How my school rejected an app made for students

http://theiostream.tumblr.com/post/87830445451/portoapp-a-story

by theiostream • 12 years ago

190 85 12 years ago

theiostream.tumblr.com

aeontech• 12 years ago

Sorry to hear it. You're completely right, there's nothing unethical about what you did, and if you did get sued for it in "real world", any competent judge would laugh the plaintiff out of the room.

If you really want to fight for it, perhaps you can get support from the student body and the teachers that have liked the app before?

If not, well, at least you learned a lot by completing it, congratulations on that!

loumf2• 12 years ago

IANAL, but websites are allowed to control (via their terms of service) whether you can scrape them and use their data. There is a difference between accessing a website via chrome and via a native app that uses the website as a service.

MattHeard• 12 years ago

There is an even bigger difference between accessing a website via Chrome and via a native app which costs 99c.

droopyEyelids• 12 years ago

Here's a little rejoinder, he is in the "real world" and they would have sued him if they felt it was possible.

woah• 12 years ago

What was the "ASP.net view state parser"?

joshschreuder• 12 years ago

Blog post: http://theiostream.tumblr.com/post/73637206523/parsing-asp-n...

And accompanying source code: https://github.com/theiostream/viewstate

glassx• 12 years ago

It's been a while since I last had to parse ASP.NET pages, but AFAIK, the viewstate isn't meant to be parsed by clients, you just have to re-send it during postbacks. It's more like a cookie, or Rails' authenticity_token [1].

[1] http://stackoverflow.com/questions/941594/understand-rails-a...

EDIT: Oh, ok. Re-reading the article, he was parsing the ViewState because there was some data hidden in there (a serious flaw actually), instead of scraping the site normally! Clever!

Canada2• 12 years ago

You are right, your school is wrong.

They should be thinking, "We should be also serving this data in a parsible format such as JSON or XML so apps like this are easier to create and to avoid breaking things if we change our HTML"

Also, facts such as grades or sports results cannot be copyright at all.

Alupis10• 12 years ago

Even if it were subject to copyright, you violate no laws (in any country I know of) by simply re-posting the information and providing attribution to the original author/creators of the content. If true, any news aggregator and most websites would be getting sued every day for regurgitating information.

schrijver• 12 years ago

You’ve posted this further up as well, but it is simply not true. The whole point of copyright is that no-one can re-publish (‘copy’) a copyrighted work without permission. News sites pay for the right to republish Associated Press reports, for example, as ‘hueving’ points out.

Aggregators like Hacker News and Reddit don‘t copy content as a whole, they just provide links. Providing a preview of the content, as Facebook does, might be considered either fair use or citation—but in neither case they’re copying and republishing the entire content.

Attribution does not magically remove copyright.

Canada2• 12 years ago

I could be wrong, but based on what the article claims the copyright information is not re-posted anywhere. It's displayed from the original source on demand.

The schools position is analogous to claiming that someone is pirating your freely downloadable PDF document because they used Nitro instead of Adobe Reader to view it.

dethstar• 12 years ago

"This goes to show that as much as schools attempt to mask the image of a great environment for students to thrive, learn enterpreneurism and so on (mine does that a lot), they’re traditionalists to the point that it doesn’t make any sense. What do they have to lose with my app? How is that classification as copyright infringement even pertinent? They apparently just must have control of anything that has anything to do with the school."

Biggest problem with education. It is not about learning how to learn, enterpreneurism or any other fun thing you could think of. Is about learning how to obey, and letting those in charge take care of things (even if they're done terribly by people who actually don't like/care for it).

edit to add something else: I think more schools should allow for software to be made by the students. They understand the needs of the other students better.

krrishd• 12 years ago

To the point of your edit, I'm actually working on something along those lines - http://openSourceSchool.co

The code isn't on Github yet, but I've developed an open source website framework and mobile app framework for schools and other educational institutions, because ed tech kinda sucks from what I've experienced. Hopefully I'll be working on larger aspects if schools would allow non-trivial software to be developed by students who could do it better than the school.

