Dallas" and "Dora the Explorer" is that you watched some or all of both - you should have done the same with Paw Patrol. Nothing in the title of "Debbie Does Dallas" suggests it is a porno.

              • Both those apps show up with kids-only filters. The FAKE ONE SHOWS UP FIRST. The point is WHY DOES APPLE EVEN ALLOW IT TO HAPPEN? For what reason? Maximum corporate profits. And no, I never have seen either Dora or Debbie. I know the difference though because one shows a girl sucking cock on the cover and one doesn't.

                • by sinij ( 911942 )

                  Both those apps show up with kids-only filters.

                  Are you saying that apps downloaded with kids-only filter contains age-inappropriate content in the App Store? If so, have you reported it to Apple and seen them not doing anything about it?

                  • Are you saying that apps downloaded with kids-only filter contains age-inappropriate content in the App Store? If so, have you reported it to Apple and seen them not doing anything about it?

                    Ask yourself this: One app has obvious rip-offs of Disney copyright characters; another app has questionably age-inappropriate material. Which one of these is unambiguously illegal? Which one has a well-funded, notoriously litigious party interested in preventing it? Which one is more clearly a potentially expensive problem?

                    Now, if that one is repeatedly showing up, what are the odds the other one is going to get appropriately screened?

                  • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

                    Yes and yes. You download YouTube Kids, which is billed as a kid friendly app. It shows these videos. Complaints submitted and ignored because YouTube is too important for Apple to ban.

                • Both those apps show up with kids-only filters. The FAKE ONE SHOWS UP FIRST. The point is WHY DOES APPLE EVEN ALLOW IT TO HAPPEN? For what reason? Maximum corporate profits.

                  Oh, please!

                  Why would Apple, who has been trying to make a name for itself and its App Store as a "safe place" be interested in trashing all that had work for a few pennies?

                  Think before you post.

                  • by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

                    Both those apps show up with kids-only filters. The FAKE ONE SHOWS UP FIRST. The point is WHY DOES APPLE EVEN ALLOW IT TO HAPPEN? For what reason? Maximum corporate profits.

                    Oh, please!

                    Why would Apple, who has been trying to make a name for itself and its App Store as a "safe place" be interested in trashing all that had work for a few pennies?

                    Think before you post.

                    First, Apple only polices content. They don't police copyright. So if a copycat game ranks higher with use of copyrighted content, then either th

              • The name "Dora the Explorer" could very easily be the title of some low rent porno film. Moral: Watch something before deciding if your kid should be watching it.
            • Oh shut up. How would a PARENT KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN "Paw Puppy Smashy Patrol" vs. "PAW Patrol Pup Rescue Pack"? They have the same name and same icons and preview screenshots. Debbie does Dallas is a porno and Dora the Explorer is not. Debbie does Dallas doesn't attempt to look like Dora the Explorer. "Libertarians" need to get out of their basement.

              You assume that no parent would be able to tell the difference between a Real Paw Patrol App and the fake one? I think reviewing a little of the App's content would prove mighty illuminating.

          • Just imagine the confusion when Dora the Explorer Explores Dallas!
          • Your example would work better of Debbie was dressed exactly like Dora and all the advertising screenshots made it looks exactly like a Dora the Explorer game right up until you actually buy it and start playing then realize it's a cheap seventies porno. This is entirely not about abandoning adult content, where the hell did you get that notion? It's about apps that specifically prey off of children. No adult is watching or playing the crap we're talking about.
        • by Pikoro ( 844299 )

          Ahem, I have kids. And life experience. I taught my kids to read and go outside and play with their friends, like I did. They didn't get cell phones until high school. It's not as much trouble as everyone makes it out to be to just be responsible about the media your children consume without having to hover all the time. Talk to them. you might be surprised that they're not just little idiots until they magically hit 18.

          • What does that have to do with anything I said? I mean, I know you are parents who don't let their kids watch TV or eat candy or buy overvalued stocks or vote for Trump, etc. My question is "How would a parent know the difference between "Paw Puppy Smashy Patrol" vs. "PAW Patrol Pup Rescue Pack"? You wouldn't know. The apps are there meaning to mislead people. Why do the corporations allow this to happen? What you are talking about is something completely different.

            • I taught my kids to read and go outside and play with their friends, like I did. They didn't get cell phones until high school.

              My question is "How would a parent know the difference between "Paw Puppy Smashy Patrol" vs. "PAW Patrol Pup Rescue Pack"?

              The answer is you don't need to know the difference if you shield your child from video games until after the child's eighth year of school. By that point, the child is out of the target demographic of both PAW Patrol and its imitators.

            • Watch them yourself you lazy piece of shit, and stop whining all over the fucking internet that someone else isn't doing YOUR job. And if you can't do that, find someone who is willing to be a real parent to them instead of absentee best friend.
              • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

                Children's TV has been around since TV began. Programmes guaranteed by the channel to be suitable. Parents never previewed that material, not least because until the invention of the VCR there wasn't any practical way to do so.

