Update 10 February: We have now received clarification from Candywriter regarding their recent takedown notice for our App Directory entries for the BitLife games. We have been informed that the issue was caused by a wrongful flagging of AppleVis as an "APK website."
For those unfamiliar with the term, an APK website refers to a website that stores Android app files.
We are grateful to Candywriter for rectifying this mistake and for their prompt resolution of the matter.
As a result, our App Directory entries for BitLife - Life Simulator and BitLife Dogs - DogLife have been restored. I encourage everyone to put this unfortunate turn of events behind us and focus on what truly matters - playing and enjoying the BitLife games, and sharing our experiences and opinions freely.
Original post:
I regret to inform the community that we have received a notice from legal agents acting on behalf of Candywriter, the developers of the BitLife series of games, alleging that our App Directory entry for BitLife - Life Simulator is infringing on their intellectual property rights. The notice is issued in accordance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (DMCA) and requires us to immediately remove access to the copyrighted material.
The nature of the copyrighted content is not specified, but it is assumed to be the app's description contained in the app Directory entry and release notes shared in the comment thread. If we fail to comply to the takedown notice within 24 hours, our hosting company, who are also subjects of this notice, may be forced to suspend our account.
As a result, we are left with no choice but to immediately remove the app directory entries for BitLife - Life Simulator and BitLife Dogs - DogLife. This is an extremely disappointing development, especially considering the level and nature of engagement the BitLife entry has received. With over 1300 replies from dedicated fans eager to share their experiences and offer tips to others, it's disheartening that Candywriter would seek to shut down such passionate and positive discussions.
Candywriter has routinely made efforts to make their apps accessible to blind and low vision users, with app updates often improving VoiceOver accessibility. BitLife - Life Simulator was even nominated for a golden Apple award by our community in 2019 and was shortlisted for induction into the AppleVis iOS App Hall of Fame in 2019 and 2020.
This action by Candywriter feels like a betrayal to the blind and low vision gaming community who have been playing, enjoying, supporting, and promoting the BitLife games. It's a sad day for all those involved, and I express my extreme disappointment with Candywriter's decision.
Comments
Has anyone contacted them directly?
Is it possible that this came from an agency or lawyer paid to protect intellectual rights just scraping the web for hits and spraying out threats. I can’t understand why a company would actively move to suppress discussion and engagement with one of their products. It’s the opposite of what all companies want for their products. It doesn’t make any sense so just perhaps this hasn’t come from them directly? Otherwise What The Actual F!
Re: Has anyone contacted them directly?
Unfortunately, Candywriter only provides social media accounts as its contact methods, so I have not yet been able to reach out to them privately to discuss this. However, the agents did provide documentation that they are legally appointed to act on behalf of Candywriter.
I agree that this makes no sense at all, and I wouldn't be surprised if Candywriter themselves did not initiate or approve this specific takedown notice. Regrettably, this has no bearing upon its legal status or the requirement of our hosting company to act if we do not comply.
No Big Loss.
Bit Life went inaccessible starting a few months ago. Their wanting you to remove the app directory entry is only the latest step. They betrayed the blind and low vision community months before this.
Try contacting them and
Try contacting them, and if possible, forwarding the email containing this notice. This is really suspicious given their trackrecord with accessibility, however. it does seem really fishy. I mean, they've bothered to make their games accessible, and to my understanding, they fixed bitlife accessibility. I'd contact them to make sure that it was them who really did this to be sure or one of their lawyers. I mean, documents can easily be faked, for one. For another, things don't add up in this situation. This could very well be a scam. Either way, i'd contact them, explain what happened, and find out if it was them or not.
I'm just saying, before we blow this way out of proportion, figure out what really happened before jumping to any conclusions.
Just contacted them via twitter,
@candywriters
To try to get to the bottom of this. I'd suggest you do the same to figure out what's going on. If it wasn't them its highly probable that its a scam.
Re: What a very odd request
While it's extremely frustrating that the discussion about Bitlife has had to be removed from our App Directory, we can still continue to discuss the apps in our forum.
