Google Play keeps banning the same web browser due to vague DMCA notices

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.

Downloader is similar to standard web browsers in that it lets users access both legal and illegally shared content. The app can be used for general web surfing and can download files from a website when a user inputs the desired URL. According to Saba, the app itself contains no infringing content, nor does it direct users to infringing content.

Google notified Saba that the app was suspended again last night, according to the notice that Saba shared with Ars. "Your app contains content that allegedly infringes upon the copyright of others, and violates applicable copyright laws in the relevant country/jurisdiction," the notice from Google said.

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.

“Properties of Warner Bros. Discovery”

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/.

"I have a good faith belief that use of the copyrighted materials described above as allegedly infringing is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law," MarkScan's notice said.

Unsurprisingly, Saba is outraged. "You would think that Google would at least verify that the takedown request is actually making a plausible claim," he told Ars today. "The most important field in the takedown where the claimant has to specify where the copyright infringement exists is void of all detail. If this complete lack of information is all it takes to take an app down, then no app in the Google Play Store is safe from being suspended with just a few clicks and a frivolous takedown request."

The Downloader app had been installed over 10 million times, according to an Internet Archive capture taken before the latest suspension.

Developer appeals

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's blog post called it "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."

Saba made similar complaints about Google's DMCA system in May. "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. It's a ridiculous claim and an abuse of the DMCA," he wrote at the time.

Google aware of DMCA abuse

Google is clearly aware that its system for handling DMCA complaints is routinely abused. On November 13, Google sued a group of people accused of weaponizing the DMCA to get competitors' websites removed from search results.

Google said in its lawsuit that, under the DMCA, it is obligated to trust the assertions that copyright claimants make in takedown requests. The law "relies on the honesty and good faith of copyright claimants, requiring them to support their claims with a statement under penalty of perjury and relying on the accuracy of the information they submit," Google said.

Google also said in its lawsuit that it "reviews takedown requests related to Google Search results using a combination of human manual review and automation." Google said it uses the process to confirm "that a takedown request contains the elements required by the DMCA." But Google doesn't verify itself whether the allegedly infringing URLs actually contain infringing content.

We contacted Google today to ask why Downloader was suspended based on a DMCA notice that doesn't cite a specific infringing work, and whether Google is doing anything to prevent repeated suspensions of apps that are wrongly targeted. We also contacted Warner Bros. about the DMCA notice, and will update this article if we get any response from either company.