How Google Represses Independent Developers on Google Play
Introduction
I have been developing Android applications since 2014. I worked both with large companies and with small orders for freelancing. I am the founder and leader of the community Google Developer Group Ulan-Ude. In 2016, I conducted the first Android Study Jam in my hometown of Ulan-Ude (Russia), all in all we had hold three Study Jams since then. Moreover, I run a blog android-tools.ru in which I share tips on various technologies that I have mastered myself. Before working as a programmer, I was engaged as a computer science teacher in secondary school. Having gained experience from IT sphere, in early 2018 I returned to this fascinating matter, namely to teaching children programming.
Programming training
All courses and activities that I teach are conducted on a volunteer basis and are completely free for students. We found a permanent room for classes at the Buryat State University and managed to agree to use it for free. The center of youth innovation creativity granted some computers and equipment for our students. We offer free classes in programming and robotics for everyone. During my classes I am eager to share everything I know concerning programming (databases, html, php, java, delphi, android, operating systems, information security and etc.). Generally, I deal with school children, half of them are handicapped children.
I can talk for hours about my students. I will tell you about the most gifted and talented. Schoolchildren Sergei and Arsalan are one of my first students, both guys have musculoskeletal system diseases, Kostya can hear only with a hearing aid, and Dima has developmental delays, and I still do not understand what the main reason of the delays. Dima is a special student who requires a special approach; he is very shy and afraid to ask his questions. Sometimes he can spend a large amount of time in a stupor stumbled upon some kind of contradiction or not understanding which program he needs to use until I notice his perplexity that it is sometimes difficult, because emotionally Dima does not manifest himself at such moments. Despite their limitations in opportunities, the guys come to every class and with a great desire absorb the knowledge that I share with them. We have a group and conversation in the social network vk.com, where we never stop exchanging experience and news.
I consider it is necessary to clarify that, according to statistics, the population in our region receives an average salary of about $ 500 a month, and in fact even less. Parents just do not have economic opportunities to pay for additional educational services. Poverty becomes an insurmountable barrier for most children to enter IT culture, many of them do not have personal computers and constant access to the Internet.
I do not receive a salary for my work as a teacher; moreover, I pay for the Internet services in the educational center from my own pocket. And when it fails to pay, I distribute the Internet from my mobile phone. All my students know how to put an Android device into modem mode and distribute the Internet from it to a personal computer. My friends often help our center by donating equipment that is broken or not used by them anymore, from which we get spare parts for robots or device repair.
Student Belikto (he began learning by himself the java language) did not have any equipment for home schooling, except the Prestigio netbook. The Windows operating system took away all the performance resources, and it was impossible to work on it. For two weeks we tried to install various lightweight versions of Linux on it, and it ended up having to reset the BIOS to factory settings. It was unfortunate to install the necessary OS, but Belikto, for the first time in his life, disassembled his laptop and in the process learned the basics of repairing such equipment. Later, I gave him my Sony VAYO laptop with 3 Gb of RAM and an i3 processor. For training, this power is enough for him. I could not leave Belikto with my old device, because this boy gives very high hopes.
Why aren’t you there?
During the I / O Extended 2018 community meeting there was an interesting moment when Dmitry Dolgov spoke at the keynote. Sergei was initially surprised to read the name and surname of the speaker that keynote was Russian, and then he asked the question: “Why aren’t you there now? With your knowledge you can work for Google and live in the USA”.
I thought a while and answered: “If I leave, then who will stay with you?”
After the answer, there was an understanding silence in the office.
Destroyed hopes
And now, why do the guys lose their hopes and chances to gain skills and knowledge in the field of IT. I can no longer stay in my hometown and engage in enlightenment. I am the only one who maintains and provides my family, but my way of earning and the main income was ruthlessly and categorically destroyed a couple of days ago.
Now I will have to relocate in search of work, because in my hometown it is impossible for me to find work to support my family …
How Google Play deleted our account due to copyright infringement
In the center of the developer’s rules, there is a rule prohibiting impersonating another person or using someone else’s intellectual property.