xerophtye2• 12 years ago

Well at least my college let almost all ed tech come from the students. From the website, to the student portal etc. The only thing we didn't get to manage was the Teacher's suite (grading, attendance etc). And that was only for secuirty purposes. But we got to connect to it and display in our portal

sdgsdgsdg• 12 years ago

It is my opinion that a primary function of school is to teach individuals to be submissive to authority. This helps the capitalist classes maintain control. So when you turn up to work on your first day, you are already a nicely preprogrammed little robot.

tom3k• 12 years ago

Another instance of killing entrepreneurialism: It is common for university admission contracts in the UK to contain clauses stating that the university owns anything you create whilst attending the institution. Again, this lead to many of my peers hiding software they had created (which was clearly a great shame) and/or constantly worrying about what rights they had.

sxtxixtxcxh6• 12 years ago

if you weren't aware, many school districts partner with a private firms for technical services... which include things like selling the school a web site.

looking into this a bit more it would seem these services are provided by http://www.educacional.com.br/home/home.asp

what i'm saying is no, the school didn't reject this app... their partner – your competition – did.

edit: oh wow, i've realized i had missed half the article (i stopped reading at the first screenshot)... you're charging for an app that stores passwords, scrapes 3rd party content, practically bragging about how you removed the company and school's branding... and you're upset?

theiostream3• 12 years ago

Educacional is their provider for some online content (mainly games and similar stuff for young kids to have IT lessons). The grades db, memos and so on are managed by the school itself, and the news as well. Educacional, as far as my app is concerned, is simply a gateway for getting authentication tokens to /those/ services which I actually use.

And, the app that I mentioned in the article (which could be considered as a competitor of sorts) is also being developed by the school itself.

iancarroll2• 12 years ago

And, the app that I mentioned in the article (which could be considered as a competitor of sorts) is also being developed by the school itself.

Which is probably why the school shut you down.

sxtxixtxcxh6• 12 years ago

how much do you pay for the use of that gateway? how much do you pay for the use of their data storage? their bandwidth?

drchiu• 12 years ago

To the OP, I feel for you.

Your app made someone over at the IT dept feel inadequate. Remember, some older IT person is trying to protect their job, no matter how crappy they're doing it. Your app, as you had mentioned, was much better than the one that they made.

This, unfortunately, is the way the world is. Think about patent trolls, incumbents suing start ups that threaten to shake up the industry, etc.

The way they all sat you down (quite literally like going to the principal's office) was simply bullying.

Keep your chin up and look beyond this. This app is not the fight worth expending energy fighting for.

Alupis10• 12 years ago

I don't know where you live, but here in the US, you violated no copyright laws (or any laws or ethical clauses for the matter) by simply providing access to pre-existing works, ie. the schools website data.

If the school's website is publicly accessibly, as-in anyone can find it online, then it's public information and you can use it at your will so long as you state where the information came from (ie. not your original writing, etc).

if you are in the US, check your schools student handbook/policies... closely... if you found there is nothing restricting you, I would argue to pursue your app (and be prepared for pushback from the school).

pistle5• 12 years ago

You should probably get acquainted with the details around copyright and fair use before telling someone what laws they didn't break in their country or another's.

This same story has played out at various levels and it gets repeatedly delivered to this audience through the prism of a "victim." Virtual pitchforks get raised, etc.

The talented young programmer makes some assumptions and, benefit of the doubt, "naive" mistakes in standing on the shoulders of others. Then, he cries about how his massive effort is wasted and the powers that be have dashed the dreams of someone obviously superior in skill and/or intellect to "the man."

And again... the victim pretty obviously ran afoul of cultural norms, if not fairly well-known ethical and legal lines. In this case, even the narrator tells you that the adults are merely using this a teachable moment. He would get sued and lose. He also decided he couldn't wait for approval... just had to go run out and assume things - things which would mean everything was in his favor. Until it wasn't.

