Jon Lech Johansen (aka “DVD-Jon”) was the guy famous for breaking the DVD copy protection system CSS (Content Scrambling System) with the utility DeCSS. He has since then co-founded the Android development company doubleTwist, which markets a product that looks quite similar to iTunes that you use to browse and purchase MP3 songs from Amazon, sync them to an Android phone, and play them using the custom built doubleTwist Android player.

Jon today posted an article called Google’s Mismanagement of the Android Market which highlights some of the frustrations he is facing as a developer trying to push legitimate music software to the Android Market. When you read the article keep in mind that Jon is trying to sell a music application for Android, and the examples he makes is very specific for launching an app such as the doubleTwist player:

• Jon: “The top ranks of the multimedia category are cluttered by 144 spam ringtone apps.”
  My interpretation: Searching for top apps will not help users find Jon’s doubleTwist player since it is being placed below hundreds of copyright-infringing ring tone apps. Currently users need to know what they are looking for in the Android Market.

• Jon: “You can’t pay for foreign apps using your Amex card or carrier billing.”
  My interpretation: If doubleTwist want to charge for their application, they might loose business opportunities due to the lack of AMEX support and operator billing.

• Jon: “Trademark and copyright infringement is widespread in the Android Market.”
  My interpretation: Jon explicitly lists several applications that look like iTunes and even have the same icon as iTunes. Users might have a hard time knowing if doubleTwist is indeed legit software just by browsing the Android Market, since there are so many alternatives that clearly do not follow copyright laws.

• Jon: “The music downloading app “Tunee” (one of many such apps) is one of the Top Free apps in the Multimedia category with more than 250k downloads. Their screenshot shows copyrighted music by the band Muse (Warner Music Group) being illegally downloaded.”
  My interpretation: By allowing apps such as Tunee that are clearly made for listening to and downloading illegal content, legal alternatives such as doubleTwist and Spotify are facing illegal competition they should not have been exposed to.

I believe all of his critique is well founded. Unfortunately this is how the Android Market has functioned since it was launched almost 1.5 years ago, and this is also how the Android Market will most probably continue to function for the next coming years. At the moment startup ventures like doubleTwist are stuck in a quite awkward position. They cannot launch on the iOS platform since Apple won’t allow their products since they compete with iTunes. And by the looks of it they seem to have a hard time on the Android platform since Google seems to allow almost everything in their Market.

Read the full article: Google’s Mismanagement of the Android Market