Almost a year ago, I blogged about my Always Taeyeon app and how it was growing pretty well. Then I stopped blogging about it, why? Well there was a good reason. In November of last year, the app got suspended by Google Play and I stopped working on it. If I can’t get any new users, there wasn’t a lot of reward for putting more time into it.

Now, obviously I think the suspension was unwarranted, but that’s the typical position of the “guilty” party (whether it’s true or not is another matter). The rest of this blog is basically a rant on why I don’t think I should have been suspended; I’m not angry, but it’s for closure before moving on.

What my app did is basically displayed photos that were publicly accessible within an app. That was considered IP infringment. IANAL and in the back of my mind it was always quasi-legal (more on this later), but I don’t think it is infringement. Rather, I think of it as helping people be more efficient – you could access the same photos in a web browser. Web browsers wouldn’t get suspended from Google Play.

You may argue that a user has to explicitly perform some action to view the photos through a web browser (i.e., visit individual web pages). Then my argument to that would be that my app is basically a repackaging of a Twitter feed/Tumblr blog. I could RT or reblog a bunch of photos and that would be the same as my app. Is that legal (or quasi-legal)?

In any case, the process for appeal is tough and I’m sure under additional scrutiny, they would find other reasons to keep it suspended (or worse, ban my account). Given that the app was free with no means of generating revenue, it wasn’t worth the battle. It was easier to stop working on the app.

Posted by Kevin in Blogs Tags: android, appdev, google