Guideline 5.2.1 - Legal - Intellectual Property

I'm publishing free IOS app with my own name and Individual account ( not Company/Organization )

My app is used to bets between college on the score of football matches of FIFA world cup 2022 and others Europe leagues ( France / Spain ... league )

  • I have monthly subscription to this football api to get matches result api-football https://www.api-football.com

On Apple store my app is accepted and I have publish several update and all are accepted, today my app is rejected with this

Guideline 5.2.1 - Legal - Intellectual Property

there are other similar app in app store but with only FIFA world cup 2022 and ads and I don't think that those app provide Intellectual Property from FIFA

Please Help, I don't know what I should do ! as the FIFA world cup 2022 will start soon

there are other similar app in app store but with only FIFA world cup 2022 and ads and I don't think that those app provide Intellectual Property from FIFA

That's never an argument for reviewers.

I've read several posts where developers have had issues when using FIFA images or name. Or even publishing matches results. Clearly, reviewers are very cautious as FIFA is adamant on protecting their rights.

So the question is what do you use that could be FIFA property ?

  • logos ?
  • matches results
  • other ?

Thanks for the quick answer I'm using Logos and Live matches result For the Logo I can remove, but for the matches result it's a main functionality as user can compare matches result with what he bet any possible suggestion please ?

For the result, a point is not to present the results in the same way as FIFA does on their own sites and/or apps.

If you search for FIFA on this forum, you will see a lot of threads dealing with the question, such as : https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/96612

For the Logo I will remove, and for the result the UI of the app is completely different from the FIFA website ( https://www.fifa.com/fifaplus/en/tournaments/mens/worldcup/qatar2022 ) so Should I remove the logo and publish again the app and explain that result as not present as the same as FIFA ?

Thanks

You can't use logos of FIFA or teams and you can't use team names. For example, Seattle Sounders FC (an American MLS team) would need to be just "Seattle" in your app. You could then use the color scheme of that team for the font/background.

Anything that has copyright, trademark, registered marks, or service marks is owned by someone and you need to get their permission. In America we have some copyright law called "fair use" for certain works that you can use without permission, but it's vague and requires lawyers to properly interpret what you can and cannot use.

I remove FiFa world cup Logo and I replace the name Wold cup 2022 by something else and I publish again the App, it's under review, and just for information I'm paying mouthly subscription for football api to get all those information ( score, team name, team logo .... ), the api request is something like "curl --request GET
--url 'https://v3.football.api-sports.io/teams?id=33'
--header 'x-rapidapi-host: v3.football.api-sports.io'
--header 'x-rapidapi-key: XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx'"

The response is something like : "response": [ { "team": { "id": 33, "name": "Manchester United", "code": "MUN", "country": "England", "founded": 1878, "national": false, "logo": "https://media.api-sports.io/football/teams/33.png" },

so I think for team name and logo it's managed by the API

Hello @raiton, I encourage you to read the Terms of Service for your API provider, which includes information about the use of "Data/Logos/images".

—Jason.

Thanks @jason, completely agree, Terms of Service it's very clear "All logos/images are copyrighted by their legal owner. We only provide the sources ..." another questions :

  • what we risk with my simple own name and Individual app ( not Company/Organization ) ? only app removed from store ? or legal proceeding ?
  • can I use country flag in the app or we need also FIFA agreement ?

For Europe club Logo + name I will temporary disable competition until I found a solution

Thanks all for you suggestion / help

same problem, the problem Is the club logo or match results?

Guideline 5.2.1 - Legal - Intellectual Property
 
 
Q