Thats embarasing. How come they even stay on playstore.

https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/contact/takedown

I've tried that, but google does not seem to respond? Maybe I'm doing something wrong here. Howerver, I know that it works sice there was already a fork that got kicket out.

don't worry, you don't need to to do anything. it is impossible(99.99%) a single app stays alive until 500 downloads. Play store takes care of it extremely very well as YT is his own too. they can earn 1-2$ but loose 25$ (account registration fee). So, it is not worth that much effort to do something. they punish themselves.

A few examples can be found but they won't live longer and the ads will be eventually ceased.

Sure? audiorocket sem tho have more than 400k downloads.

Unfortunately while copycats will always be there (I have some on my hands too) it's just easier for you to send a take-down notice to Google and let them deal with it.

That being said, Google hates your app so they might just not be taking it down in spite. Who cares, the average 99% of people in the world likes it anyway ;)

This list has been mined out of 600 MiB of parsed email data. If you can spot some of them, please get in touch with us.

Edit: These are package names I parsed from the ones in the field that was added a few weeks after the introduction of the bug reporting. For this and other reasons, this list is not complete, there might be more.

co.at.newpipe
com
com.akkayaxm.mscPlayer
com.cubic3.MyDownloader
com.dl.video
com.facecampt.free.music.player
com.FloTemp
com.gawo.rohgf
com.green.music
com.halara.trap
com.hvlapps.freemusicplayer
com.mp3musicdownloader.mp3.music.downloader
com.mp3musicdownload.music
com.mp3musicdownload.musicmp3
com.mp3music.newlife
com.mpool.mytube
com.musicmp3downloader.ilovemp3
com.musicmp3.newmusic
com.musicmp3.new\nmusic
com.music.paradise
com.mwiz.pingmusic
com.tenlishir
com.youtube.audiorocket
com.youtubed.ydownloader
com.youtubelistening.youtubebackground
com.youtubelite.floattube
com.zbm.probasse
idev4mobile.karaoke
idev4mobile.videotube
inc.players.youlayer
musicstream.videostream.newpipe
org.bardo.newpipe
org.le.keep_video
org.schabi.newpipe
org.schabi.vbl2013
org.schabi.videodownloader
org.schabi.youdownload
org.schabi.youdownloader
org.testng01.tubeb44

I've created a small script to check if they are on google play: https://gist.github.com/coffeemakr/8862e7903c4bea21b99c6a457268af71

The following packages are on google play:

• co.at.newpipe (MOD edit: removed)
• com.gawo.rohgf (MOD edit: removed)
• com.mpool.mytube (MOD edit: removed)
• com.mwiz.pingmusic (MOD edit: removed)
• com.tenlishir (MOD edit: removed)
• com.zbm.probasse (MOD edit: removed)
• idev4mobile.karaoke (MOD edit: removed)
• com.video.tubeplayerorg (MOD edit: removed) (not on the list)
• idev4mobile.videotube (MOD edit: removed) (mentioned by @Poussinou)

A copyright violation can be submitted with this form:
https://support.google.com/legal/contact/lr_dmca?&product=googleplay
The description on how to fill out the form can be found here: https://support.google.com/legal/troubleshooter/1114905#ts=1115643%2C1115789%2C1117010%2C1697925

Beware that this is not even the whole list, only the ones we captured on a side-channel. But yes, it's quite an amount. Time to take half a day and send some DMCA takedown notices, @theScrabi.

How about adding some code that checks the display/package name of NewPipe and if it has been changed, let the user know (and possibly refuse to work)?

Then you'd also notify the copycat and tell them "oh, I need to remove that piece of code". They're not that stupid, because they must obviously know how how to develop for Android to create realistic apps. This measure is rather pointless IMO.

The only thing we could do is making it harder for copycats to change the email address where the but reports are send to.

@theScrabi Did you feel the DCMA takedown notice, out of curiosity? It only takes a few minuts and Google reacts in a few days (I already tried with an other app) I can see that the apps haven't all been taken down.

I would like to add this one (MOD edit: removed) to the list made by coffemakr !

Does play store will really help you in this war?
Play yt in background is something quite illegal for them...

Well I wouldn't raise, there attention to much.