If I don't receive a response from Candywriter regarding the rescission of the takedown notice, I may consider transferring previous comments to a new topic in the forum to ensure that the valuable insights and experiences shared by the community are not lost or wasted.
two things
Hi,
I feel like something's fishy with this, but two things you might want to do. Their email address is support@bitlifeapp.com and also they're @bitlifeapp on twitter, in addition to their candywriter account. They seem to be more activeon their bitlife account.
I'm planning on playing as long as I can
Bitlife and doglife have pulled me out of so many funks in the past and made me laugh. For me, what I think it is is the ability to add custom people that you know, or know of. A stronger person might boycott the game, but I won't, I can't.
Not the greatest of issues
It will be sad to see the directory entry being removed, along with all those contributions. However, the game itself is still pretty much alive and isn’t going anywhere. Directory removal doesn’t mean App Store removal.
I'm pretty skeptical
I was licensed to practice law in Oregon and California before I retired in 2013. At that time, Oregon had an attorney referral service with which anyone could obtain a 30 minute consultation for $35.
I recommend the duly authorized member of the applevis board contact their state's bar association attorney referral service to obtain a low to no cost consultation with an attorney knowledgeable concerning the federal law in question, and I would ask that attorney two simple questions:
1. Does the law apply to entities such as applevis, especially since there is zero profit and no monetary harm involved?
2. Assuming the law does apply to applevis, what is the most exposure (meaning monetary damages) to which applevis could become liable?
Since I assume no profit or harm is involved, I strongly suspect the answer to question 1 is no. Furthermore, I suspect the answer to question 2 is $1.
Joy!
Bruce Harrell
P.S. There is absolutely nothing wrong with boycotting.
I know there's nothing wrong with boycotting
I've boycotted several things, bitlife just won't be one of them. :)
About this blog entry
Just wondering if they'll start whining about this blog entry being up...
Re: about this blog entry.
They can’t say anything about this, it doesn’t have any of their material on it, its just a string of people who are baffled and or angry at the short sightedness of threatening to take legal action against enthusiasts of your product who aren’t making money out of their discussions about your product and have definitely made BitLife money through those discussions. As another person said, it’s probably just bottom feeding lawyers playing on that google machine they bought. It does seem odd though that this late in the day there’s no clarification from BitLife.
I know nothing about law but yeah, this is wierd.
Why aren't tuns of app devs doing this? After all; you have tuns of descriptions. I don't play the game but I'd recommend calling a loyer and asking some questions like Bruce Harrell said.
Either way
Lawyers get the money ;)
Resolved
We have now received clarification from Candywriter regarding their recent takedown notice for our App Directory entries for the BitLife games. We have been informed that the issue was caused by a wrongful flagging of AppleVis as an "APK website."
For those unfamiliar with the term, an APK website refers to a website that stores Android app files.
We are grateful to Candywriter for rectifying this mistake and for their prompt resolution of the matter.
As a result, our App Directory entries for BitLife - Life Simulator and BitLife Dogs - DogLife have been restored. I encourage everyone to put this unfortunate turn of events behind us and focus on what truly matters - playing and enjoying the BitLife games, and sharing our experiences and opinions freely.
Good to hear.
I had no doubt that something was fishy about the whole thing.
While this is great and everything.
It makes me sad and concerned that the great institution of our legal system has been reduced to the pretty pathetic business model of auto generating threats to take peoples money without even understanding if thats a justifiable or reasonable threat to make. Surely we can do better than this. Can’t we? The legal system should be used when genuine wrong has been done. Not just a tool to spray out threats. I don’t like the slippery slope arguments in general but this does feel like one. Standards need to return to society otherwise we’re headed in a worrying direction. Either way, great this unfortunate mess got resolved.
Re: While this is great and everything.
Unfortunately, this is a byproduct of automation in tech. I've seen this scenario play out all over, from YouTube, to products on Etsy, to a website I used to help run that couldn't get mail because it used a .in apex domain.
Some AI or automation rule somewhere sees something that it thinks is the devil and pulls the trigger. Then it's up to Humans to tell it off and fix the damage, usually much slower because of squishy neurons.
Tech is only as smart as the humans whwho program it
These automations only do what they're programed to do. I wish someone could come up with programs that could adapt to new stuff and solve small problems. That would make these automated tools so much better.