How my school rejected an app made for students (opens in new tab)

"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.

"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.

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.

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.

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?

> "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.

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!

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?

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.

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!

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

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?

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

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

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...

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?

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.

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?

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

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

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...

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.