I’m only posting here because I’ve already tried submitting this in both these places:
Basically my problem is that a company has copied both our app listing and embedded app dashboard.
The copy is so obvious that they even copied typos, e.g. “necesssary” with 3 s’s.
We’ve already reported them to this link: Report a partner violation - Shopify
But after a week governance replied that we have to submit a DMCA.
When we try to DMCA here:Copyright infringement notice - Shopify we get only automatic replies.
After contacting support, they said we actually have to resubmit another report here: Report a partner violation - Shopify
At this point I’m not sure what to do anymore.
Well they finally replied, saying they couldn’t find any violation, even though the infringing listing even copied:
- wrong space between words
- “necesssary” with 3 s’s
- List of 10 payment methods in the exact order
We’re considering just finding a lawyer to write a cease and desist letter instead.
The fact that ecosystem@governance see this as a DMCA issue instead of partner issue, tells you everything you need to know.
Today I found out, they logged with their official account email in our app multiple times between 9-3 months ago.
We’re considering just blocking them from the app since we got 0 help from Shopify.
Hey mate, this really sucks. I had the same thing happen to me a year or so ago.
Basically, I submitted a DMCA takedown request and the app was removed for a few days. However, all the other developer had to do was claim they hadn’t copied anything, despite having word-for-word privacy policies, identical functionality, and almost exactly the same screenshots and descriptions. Their app was then reinstated.
I’m not sure whether the policy has changed since then, but at the time, it became your responsibility to take the other developer through the court system. Shopify essentially washed its hands of the situation.
I spoke to lawyers, and a cease-and-desist letter was an option. However, the other developer could simply ignore it, so it really came down to how much I was willing to spend pursuing the matter.
That wasn’t something I really wanted to do, so I ultimately had to suck it up. It was incredibly frustrating.
P.S. I’m looking to set up a small Discord community for Shopify developers. If you’re keen to join, feel free to email autoBlogger support. Just search for “autoBlogger Shopify” on Google and my site should come up. You’ll find the support email there. Who knows why we don’t have private mail on the dev community!