That data wasn't his. He turned "free" data into a paid app. He forced the hand of the school to shut him down. He still hasn't learned one of the most important lessons for devs... Don't build exclusively on top of a single platform that is out of your control and/or has no incentive to support you.

I would have broken his parser a couple times before dropping the copyright argument on him. More teachable moments were available.

jeremycw• 12 years ago

I feel it's not as cut and dry as you are trying to make it seem. Imagine if this were a 3rd party Facebook client that stripped out the ads, I bet Facebook would sue you. Just last year there was the legal battle between Padmapper and Craigslist. The case got thrown out [0] but only after Padmapper did some sneaky stuff so that it wasn't scraping craigslist directly. Also because craigslist didn't own full copyrights to the listings because they were user generated.

[0] http://techcrunch.com/2013/04/30/craigslist-3taps-lawsuit-de...

megablast2• 12 years ago

He is charging for the app, of course he is violating copyright laws.

jjsz• 12 years ago

I cannot comprehend how, psychologically, sitting down and recreating a principle-like conference is bullying. Is it because there are multiple powerful people shaming you? A form of gas-lighting?

ianstallings• 12 years ago

Thanks for throwing the ageism in there. It's cool to judge people like that.

scotty79• 12 years ago

Good lesson. To be creative and avoid lawyers you need to be anonymous. That nicely reinforces uselessness of copyright.

siculars• 12 years ago

OP, consider this episode a badge of honor. You're doing the right thing. Learning valuable technology and skills for a successful future - not just in tech but in whatever you want to do. Finding a problem and doggedly pursuing a solution is what you need to do in "real life." Chalk this episode up to life experience. You have won a moral victory but as you said, don't expect them to change their minds. Graduate and move on to bigger and better things and leave these luddites in your rearview.

Fuxy• 12 years ago

Don't you think you're contradicting yourself a bit you encourage him to be persistent in fixing problems and never giving up but on the other hand you tell him to give up and let the school have its way.

The hacker mentality doesn't just abruptly stop once we're not dealing with programming issues.

Being relentless and constantly pushing to get what you want is a way of life.

was_hellbanned• 12 years ago

"In the real world I'd be sued"

Well, maybe, in the real world, if anyone even noticed, you might get sued. It would be baseless, but you wouldn't have the resources for a court battle, so you'd just tuck your tail and run.

The lesson here is that institutions can be pointlessly authoritative assholes. Between the offended IT schmucks who were churning out their own, awful app, and the administrative types who are seeking to cover their own asses, legally speaking, it really couldn't work out any other way.

Oh, and since they can just kick you out of school, with no meaningful recourse, you're really getting a lesson in what it's like to be the little innovator.

faceyspacey• 12 years ago

I agree ..and if you graduate soon, re-release the app lol. They wont be able to do anything and they won't bother to sue lol. Like someone else said, it's baseless. Guess what? Google scrapes the entire web and profits from it. But in your case, you happen to go to the school, so unless you want to be kicked out, that changes everything.

It doesn't make it a moral issue though. Tell em: "look, first off, I will remove it, but don't fool yourself: this in no way is a moral/ethical issue. You simply have control because if I don't follow your desires or rules, I get disciplined in one way or another. So there's nothing ethical to it. It's an agreement between me and you that I can be apart of your school if I follow your rules. It's too bad you're so shortsighted here and arbitrarily inventing this rule that before didn't exist."

Anyway, you've been at this school for 8 years and you're programming great stuff--aren't you due to graduate some time soon. Like I said, release it again then. ..But also leave school. You don't need school to be a big success. You'll have way more time to devote towards what you really love. email me at james@faceyspacey.com for a paying remote job right now. I got work for you doing stuff you will love.

forrestthewoods• 12 years ago

Isn't a key part of copyright lawsuits damages? Let's say, for example, that the school did sue him for copyright infringement. Then let's say they win the lawsuit. It is in fact copyright. Now what? I believe he'd have to take it down and then pay damages. What, exactly, would the financial damages to a public institution be? Hell, even if it was a private school what type of damages could you possibly argue for this type of app?

