TV Time Attacks Apple's 'Significant Power' After App Store Removal 26
TV Time's parent company criticized Apple's App Store control after the tech giant removed its streaming app over an intellectual property dispute. "Apple holds significant power over app developers by controlling access to a massive market and, in this case, seems to have acted on a complaint without requiring robust evidence from the complainant," Jerry Inman, CMO of Whip Media, which operates the app, told TechCrunch.
The app was pulled from the store by Apple after the developer refused to pay a settlement fee related to user-uploaded cover art. The app has since been reinstated.
The app was pulled from the store by Apple after the developer refused to pay a settlement fee related to user-uploaded cover art. The app has since been reinstated.
"The app has since been reinstated. " (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:"The app has since been reinstated. " (Score:4, Interesting)
So, the review process worked in the developer's favor.
Well, not really:
The DMCA complaint was actually bogus, but Apple still removed the app because it believe the complainant over facts. On top of that the complainant tried extortion (claimed to Apple the issue was still 'unresolved', presumably because they didn't get their payout). The article doesn't detail how Apple was convinced to reinstate the app.
Re:"The app has since been reinstated. " (Score:5, Interesting)
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The reality here, however, is that if Apple wants to protect themselves from liability they have to follow the rules in the DMCA. That means they have to take down reported infringing content. It can be put back up, if they receive a counter claim. However, there is a minimum period that it has to stay down. I don't have in front of me, but it's a few days.
True - which is why this whole DMCA thing is a scam; it forces some third party into action, to the detriment of the true victim by someone claiming to be a victim (the complainant) which only has to claim (not prove) their IP is being infringed, leaving it up to the true victim to clean up the whole mess, or wait it out until it's proven the claim was bogus.
This scam has been used far too often to suppress or otherwise kneecap (even if temporarily) the victim's business by competitors abusing the "process"
Re:"The app has since been reinstated. " (Score:4, Interesting)
If you this this process is too onerous, I can't imagine what would happen if these companies had to get into the "truth business" for every claim made.
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Hence DMCA being a scam.
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Well, Apple does have much deeper pockets than a lot of the smaller app developers. They *could* start suing the sweet holy hell out of anyone who dishes out a DMCA claim that turns out, in any way, to be non-infringing. For my part, I'd rather see the "under penalty of perjury" bit of the DMCA given sone teeth such that the bogus claimants get to cool their heels in federal prison for a while. But a massive lawsuit from a company that can basically darken your sky with lawyers as if they were a plague o
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The DMCA takedown process is important, what is needed is reform to create strong penalties for people who file a takedown notice on content when the takedown notice isn't legitimate (e.g. when someone files a DMCA takedown notice for content where they aren't the copyright holder and aren't authorized by the copyright holder to enforce copyright)
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The problems have been there since its inception back in the late 90s - plenty of time for these to have gotten remedies/fixes in. The fact nothing's been done proves it's all a scam.
Re:"The app has since been reinstated. " (Score:4, Insightful)
Something definitely does need to be done, but it's also a balancing act. I'm not disagreeing with the fact they could have made changes. I'm only saying that it wouldn't be a cut and dry change, without it negatively affecting legitimate use.
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The reality here, however, is that if Apple wants to protect themselves from liability they have to follow the rules in the DMCA. That means they have to take down reported infringing content. It can be put back up, if they receive a counter claim. However, there is a minimum period that it has to stay down. I don't have in front of me, but it's a few days.
The reality is that Apple does not have to take anything down if the artwork in question is not contained in the package Apple is distributing, and the DMCA claim has to include the reference to the asset in question, making it easy to see if it's distributed by Apple or not. If a third-party server the application can optionally connect to is violating the DMCA by distributing content illegally, that's legally not Apple's problem (in the sense it's not Google's fault that Google Chrome can be used to visi
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So, the review process worked in the developer's favor.
Seems as though the review process should have considered the facts before pulling the app. The article doesn't make clear whether Apple was knee-jerking or (giving the benefit of the doubt) protecting Apple and/or the Developer.
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So, the review process worked in the developer's favor.
Not really.. They can't recover the stolen time they lost to resolve the matter
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Hey dickwad, I have the copyright on that line. You owe me 500 dollars. No, don't check if I actually have that copyright and don't demand proof, just pay me.
The app has since been reinstated. (Score:3)
From TFS:
The app has since been reinstated.
Then why'd you post this, msmash? To stir shit up?
Of course you did. That's all you do.
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Your comment and mine sold some ads.
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Then why'd you post this, msmash? To stir shit up?
To point out yet another story where DMCA is weaponized?
To provide a kernel for discussion of how much leverage app stores have over developers?
To give folks a heads-up that things like TV Time and TheTVDB even exist?
To link to an article you didn't read.
The real problem (Score:3)
The law doesn't require evidence, it requires the third party (Apple) do something. This is Tv Time complaining that applying the law to them, was wrong because Apple didn't have a process that Tv Time likes.
TV Time was removed from Nintendo as well. (Score:2)
Many years ago now, TV Time was a home screen app stock with the Nintendo Wii-U operating system. After a few years it was removed there too, though I don't recall any DMCA violations being cited in the incident. What I recall was that they had persistently unsatisfactory service reliability and data accuracy, and there were some vague allusions to potential user privacy issues. I actually really liked the promise of the type of features they tried to showcase, but unfortunately the whole product was never
Put liability on the claimant (Score:3)