@WaldoJeffers Great Idea! I think if Travis/TMDB can get behind this too, we'll have a better standing. We could maybe write a blog entry about this (preferably on the most popular blog among those participating in our public outreach) and tell a couple tech sites about it.

I have just been slapped with the same thing. "..your app Store Listing contains an image of “A Monster Calls” in the Phone Screenshots."

I wonder how I can convince users to download the app if they can't even see screenshots

I think i am having an idea.Why don't we use open source film poster you can find those open source film details here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_film . I am also submitting my app to the Playstore .I need some guidance can any one suggest me some tips. Looking forward to here from you guys.

My app eventually got approved by Play Store. I resorted to using a free license service to get movie posters. Google still rejected that, but I appealed and provided the license from the website, and they finally accepted.

Here's some sites to get you started:

1. pixabay.com (90% of my images from here)
2. freeimages.com
3. unsplash.com

@ladmerc Thanks for api's really appreciate that.

After getting hit for video problems (https://www.themoviedb.org/talk/587f64aac3a3682e9f0085a4), I just got hit with this one.

@ladmerc I'm curious, were they complaining about the images in the Google Play store listing itself, or the images in your app movie data?

In my complaint, they wrote:

1. Remove any content owned by a third party from your app. For example, your app Store Listing contains: images of "A Dog's Life" and other movie posters in your Phone Screenshots, 7-inch Tablet screenshots and in your App Experience.

I used movies made before 1923 in my app store listing, so they are all out of copyright. However, if they look at the app itself, I'm sure that they can see that movie and the poster for it. Any thoughts would be appreciated :)

I replied to Google, as they complained about the store images, noting my app's Google Play store screen shots used used movies that were copyright unencumbered.

They got back to me and sent me a screen shot of my app complaining of images of (relatively) current movies and complain that they are IP infringing. So the answer to my previous post is that they are complaining about images w/in the app, not the store listing - at least for me.

In this thread (and others), I've seen people use arguments of both fair use as well as promotional imagery. Can anyone give examples of the text that they sent in that was able to convince Google (or Apple / Amazon) that this usage is OK?

@springtale what about changing screenshots to those containing some old movies with expired copyright?

@Markoff The Google Play Store images are all movies prior to 1923 (everything released before 1923 is out of copyright).

I thought I'd give a reply on this, now I've gotten past this rejection from Google. Since I really didn't see anything that helped me on this thread, I'll give my solution on this.

I added a Terms of service and a privacy policy on a "click wrap" acceptance as an EULA which is the first thing that the user sees and must agree to before going on. While this is a pretty bad usability issue (i.e. don't make the user suffer these annoyances), my app would have not gotten OK'd without it.

In the app's TOS I link both to TMDb's TOS and API TOS, noting that the images are from TMDb, and if the user finds it objectionable, that they should contact TMDb w/a DMCA request as specified in the TMDb TOS.

In the app's privacy policy, I link to TMDb's PP.

Good luck!

@springtale can you give me some more information on how you did this? I'm facing exactly the same problem: I first got rejected because I had actual movie posters and titles in the screenshots. Then I removed ALL actual movie-related content from the screenshots (replaced movie posters, titles and descriptions by dummy images and text, respectively), so that the app store listing now contains absolutely no reference to a real movie. But now Google Play still complains like this:

Remove any content owned by a third party from your app. For example, your app contains: images from "Logan" within the App Experience.

I know that the movie poster of Logan appears in the main activity of the app, as this one lists currently playing movies. So, does this mean that the review system did not only check the store listing, but also started the app to check if it can find any copyrighted content at app runtime? Is this what "App Experience" means?

@springtale what exactly did you write in your terms of service and privacy policy? Do you have some examples (I never created such documents before)? And is it necessary to display this as a click-wrap to the user at app runtime to get past the review, or can it just be linked to from the Play Store listing?

With Google, it's often hard to understand their reasoning; and their vague explanations can be downright maddening. I think they do have a really huge repository of images, so their bot/algorithm may have spotted something that you were using that matches something else. It probably depends somewhat on where you got it from, and whether it matches closely some other property.

Have you tried using the Google image search capability to see if something you're using pops up? It can be found here: https://www.google.com/intl/es419/insidesearch/features/images/searchbyimage.html

If there is a match, that may be triggering the problem.

@weibeld No, I won't provide it. If you do find it, you shouldn't use it. I am not a lawyer.

You should get a IP lawyer. If you can't afford that, you could do this and / or this and go from there.

If one does research on EULA's (which are made up of TOS and PP's), one should do a click wrap (or similar), otherwise the courts in the US have found that the terms are not enforceable. You need that to be enforceable otherwise it doesn't count.

I do feel for you, as I noted in my prior post. Note: I found that Google sometimes reviews the wrong version of the apk. You may want to upload a new version.

I have got a similiar infringing copyright:

1. The in-app experience includes copyrighted content that may be owned by a third party: movie poster from movies.
   
2. Phone screenshots include copyrighted content that may be owned by a third party: Image of Alex Daddario
   
3. The in-app experience includes copyrighted content that may be owned by a third party: Image of various Hollywood actors and actresses.
   

How did I solve this problem?

1. Remove some special keywords such as: high resolution / fullscreen images, movie posters, actors
   
2. Remove the screenshots from actors
   
3. Pixelate the movie posters and actors in screenshots (next version I will pixelate stronger or use fake images)
   
4. After every infringing copyright I changed my description and content and increase the version
   

I have got success with an e-mail to Google with following content:

1. Not claim ownershipof any of the images or data that is provide
   
2. Comply with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)
   
3. Expeditiously remove infringing content when properly notified
   
4. Faire use of the images such as Wikipedia
   
5. App is a very specialised version of Wikipedia
   
6. Use and reference to the TMDB Terms of Service: https://www.themoviedb.org/documentation/api/terms-of-use
   

Here you can look to the apps content: Moviebase in Google Play Store

Sorry, I can not format my post :(