Now he is selling the app so profiting off of someone else's copyrighted work is pretty much a no go. But what if he gave it away for free? What the result of a copyright lawsuit be exactly?

Alupis10• 12 years ago

No copyright law (in any country that I'm aware of, even if the OP sold the app) has been violated.

The OP may be subject to some school policy... but that's it. The administration is plain wrong and the OP should pursue his app if he can withstand the administrations push-back/threats.

You can always link-to and/or provide access to existing work (copyrighted or not) so long as you provide proper attribution (state the original content authors/creators)

luka-birsa2• 12 years ago

I'm not certain that linking and providing access is the same. Let's take a copyrighted work which we can relate to more easily than web pages - TV Shows on Hulu.

Now, you can always link to Hulu in your browser and direct your visitors to Hulu. Hulu as the (C) holder can then decide if you're geographically suitable to recieve this content.

How about building a proxy webpage that provides access to Hulu (let's call it EU-Hulu)? We'll build a complete Hulu clone that works in EU by tunneling video streams via VPN to our page and stream them from our web video players.

I don't think that adding attribuition (ie providing a "THIS CONTENT IS FROM HULU" and their logo) to the page would solve our legal problems. If anybody can confirm that this is in fact legal, I know what I'll be developing in the near future: EU-HULU, EU-Spotify, EU-...

Copyright law is very very very strict. If it's not explicitely stated it's forbidden. Even by taking code from a pastie repository, where it's clearly made public, you're braking the authors Copyright unless he specifies Licensing terms that allows you to copy paste it into your app. Source code for all closed source software could be made public and that doesn't mean you're allowed to use it in any way.

To go even further - Hulu, while it openly shares video content to US citizens is unavailable to the rest of the world. We all know that you can bypass the limitation by employing VPN, but you're breaking the Copyright law nontheless. It's their choice if they want to limit access to their copyrighted materials.

If OP built a Web browser clone, he would be in the clear. He instead took data from the webpage, mangled it into his own app and sold it for 0.99$. Now while I do not agree with the tactics employed by the school (they should embrace it instead), image we would be talking about Wikipedia and 6.99$ BestEncyclopedia app, developed by Apple, which downloads the data and presents it a very nice way (they'd call it Cylopedia-Flow with huge images and Helvetica all the way).

Right now you'd be very pissed at Apple.

xauronx• 12 years ago

So, what you're saying is that since it's open source.... I should publish a version myself and see if the school is ballsy enough to try to bluff a random company in a random part of the USA?

Alupis10• 12 years ago

There is nothing they could do, even in their own country. No laws have been violated here.

(maybe we should all publish the app to prove the point)

e28eta• 12 years ago

They'd probably still harass the student, as the original author. I don't think you'd be doing him any favors.

hellbreakslose• 12 years ago

Amazing article from a young kid, bright, smart keep it up!

Let them take it to the appstore and see if they can really get it down due to copyrights. I don't think they can sue you about anything, you'r just using public data...

Also something else, take it up with your parents or whoever has you at that school, and consider changing schools. Make it a scandal for them. School trying to sue defendless student after having a bright idea for an app using public data...

knappador• 12 years ago

Hahhahaa this is a hilarious. I went to a school like this that was super paranoid and also had a counselor person. People put into these roles always came across as psycho and condescending to me. What a better way to bring young minds into the world than to fail to bargain or negotiate with them about their behavior, instead just waffling into that "in the real world" BS.

Ditch the proprietary soft when possible if you want to get as far away from BS as you can. FOSS is one of the few refuges where you can believe in humanity as much as you might. You have the "challenge" to think about how unethical your choice of platforms is ;-D

sumukh1• 12 years ago

As a former student who created an iOS app for my school district - I really feel for you.

Creating the application & working with the district was a great learning experience for me - perhaps the most useful thing I did in high school. I'm sure you learned a good bit by creating the app - those skills will certainly help you in the future.

