Google Play Keeps Banning the Same Web Browser Due To Vague DMCA Notices

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: App developer Elias Saba has had some bad luck with Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedowns. His Android TV app Downloader, which combines a web browser with a file manager, was suspended by Google Play in May after several Israeli TV companies complained that the app could be used to load a pirate website. Google reversed that suspension after three weeks. But Downloader has been suspended by Google Play again, and this time the reason is even harder to understand. Based on a vague DMCA notice, it appears that Downloader was suspended simply because it can load the Warner Bros. website.

The notice includes a copy of the DMCA complaint, which came from MarkScan, a 'digital asset protection' firm that content owners hire to enforce copyrights. MarkScan said in its complaint that it represents Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. A DMCA notice is supposed to identify and describe the copyrighted work that was infringed. But MarkScan's notice about Downloader identifies the copyrighted work only as 'Properties of Warner Bros. Discovery Inc.' It provides no detail on which Warner Bros. work was infringed by Downloader. A DMCA notice is also supposed to provide an example of where someone can see 'an authorized example of the work.' In this field, MarkScan simply entered the main Warner Bros. URL: https://www.warnerbros.com/. The Downloader app had been installed over 10 million times before the takedown, according to an Internet Archive capture taken before the latest suspension.

Saba appealed the takedown today, but he told us that the appeal was rejected by Google Play after 24 minutes. Saba said he also submitted a DMCA counter-notice, which gives the complainant 10 business days from today to file a legal action. After his first takedown in May, his app was reinstated after the DMCA complainant didn't take any legal action. Saba also wrote a blog post today about the latest takedown. 'Given that my app still does not contain any copyright-infringing content and never has, I've countered this new DMCA takedown which will, hopefully, mean the app will be restored sometime in the coming weeks,' he wrote. 'In the meantime, you can sideload the app onto your Google TV or Android TV devices by downloading the APK from https://www.aftvnews.com/downloader.apk. Downloader remains available on Fire TV devices directly from the Amazon Appstore.' Saba said it's 'absurd that Google seems to make no effort at all to verify the copyright claims being made on my app which is just a web browser that can download files and has no content of any sort in it.'

'If loading a website with infringing content in a standard web browser is enough to violate DMCA, then every browser in the Google Play Store including @googlechrome should also be removed,' said Saba in May. 'It's a ridiculous claim and an abuse of the DMCA.'

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