Report them. Thats the most we can do.

import re
import sys
import requests
URL_REGEX = r'https?://[a-zA-Z\.\-]*(?:github|gnu|gplv3|twitter|support\.google|stackoverflow|tldrlegal|soundcloud|schema|w3\.org|bountysource|bandcamp|f\-droid|peertube|media\.ccc|newpipe\.net|reddit|youtube)'

html = open("539.html").read()
urls = re.findall(r'(https?://[^\"\)\<\>\s]+)', html)

urls = [url for url in urls if re.match(URL_REGEX, url) is None]
urls = sorted(set(urls))

for i, url in enumerate(urls):
    print("\r", i, "  ", url[:min(len(url), 74)], sep="", end=" ")
    sys.stdout.flush()

    try:
        if requests.head(url).ok:
            print("\r", " "*80, "\r", url, sep="")
            sys.stdout.flush()
    except KeyboardInterrupt:
        exit(0)
    except:
        pass

Thanks to that, and after some manual filtering, I found out these apps are still alive:

• http://files.dsnetwb.com/atubecatcher.apk http://www.atube.me -- Handle Copycats (License fraud) #539 (comment) but since ATubeCatcher never promotes this app anywhere, it's most likely someone stole our code and their name. Only available
• http://www.appsdrop.com/my-downloader/ -- really really really old version of NewPipe, does not work anymore
• https://giangphandev.blogspot.com/ https://play.google.com/store/apps/dev?id=7342662140510541996 -- "Jaxx Music Player Lite" and "Jazz StreamX" do not seem to exist anymore
• https://galaxystore.samsung.com/detail/com.android.protube.allutubevideosdownloader -- I found this one myself

And here are the play store listings:

• https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=by.green.tuber
• https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.free.playtube.videotube.musictube
• https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.jana.tube.video
• https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.newpipe.mp4downloader.video.downloader.addsblock.app
• https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.player.smartvideo.playtube
• https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.yancedev.allvideodownloader
• https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=enes.playvideo.pureplaytube
• https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=free.tube.premium.advanced.tuber https://www.appbrain.com/app/pure-tuber-block-ads-for-video-free-premium/free.tube.premium.advanced.tuber
• https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=io.adsfree.vanced
• https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=play.tube.video.music.videotube.playtube
• https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=play.tube.video.playtube.videotube.musictube
• https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=tm.belet.films https://belet.com.tm/ https://business.com.tm/post/6877/new-video-streaming-service-launched-in-turkmenistan -- but Belet Films is probably not a copycat of NewPipe (though Belet Videos is)

I just reported all of the Play Store listings above except for tm.belet.films (since we don't know whether that should be reported) to the "Google play takedown form".

import sys
import os
import requests
from bs4 import BeautifulSoup

print(open("desc.md").read().replace("com.newpipe.protube", sys.argv[1]))
print("\nhttps://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=" + sys.argv[1])

html = requests.get("https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=" + sys.argv[1] + "&hl=en").text
soup = BeautifulSoup(html, features="lxml")

for png in os.listdir("."):
    if png.endswith("png"):
        os.remove(png)

alreadyFoundUrls = set()
for img in soup.findAll("img"):
    if 'alt' not in img.attrs or 'src' not in img.attrs:
        continue
    alt, src = img.attrs['alt'], img.attrs['src']
    if alt in ["Icon image", "Screenshot image"] and not src.endswith("=s20") and src not in alreadyFoundUrls:
        alreadyFoundUrls.add(src)
        filename = "icon.png" if alt == "Icon image" else f"screenshot{len(alreadyFoundUrls)-1}.png"
        open(filename, "wb").write(requests.get(src).content)

The OFFICIAL NewPipe app is a free and open source application licensed under the GPLv3 license, whose source code is available on GitHub at https://github.com/TeamNewPipe/NewPipe . The app on Play Store, com.newpipe.protube, is an UNAUTHORIZED COPY of the official NewPipe app. That's because the GPLv3 license requires source code to be available to users who download the binaries/APKs (see lines 34 to 38 of the license, available here: https://github.com/TeamNewPipe/NewPipe/blob/dev/LICENSE#L34-L38 ), but the source code of the app I am flagging is not available anywhere. Moreover, GPLv3 requires that changes to the original source code are documented (see lines 210 to 215 of the license), but their source code changes are not published.
The features provided by the app I am flagging also violate the Google Terms of Service for publishing on Play Store, since it allows watching YouTube videos, also in background, without using the official YouTube APIs.