In particular, the rules prohibit the illegal use of content protected by copyright.
At first glance, the existence of such rules seems to be quite a reasonable decision on the part of Google. Copyright is protected by the law of many states.
My students and students are actively testing my applications and submitting ideas for developing new ones. Going to meet their wishes, I made a separate account in which I published only applications dedicated to the subject of Minecraft. I think it would be superfluous to tell how it is popular all over the world. We allow students to play in the pirated clones (we don’t have money for licenses) after completing the main tasks.
Together with a student who graduated from Android Study Jam in 2016, we made about 25 applications; most of them were skin sets for characters on various topics. From the point of view of Google Play copyright robots, the very mention of any copyright work is already a violation of copyright. However, accordingly to the laws of the United States, it is not. In the text of the full description of one application there were such lines:
This is an unofficial application for Minecraft Pocket Edition. This application is not affiliated in any way with Mojang AB. The Abyssa Minecraft is the name of the Minecraft AB or their respectful owner. All rights reserved. In accordance with http://account.mojang.com/documents/brand_guidelines
The robot blocked us updating this application with the following:
There was nothing left for us to do but to delete these lines, although they will also be asked to return them. Now you see for yourself how simply matching a string with a list of brands in a description or title is a malicious copyright infringement.
On August 17, our three applications were immediately deleted with this following text:
We had no opportunity to change or remove these applications from publication at all. From the point of view of Google Play bots, we cruelly violated the copyright of J.K. Rowling only by calling a set of png pictures for minecraft in the name of the main character of her work. I applied to a lawyer, and we compiled a detailed proof of the legality of using references to works of other authors in our applications. It is available here
No one began to consider our arguments in the Google Play Review Team, they didn’t respond to this day.
We completely removed the developer account on September 1, at that time we accumulated a total of about 2 million installations with 25 applications.
After this deletion, we continued to publish new applications in my student account. The development was carried out on the same equipment as before. On January 24th, the entire account was deleted due to the connection with the previously deleted account. At this point, we had 20 applications and 1 million user installations.
We do not seem to work with Google Play anymore, which means I cannot create for Android anymore, and, what is more, I cannot teach children how to do this.
How do other violations threaten every developer?
Your developer account can be deleted at any time due to communication with other developers. To do this, you just need to work on someone else’s project on your personal computer. Google itself makes connections between people because it knows more about you than you do. All freelancers who previously worked on projects that have been deleted or will be removed from Google Play for any violation will be hit. Every day there are more and more remote projects, and therefore a network of related developers of “bad” applications is growing.
How do copyright owners themselves protect their rights on Google Play?
On December 19, we received an email from Karl Lowry — Intellectual Property Enforcement Agent — Mojang AB
He gave us a detailed explanation what violations we made in our two applications and how to fix them. We made changes during the week and sent a response to that comment.
After that we received this letter:
Conclusion
In education, your own practice is very important and where your people can follow after you teach them.
I served to popularize Android for many years: in a blog, on courses, in the Hacker magazine, and various public speaking, starting from 2015, when I read a report on Android Wear at the meeting of the Moscow GDG community. At present, thanks to automatic blocking, I have become a malicious violator of the rules and policies of Google Play. Although earlier I wrote my own reports on found viruses on Google Play. Due to the monopoly of Google on the android platform, alternative distribution channels will give less than 1% of the audience, which Google Play gives. This means that my career in Android development is over, and my students received a good life lesson on the choice of technology to implement their life plans.
P.S.
In his article Pablo A. Martínez proposes to introduce a fee for human support for developers on Google Play. I consider this measure unnecessary, because we already bring corporations too much commission from all embedded purchases and advertisements in Admob. Google’s robots produce chickens that carry golden eggs. Apart from that, Pablo A. Martínez recommended contacting “Google Dev Relations” in my country. Thus, I have addressed them repeatedly; however, they will not be able to help you with anything, because this is not their competence.
