Dealing with App Store rejection

[tinyCoder32]

Hello there. In some parts of our education app, we have used some codes from Anytime Podcast Player, particularly, the API that pulls data from PodcastIndex for some educational categories.

However, our app was rejected at the Apple Store due to what they categorized as "Legal", and this is their statement:

Guideline 5.2.3 - Legal

Your app contains content or features that may violate the rights of one or more third parties. Specifically, your app provides potentially unauthorized access to third-party audio or video streaming, catalogs, and discovery services.

Your app and its contents should not infringe upon the rights of another party. In the event your app infringes another party’s rights, you are responsible for any liability to Apple because of a claim.

Next Steps

To resolve this issue, please attach documentary evidence in the App Review Information section in App Store Connect evidencing that you have all necessary rights or permissions to the third-party audio or video streaming, catalogs, and discovery services in your app.

We have carefully reviewed PodcastIndex's ToS and found nothing that prevents showing the podcasts in our app since it's a public API for public data, and it is for sure impossible to ask for written approval from podcasters because Apple randomly picks Podcast content from the app and asks for written approval on publishing it!

Can you advise us how you guys did it to publish your app on the App Store?

Thanks for the great work.

[amugofjava]

Hi @tinyCoder32,

I had a few rejections from Apple at the start of the process, but I don't ever remember getting this one so, unfortunately, I don't know what the answer to this is.

Doing some research, most of the apps I have found that have hit this issue are music apps. Does your app have the ability to play back music, or is the only media it plays from via the PodcastIndex? Could the name/description of your app give the reviewer at Apple the impression that your app is music based rather than podcast based?

I hope you work it out! Let me know how you get on.

Thanks,

Ben.

[amugofjava]

Hi @tinyCoder32,

Have you had any luck getting your app into the store?

[amugofjava]

Hi. Closing this issue now @tinyCoder32 - but please do let me know how you got on :)