            • Why do the corporations allow this to happen?

              Why do you allow parents to completely abdicate and contract-out their parental responsibilities to any outside entity?

            • by Pikoro ( 844299 )

              I was mostly addressing the "So many "libertarians" (a.k.a suburban white guys) here that obviously don't have children or life experience."

              It is precisely _because_ I have kids, and life experience, that I raised my children the way I did.

              I let my kids watch tv, and eat candy (in moderation). Not a Trump supporter by any means seeing as how I lived in Japan most of my adult life until fairly recently.
              Since they were around 8-ish I've also treated my kids like adults, albeit inexperienced ones, as far as r

          • Yes, you went the direction I did: since the phone app stores can't regulate their own content, I don't allow my child access to a phone's app store, period. The only phone game's he's allowed to play are under limited supervision. This does not change the fact that the phone stores continue to allow predatory content, and that there are other parents who feel that the burden of responsible behavior should be shared by more than just the parents.
        • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

          You mean Paw Puppy Smashy Patrol, from younes lamdoun? Sounds pretty legit. Not like PAW Patrol Pup Rescue Pack, from Nickelodeon.

          Anyway, policing counterfeits is the copyright owner's job. Policing content, regardless of whether it's "genunine" or not, is the parents'.

        • You had me up until the bigotry.
        • Same way we have to differentiate between "Paw Puppy" action figures and "PAW Patrol" action figures in a physical store.

          You have to research it, and examine the packaging/description information. The real app has a description that is pretty long, looks like a higher-quality app in the screenshots and uses English properly.

          Doesn't mean you can't ever buy the wrong thing, but that's parenting.

          • by Quirkz ( 1206400 )

            Can't tell you how many Go-Bots I got when I wanted Transformers.

            Well, I can. It was 4. But that was too many.

            Mostly it wasn't from the parents, but grandparents, aunts and uncles, etc., who got the idea second or third hand.

        • "How would a parent know the difference between "Paw Puppy Smashy Patrol" vs. "PAW Patrol Pup Rescue Pack" The very out of character name of the first should be a major clue that something isn't right. Don't parents know how to spot these things?
          • I posted with the assumption that the parents are already familiar with the original show. But the word "Smashy" should be an indication of something that is not safe for kids.
      • Exactly. The very fact that she looked at these apps and saw that something was off tells me that the system is working. It could be better, to be sure, but a child was not able to download these apps without a parent first screening them, which was the problem she encountered with YouTube.

    • by geekmux ( 1040042 ) on Monday December 16, 2019 @01:15PM (#59524826)

      Don't let tablets and phones be your babysitters.

      (10 minutes later, the parent looks up from their phone)

      "Huh? Did you say something?"

      It's not exactly a mystery as to how we got here, and why we're still here.

      • by sinij ( 911942 )
        Parenting sucks. It is a lot of hard work for very little and very delayed reward. It is like running marathons back to back, only you don't get to decide if you can rest for a bit in-between runs. It is not at all surprising that parents do irresponsible things when the pressure is up - it just not possible to be 100% all the time, for 16+ years.

        However, when the inevitable fail happens you should take responsibility - you have done the best you could and it wasn't enough. Instead, they externalize blame
        • You're not even guaranteed a reward. The way some parents treat their kids, they wont see them at all in between the period of time when they move out and when the kid wants to throw them into a nursing home two states over.
          • The only thing that Parents are guaranteed is that their children will look on them with derision, any concept of a guarantee beyond that is just crazy thinking

    • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

      And if you do, don't expect someone else to vet all the content for your kid. Certainly not if you don't specifically pay them to do so.

    • Its fine to let kids use tablets and phones - with limits. As a parent, I control the content on the device and there are time limits. My kids cannot just install whatever they want. There are times, short times, when the electronic babysitter is really handy. Too much of anything bad for you, use moderation.
  • First problem (Score:5, Insightful)

    by alvinrod ( 889928 ) on Monday December 16, 2019 @01:11PM (#59524814)

    They're designed to make you think, "Oh right, Disney! We love Disney, we trust Disney. Let me download that for you, kid!"

    Well there’s your first problem.

  • fake Elsa and Anna

    That's disgusting! I demand real Elsa and Anna!

    Only real royalty can satisfy Americans' craving for noble rulers, 200+ years after we rejected the Monarchy.

    (Hence the obsession with Diana, Harry, and relatives.)

  • This is just Corporate propaganda setting the stage for public acceptance of more draconian IP measures. Oh, the current laws and regulations aren't sufficient to PROTECT THE CHILDREN, says "concerned mom". Sure.

  • That means Google/Youtube needs to hire actual human beings to sit down and watch the cartoons to make sure they are legit and safe for kids. But of course, Google does not want to do that, but instead rely on "AI" and other garbage to cut costs.

      Boeing wanted to cheap out too. After so many deaths, and bad press, and nobody signing new contracts with them, they will be lucky to still exist a couple years from now.

