Continuous Intellectual Property infringements

[b10b]

Every time I check FBIG I see many of our games.  Thousands of plays, hundreds of thousands of ad-impressions.  Cool ... right?!

However, we never posted them there?  They are ALL Intellectual Property and Licensing infringements.  We receive $0.

So we submit a takedown notice, on a per-app basis, and in fairness to FB the game usually goes soon after.  It's a slow and tedious process, designed to "check-the-box".  I expect the perpetrator receives no income from their dodgy deed, and they are likely inconvenienced with a suspended account?

But, next day, same deal - new user, new thumbnail, new game name, new app id - still our same IP being violated.  There is no apparent progress by FB to improve the situation, refine the review process, take responsibility and clear up their publishing mistakes?

This might be defensible if Facebook wasn't making money from these circumstances, or if the same content wasn't being re-published and "takedown"ed on multiple occasions.

Derivative and plagiaristic heuristics exist (as is seen if a video with non-licensed music is posted to Facebook) - it would be trivial to run a source code pattern match against previously submitted takedowns, and flag those in need of scrutiny.  Such a routine might even improve the signal-to-noise-ratio on the plaform (and improve user-experience and eCPM for legit games)?

 

For anyone else impacted by similar issues the direct reporting link is:
https://www.facebook.com/help/contact/634636770043106?helpref=faq_content
You'll need to be a member of Facebook to report Facebook's "violation or infringement of your rights".

Edited April 14, 2020 by b10b
clearer wording

[momcina]

If they are not able to detect infringement and if they want those game gone, they should reward original author who is complaining.

Reward could be in Audience Network credits or something like that.

This is just my 2 cents on the matter.

[Noel]

@b10b Sorry for the inconvenience caused. Things should get better very soon though.

[xtoff]

@b10b I feel you. I recently started to benchmark FBIG to check if it is a valid platform to publish my game. I was shocked tbh. about the amount of obvious copies and IP-infringements. Hopefully Facebooks starts to take care of things.

[b10b]

This story gets even sadder.  We just received a lawyer threat from a self-important game studio because one of our (stolen) games is published on Facebook Instant Games (not by us) and altered (not by us) to include aforementioned studio's precious trademark and logo (some minor game title that we'd literally never heard of outside of a descriptive term for a road surface).

 

Edited October 30, 2020 by b10b
simplified

[Noel]

@b10b Let me share your story internally. I am sorry to hear what happened to you, please keep us posted.

[b10b]

Thanks @Noel, that's reassuring to hear.  I can PM you the details if that's helpful.

Edited November 4, 2020 by b10b
simplified

[Noel]

@b10b Shared with the Instant Games team. For now it is OK, I will let you know if they need more info.