I never know how to feel about torrent (in this case, management) applications. On the one hand, torrenting is a brilliant and efficient way to share information in a collective and low-cost (read: free) fashion. On the other, it's the single largest gateway to piracy in existence. And it could kill you.
But it's clear torrenting applications are very much legal. So why has Google removed a popular torrent management application, Transdroid, from the Android Market? There's a number of such apps on the Market, and Transdroid's competitors are still standing. TorrentFreak thinks they know what's up.
Transdroid's developer page featured a screenshot showing an obvious example of copyright infringement in action, seen below:
This could easily be seen as encouraging illegal behavior, which definitely violates the Android Market Developer Program Policies:
Illegal Activities: Keep it legal. Don't engage in unlawful activities on this product.
Presumably, Transdroid just needs to switch out screenshots of the illicit behavior in question, and they'll be good to go again. If that doesn't turn out to be the problem, I'd be surprised, as anything else would probably have some pretty wide implications for other torrent or torrent management apps. We'll keep a close watch on how this all unfolds - but I'd expect Transdroid will be returning to the Market pretty quickly.
You can still get Transdroid from the developer's website, Transdroid.org, while it's on hiatus.
48,568
34,823
22,179
2,027
Loading ...
16 Comments
Wonder why Google felt the need to completely remove it. Couldn't they just remove the offending image? Seems like burying a reliable app by removing and resetting its' ratings/downloads is a bit extreme.
Probably to send a message; Google's having a hard enough time getting music labels on board-they want to come off as proactive about this sort of thing, because the music labels want notnothing more than to get google to censor pirate sites/apps out of their search.
A pity, it's the best looking torrent manager around.
I download my ROMs via torrents sometimes.
I'm really surprised that these have survived this long. I can't speak for other carriers, but I know on VZW, torrent apps are specifically spelled out as not allowed according to their TOS.
Many of these apps (Transdroid included) are not torrent client apps for *downloading* torrents. They are for monitoring and managing a torrent client app on a computer somewhere, i.e. NOT on your phone. So you're not passing any bittorrent protocol traffic over the carrier's data pipes. So they DO NOT violate the TOS.
Whatever. There are plenty of other apps markets.
Google's policy of deleting apps/dev accounts lately has been very shoddy. Beyond their lack of good contact regarding why apps are removed specifically, often, a quick email from the person who decides to make the pull could've resulted in a five-minute fix that would bring an app into compliance. Most apps pulled are pulled for small grievances, and it often leads to the best products being removed, while competitors are allowed to run amuck with identical products.
For instance, Stealthcopter's Portal 2 Soundboard was pulled by Google, though the rest were left out there. Stealthcopter's was the best, and highest quality app. No explanation why it was pulled either. And so instead of a high quality app, now the only choices are the cheaper-feeling knock-offs.
I agree their notification process need improvement, but with tens of thousands of apps, they are not going to deal with this on a one at a time basis. If they get a DMCA takedown notice, they are going to comply, even if it is "just a 5 minute fix." But it would be nice if the developer knew why it was taken down.
As for it being the most popular ones target taken down,well that is how it came to somebodies attention. The others survive by obscurity.
Which results in a market full of nothing but cruddy knock-offs instead of solid apps.
Right, because of they were solid apps somebody would notice, AMD then they would get hit with a DMCA take down notice as well.
That may explain it, though if push came to shove, I'm sure they would say it still violates the terms.
only use torrent on my pc
I was all ready to be pissed off about this. Then I read the article and saw that the Transdroid team is REALLY stupid. I mean, really? Posting pictures of blatant copyright infringement?
I like torrentfu http://www.appbrain.com/app/torrent-fu/com.androidfu.torrents
i do not know the reason why Google remove it. isn't it kinda harsh? well, for those who still want to download their fave movies and music try using the torrentapps toolbar. it is afast and reliable with thousands of choices to choose from