Luckily for me the staff/administrators we talked to really embraced the idea and brought me on and made it into the official iOS application for the school district and then open-sourced it. We pitched the ability to check grades, get push notifications, and check documents. It's important to note, however, that I went to school in Silicon Valley - so that's probably a factor.

You've already demonstrated a lot of skill by creating the app. (It looks a whole lot better than my v1)! - Chalk this up as a good learning experience - Keep it up!

megablast2• 12 years ago

Ah, you charge for theapp. Then they are correct, you are profiting of their work.

If somebody was making money of my work, I too would be pissed.

wirrbel• 12 years ago

So if a browser vendor charges for the browser (like Opera did, lets say) can I sue opera for displaying my website?

spacemanmatt3• 12 years ago

This is a ridiculously extreme view. The school publishes that information for the benefit of students and faculty, not for a profit. Like craigslist, they probably do not hold any primary copy rights on the content to start with.

If someone were making money off my work, I'd be impressed.

pbhjpbhj2• 12 years ago

" [...] they are correct [...] " //

Is this your legal opinion or a moral judgement.

IMO, and in the opinion it seems of Brazilian copyright law (see my other comment), copying information should be excluded from the monopolistic protection given to artistic works.

Presenting information that has been given away freely (gratis) is alternative forms seems pretty harmless. Here especially as the compilation of the information has been paid for, in some way, by the pupils families (or communities if supported by taxes) and the re-use of the information is for those pupils. Yes, the OP is charging for the app, but then no-one need buy it if they find that the new presentation of the information is not worth the price asked.

stale2• 12 years ago

I was rooting for the OP up to the point when he said he was charging for the app. I know there wasn't some huge profit to be made there unless it's really huge school, but still. If he wanted to do something good for the school and fellow students shouldn't the app be free?

lyndonh2• 12 years ago

Profit = Sales - Apple's cut - Apple Developer Account annual fee - iTunes App Store annual fee.

What makes you think he will be making a profit on a $0.99 app ?

Likely he was not making any profit at all. Are you suggesting he shouldn't try to claw back some of his costs ?

And now they reject his app; he takes it down and definitely won't claw back anything. Now he is down $200 + time and effort. Yeah, screw him for trying to make money off the backs of anyone.

stale2• 12 years ago

Either way, IMO, students shouldn't be the ones paying (yes, I know it's only 1$). Maybe he should have made an arrangement with the school so they cover the Apple fees or fund it through donations.

spacemanmatt3• 12 years ago

Because it's wrong to be compensated for one's efforts, even a tiny little bit, even with the risk of being shutdown and in the hole for Apple's fees before seeing the first penny?

clarry2• 12 years ago

Coding stuff takes time and effort. It's really cool if you can give stuff for free, but I do not see why he's in the wrong to charge for his work.

wiseleo• 12 years ago

I am particularly impressed by the viewstate workaround. That demonstrates an unusual mindset and ability to solve interesting problems.

Mention this post in any job interview in Silicon Valley and you will likely get hired.

As for the school, just remember that you are interacting with low paid government employees who will never taste success.

In my opinion, you've done nothing wrong.

Media would love this story, but it may make your life miserable. How long until you are out of that school?

estebank• 12 years ago

In the US, "Copyright does not protect facts, ideas, systems, or methods of operation, although it may protect the way these things are expressed[1]." This means that in the US you can take the phone book, digitize it, and as long as you present it in a distinct way you can publish that. It is clear that you wouldn't be in the wrong there.

In Brazil, copyright law is slightly different (emphasis mine):

"The current body of Brazilian copyright exceptions and limitations may be divided into three groups, relating to: 1) partial or full reproduction; 2) derivative works; and 3) performing rights. The three tables in the following sections provide an exhaustive list of the limitations present in Brazilian copyright legislation.[2] The dominant view in Brazilian literature is that exceptions and limitations lists are to be strictly construed, with no credence given to implied limitations. This is a primary tenet of Brazilian legal scholarship with respect to copyright; it is taken as dogma in academic writing and, as a result, often by courts as well[3]."

What I understand is that unless it is explicitly laid out as an exception, court houses would look at it as infringement.