I found three unreported apps here on the Google Play Store:

• NewPipe for Music: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.newpipe.music;
• Play Tube & Video Tube: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mta.playtube.videotube.musictube (this one even renamed all of our code packages (extractor to org.video.playtube.extractor and app to com.mta.playtube) (this app uses our app code from 0.25.0).
• Tiny Browser & Video Saver: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.smartsocialtools.tools (this app uses parts of our app code, our extractor code and proprietary libraries)

More apps:

• TubePlay Mp3 Video: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=chextubeplay.mp3.video;
• PlayTube Video Mp3: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.chxlistenmusic.mp3;
• Play Tube & Video Tube: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=video.tube.play.tube.videotube.playtube.musictube.movietube (uses obfuscation and StringFog, renamed all NewPipe app references to their app name)
• Ucmate - A Powerful Player (one of the devs of this app (@dhananroy) seems to be a stargazer of my extractor fork, as it works for Ucmate Studio, the developer of this app): https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ucmate.app https://www.ucmate.info/

This developer also have the two apps below that are Newpipe clones. The second one is opening an ad really aggressively just after the install:

• https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sax.videodownloader
• https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tubeplay.playitfree

He also uploaded copycats of LibreTube, they are reported here.

What is going on with https://youdown.net/
Is anything actually different offered there?

https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/youdown/#information says "proprietary", which isn't compatible with the license.

What is going on with https://youdown.net/ Is anything actually different offered there?

Doesn't matter unless there's a copyright or license violation.

https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/youdown/#information says "proprietary", which isn't compatible with the license.

Probably mislabeled on weblate, it appears to be open source.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tubepipe.newpipe

Similar logo and screenshots appear to be AI-generated

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tubepipe.newpipe

Similar logo and screenshots appear to be AI-generated

I notified google.

Should the project README have a clear warning toward the top about NewPipe not being on Google Play? The existing text warns bad actors: PUTTING NEWPIPE, OR ANY FORK OF IT, INTO THE GOOGLE PLAY STORE VIOLATES THEIR TERMS AND CONDITIONS, but I think we could reword/prepend it to warn users specifically. Something like NewPipe is NOT on the Google Play Store! Do NOT download NewPipe from Google Play! Apps using NewPipe branding on Google Play are fake!

I looked up NewPipe on Google Play Store this afternoon and found the following:

• https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.streamingnewpipe.videomusicnewpipe by "Pia mobile ltd" (50K+ downloads), listed as "NewPipe - Video Streaming"
• https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.streaming.videomusic by "AheadTechApps" (10K+ downloads), listed as "Video Streaming"
• https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.newpipevid.downloaderfornewpipe by "mob ltd" (1K+ downloads), listed as "NewPipe"
• https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.onlineappsgames.allinonevideodownloader by "OG Network DEV" (1K+ downloads), listed as "NewPipe Video Downloader"

All of which are using some variant of the NewPipe logo.
I flagged these apps from within the app store. Then I reported each one via the Google takedown form (https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/contact/takedown). Under "Reason for flagging" I selected "Other objection" and in the text field I wrote:

This app commits license fraud against the NewPipe open source project and is likely malicious. See: #539

(I wrote out the full/unformatted issue link in the form, ignore the GitHub-specific issue linking). Thanks to the devs and community for being vigilant. I didn't know this was a problem until today

to warn users specifically

Unfortunately, they are completely separate audiences. Potential users who manage to reach our ReadMe won't download clones. And users who download clones from the Play Store won't know to come to this repo.

Another copycat found called playtuber
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.streamingnewpipe.videomusicnewpipe

https://m.onestore.co.kr/mobilepoc/apps/appsDetail.omp?prodId=0000727868&scYn=Y
Is there anybody who has access to "onestore" and is able to download the APK?
Please do not install the app if possible.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.chicha.ttt from this developer.

This app may not be using NewPipe code directly, but they are using NewPipe name and logo
https://apps.apple.com/fr/app/newpipe-music-videos/id6450053445

This app may not be using NewPipe code directly, but they are using NewPipe name and logo https://apps.apple.com/fr/app/newpipe-music-videos/id6450053445

I found this one as well today and even contacted Apple support about it, but there is only so much a user can do.

They asked me if I'm the developer so I suppose it would carry more weight if someone "official" from the NewPipe team would file a copyright infringement claim.