    • That means Google/Youtube needs to hire actual human beings to sit down and watch the cartoons to make sure they are legit and safe for kids. But of course, Google does not want to do that, but instead rely on "AI" and other garbage to cut costs.

      The problem is that something, somewhere, has to give.

      Parents want a known-safe digital playground. Some are willing to pay for it, but most are not.

      A known-safe digital playground will either have no ads, or will have highly, highly regulated ads the way children's TV programs are. Advertising to children in general is a tightrope of a balancing act; the advertising needs to be effective enough to be profitable, but without being manipulative or misleading.

      Now, humans manually curating the allowed content

      • "Now, humans manually curating the allowed content is ideal, but those humans tend to require paychecks. " Google isn't exactly hurting for money. 30 more people on the payroll really won't cost them much to create a whitelisted channel for kids. But yes, I agree that parents need to take responsibility for kids. If any kid is able to go through all of those whitelisted cartoons, no matter how small the initial pool is, there is a parenting problem going on. This is just an extenton of the old "TV as babys
  • Fuck off with your nonsense.
  • by Comboman ( 895500 ) on Monday December 16, 2019 @02:02PM (#59525084)
    How is Disney paying you to shill for stronger copyright/trademark laws?
    • I mean, it's not like Disney has the political muscle to extend their own copyrights... oh, wait... what? they have???

      OK, fuck Disney, let's just rip everything from Disney+ over to off-shore serves and set up an onion site, because nobody should be able to bend the law to support a single company... right?

  • Remember when everyone "obviously" knew better and said "Don't let television raise your kids."

    It's amazing how many life lessons can be forgotten over the course of a single generation.

  • C'mon. How old is this person? There are entire industries dedicate to knock-offs and look-a-likes. For ever top movie, there are half a dozen knock-offs with similar sounding names, bad plots and worse actors. Any popular consumer product will have similar items with mashed-up names that are crap. All of this happens because we don't allow a big corporation to own a name and everything that sounds arbitrarily close. The problem with that is how close is too close?

  • My kid is 11. She can't install anything on any device. Everything she has access to is locked down. She has to ask and show the app in question to one of us before we install it. But I guess it is a lot easier to whine on the net about "Think of th3 children's!!!11" than it is to spend 2 minutes a week with your kid reviewing what they do on the net. I not only have no sympathy for idiot's situation here, I have complete disdain for any parent who can't or won't control the content the adult world is
  • Why are you blaming Apple for Youtube? What a weird take - Google is the one failing to properly police their content and they won't because they make a lot of money from advertising. They want less work, more eyes. This sort of low effort copyright infringing stuff does that in spades. Blame Google and their advertising model, not Apple.
    Also, be a goddamn parent your children, jesus.
    • by jonwil ( 467024 )

      I don't think they are blaming Apple for YouTube. They are pointing out that, unlike YouTube, Apple has to approve everything that goes in the App Store therefore they should be able to stop the fakes from being put on the store.

  • There are some who have optimism toward the future. Fortunately, I'm not one of them.
  • Was babysitting a small child of maybe 3 or 4 watching old classic Disney Donald Duck cartoons when hateful nazi propaganda in a german accent was on a ranting diatribe from WW 1 or 2. I heard the rant immediately and sat down beside her asking nonchalantly what the cartoon was about she burst into tears. Be careful of hidden content a half hour for those 3hr cartoon shows. Television isn't a babysitter, it's a tool for teaching and control.

    • by skids ( 119237 )

      Yikes.

      I once entertained the idea for about 10 minutes of making one of those nature meditation videos and
      about 15 minutes in having a horde of ICP juggalos come flooding out of the woods and storm the camera.
      But then I realized that would be a total dick of a thing to do. Naturally actual hate groups won't have such
      reservations, but I wonder how many of these things were just some drunk punks who ran out of
      drugs and got bored.

    • Disney created some anti-Nazi cartoons during WWII. A personal favorite of mine is "Education for Death", which starts off lighthearded enough, but turns dark very quick. A very grown up cartoon for it's target audience. There was also the much more lighthearted "Der Fuhrers Face", which starred Donald Duck, who found himself forced to work for the Nazi war machine. However, I am guessing this is not what your daughter saw.
  • So I read this

    But even the ones that aren't using Disney names in their titles depict characters that look nearly identical to Vampirina, Elsa and Anna, Sofia the First, and so on. The quality of the design varies, but some of them really do feature characters who look exactly like the ones you've come to know and trust

    I mean, Elsa, Anna and Sofia look like pretty generic animated character depictions of human beings. The idea that no one can make apps with characters that look like them because Disney did

  • The universe, which has no obligation to look after meatbags, requires older meatbags to do work to prevent younger meatbags from discovering the truth that the universe doesn't care about meatbags. And ... the problem is? It sounds to me as if the universe is working as advertised, and the meatbags (senior) are having to work as expected.

    So, what is the problem? Did someone espouse the ludicrous idea that the universe is safe for meatbags? And someone believed such a ludicrous idea?

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