"The reproduction of small excerpts of preexisting works of any nature, or of an entire work of visual art, is allowed within the context of a larger work. The reproduction itself must not be the main object of the larger work, and must not interfere with the normal exploitation of the work or cause unjustified harm to the legitimate interests of the author[3]."

Your app is doing quite a lot with the screen-scraped data. You're not just presenting it unadulterated, but you're transforming it to present it in a way easier to consume. Don't know if that constitutes enough for the scraped data to "not be the main object of the larger work".

"To integrate any given computer program into others, be it at application or operating system level, is permitted if done for personal use and unavoidable considering the user’s needs. Integration must be done for the exclusive use of the person who carries it out[3]."

You could argue that your application is doing nothing more than displaying available information to people that already have access to it in a way that answers the user's needs, but I don't think it would fly here because integration is not "done for the exclusive use of the person who carries it out".

"Higher-education institutions in Brazil usually do not provide clear policy guidance on course readers and textbook copying. In practice, the unlicensed reproduction of copyrighted material is essential to academic life. Course readers, copies of book chapters and even entire books can be found in files hosted by copy shops, ready for on-demand reproduction. Professors usually keep personal files as well, in which they include all of their courses’ required and complementary reading material. Students are frequently seen carrying spiral-bound photocopied textbooks to class. This is all done without prior authorization from rightsholders[3]."

I find it extremely ironical that an "industry" that thrives (IMO correctly) on copyright infringement, would go against a screen scraper for copyright infringement of facts.

[1] http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-protect.html

[2] http://www.bloomsburyacademic.com/view/AcctoKnowledgeinBrazi...

[3] http://www.bloomsburyacademic.com/view/AcctoKnowledgeinBrazi...

pbhjpbhj2• 12 years ago

Assuming [1] to be a proper rendering of the current law then I see problems with the school's claim that this activity is infringing:

Article 7(2) states, quite clearly, that the information in compilations and databases is not protected. Article 47 says that paraphrases aren't infringing - but no need to rely on that as Art.7 is so very clear. FWIW Art.8 says that calendars and diaries are also excluded from copyright protection (but be careful, as I understand, it Brazilian law doesn't treat lists as examples but as strictly complete).

The school's claims seem to be unfounded. Perhaps the OP could ask them - in view of their education(!) - if the school can show how the app is infringing the school's copyright in view of the Articles saying that information is not protected.

But as other's have noted it may be that you need to simply accept their position in order to protect yourself from expulsion or other negative actions the school could take.

You _could_ seek a copyright attorney/lawyer who will act for you pro bono!? Especially if you wanted to take this to the newspapers.

One issue that is unclear to me is the authorisation process. Does the app somehow scrape the users data centrally or do the users use the app as the interface to access the data that is on the web pages.

It's possible that the website terms of use state that scraping is not allowed. But I don't know with certainty how that one would pan out in my own country nevermind in Brazil. Either way that wouldn't be "copyright infringement".

- - -

[1] http://entertainmentlawbrazil.com.br/brazilian-copyright-act...

outworlder• 12 years ago

"I found out they were developing an app for themselves"

This is the reason, no need to look into it further. They probably sunk a lot of money in what turned out to be a crappy app. Knowing how these things work in Brazil, I wouldn't be surprised if the company developing it had ties with the school's administration. If so, a crappy app wouldn't usually be a problem... until this guy's app appeared. Then, the development costs will have to be justified.

Notice how they didn't complain that the student was making money. They don't care about that. All they care about is not looking bad, while furthering their agenda.

mh_yam• 12 years ago

This reminds me of when I asked for permission to make an iOS app for my school and was denied with similar arguments. I guess it sucks more when you've already put in so much effort and it gets shot down in one meeting.

I did learn that the school stored user/password information from Active Directory in a flat file for one of the legacy applications...that was scary.

edgyswingset• 12 years ago

Well, you never got their permission so I don't see what the problem is.

Does it suck? Yeah, sure. That's irrelevant.

How my school rejected an app made for students

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