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Comment by rwmj | Hacker News Reader

There is surely a way to determine if one app is substantially similar to a previously banned app, eg. by fuzzy comparing the binary, or running it and comparing screenshots.

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Or suing developers who intentionally violate the ToS in a repeated manner like this. Make it financially far more costly to screw Google and the users over than it is currently profitable.

It sounds like the people being screwed are SoundCloud and possibly some of the musicians who use it, not Google or the millions of users downloading the app. So if someone should sue, it should probably be them.

If the Play Store gets the reputation for being the wild, wild west it's bad for Google's developers and thus their business.

Yes. OP is literally "soundcloud_musician" on Reddit complaining about copyright infringement that's not taking place.

However forced ranking, deep linking, and previous ban evasion are all real concerns for Google's reputation as a corporate friendly gatekeeper.

If you do that, you'll wipe out hundreds if not thousands of "Candy Crush" and "Bejeweled" clones.

This plan keeps getting better.

And that would be bad because...?

Just because you don't like an app doesn't mean it doesn't or can't provide value and deserves to be removed.

What if an app provides negative value? Right now every successful app has a few dozen knockoffs that are deliberately confusingly similar, and functionally identical or inferior; it makes discovery considerably more difficult, especially if you're looking for something that isn't a hit or a ripoff of a hit.

I'm pretty sure nobody is advocating for warez or exact copy apps, but you need to be careful drawing that line.

Just because to you it's "just another bejeweled clone" doesn't make it so. A layperson would probably think that HN is "just another reddit", and that's not any more valid.

Luckily (or unluckily depending on which side you are on) we already have laws that define this for us. Trademark, copyright, and patents. For better or for worse, that's legally what we have to work with.

Not bad, as such. I'm all for someone writing an app that adds value/entertainment and makes them some money. But at the same time.. how many do we really need?

As many as a fully-informed, rational-acting market will bear.

So, something other than the Google Play store, you mean?

So we'll never know, because such a thing has never existed.

Or just matching the title. Because that seems to be pretty constant.

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