Slashdot Mirror
Android Software Piracy Rampant
bednarz writes "Pirating Android apps is a longstanding problem. But it seems to be getting worse, even as Google begins to respond much more aggressively. The dilemma: protecting developers' investments, and revenue stream, while keeping an open platform. Some have argued that piracy is rampant in those countries where the online Android Market is not yet available. But a recent KeyesLabs research project suggests that may not be true: 'Over the course of 90 days, the [KeyesLabs] app was installed a total of 8,659 times. Of those installations only 2,831 were legitimate purchases, representing an overall piracy rate of over 67%.... The largest contributor to piracy, by far, is the United States providing 4,054 or about 70% of all pirated installations...'"
n/t
--- What?
Piracy and global warming are directly correlated! So, with more piracy, we'll finally see the global warming trend reverse!
http://www.venganza.org/about/open-letter/
char*f="char*f=%c%s%c;main(){printf(f,34,f,34);}";main(){printf(f,34,f,34);}
"Of those installations only 2,831 were legitimate purchases, representing an overall piracy rate of over 67%...."
What's the piracy rate on popular desktop , laptop (conventional PC) applications?
(In Russia, almost all of the software sold is unlicensed (it has been like that at least several years ago). Given that Russia is a populous country, floods US and other developed countries w/ programmers and generally is a flourishing business, one can only assume that Russian software market cannot be dismissed during this assessment.)
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
The dilemma: protecting developers' investments, and revenue stream, while keeping an open platform.
From (note: there's no reason to read the article I'm about to link, it's badly laid out with terrible ads and I'll quote the title) another article:
Android Skins, "Crapware" Protected by Open Source Principles, Says Schmidt
Please note, I could not find where Schmidt said these exact words but there was some sentiment of this in his interview. And there's some truth to it.
... it's the other apps I've unwittingly installed willy nilly on my phone while bored or drunk on the metro. You'll probably be able to assure me that there's no way another app could access the disk or memory space of the Kindle app but it just seems unsafe. I would not find iOS all that much more reassuring but I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in the paranoia of storing account information inside my phone -- or even repeatedly typing it in.
Truth be told, I'm a little wary of applications on my Android based Motorola DROID. I have seen the skins apps and am curious how one maker gets licenses for Zelda, Minnesota Vikings, Justin Beiber and all other kinds of imagery when they sell these skins. This sort of questionable content makes me wonder what other questionable things are being engaged. Likewise, I'm also a little wary of a lot of the free games I play. One in particular is the Solitaire Free Pack which, as it so turns out, I am a big fan of the ~40 variants of solitaire they offer. I also would like to use the Kindle application on my phone. There's just one problem: it wants my Amazon account login and password.
You know, it's not that I don't trust Android, Google or Amazon
I don't have any proof that it's a real security issue and I hope apps somehow get very restricted memory and disk spaces but I think Google has a little further to go on security as well as offering developers a way to recoup losses. Since it'll undoubtedly be DRM like their early attempts, I hope it's stressed to be opt-in and not advised.
My work here is dung.
If you release a binary, it will be copied. The very act of releasing it is tacit acknowledgement that you have given up absolute control over it. Companies that develop software should accept this and consider alternative income methods like support contracts and priority upgrade access.
As long as software companies think that their software has any monetary worth, they will continue to fight a losing battle to technology itself.
I'm sure something like a KeyesLab app is representative of most other apps, right?
What doesn't kill you only delays the inevitable
Right, like Android Smartphones, which they will then pirate apps on!
Sounds like hiring Americans will just increase the piracy rates.
Do they mention the price of the app, what the app did, where they phones in the US with US numbers, where they foreign phones in the US, did they see how long the users leaved the app installed after they pirated, did any of the pirates later purchase the app, how long they did the study, or anything else that might actually be useful information?
GENERATION 25: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation. Social exper
I don't see what the problem is, the people who are pirating the app wouldn't have bought it anyway so it's not a lost sale.
Or so I'm constantly told.
Summation 2
I bought a few android apps and every now and then one fails claims to be unlicensed to I have to install it again.
If I had a pirated apps they wouldn't do that.
Having to be online to use what I paid for when I could use for FREE and while offline what someone else stole annoys me. It makes me feel I'm getting poor value for money.
Google along with the developers need to make incentives for purchasing "legitimate" copies of Android software. For one, it doesn't have a great "gift card" mechanism, yes, you can register a gift card as a Google Checkout card and it does work, but it isn't as seamless as buying an iTunes giftcard, typing in the number and seeing your balance at all times. Secondly, there are a crapload of Android apps that are overpriced, you can't expect someone to pay for essentially a tech demo or utility. Markets like the Android market give people a large ego into thinking that people -should- pay $.99 for a few images and sounds it took you a few hours to find on Google then make a quick program to organize them. And number three, a lot of apps simply don't work. Unless there is a free version equivalent to all the features of the paid version, no one wants to spend even $.99 on something that doesn't work then deal with the hassle of returning the application.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Aah, but the reason for the pirate market to appear is most likely that Android apps are not available in other countries.
As this market exists and the morality of providing is quite ok: "people can't buy these apps in my European / Asian country anyway, so noone loses money if provide apps for the people of my country", the genie is out of the box.
Later on the US users catch up and start downloading from the same site.
What Google needs to do is to start selling in local markets all over the place.
Android Market apps are mostly super cheap. Who can't afford $1 on a game they'll play for a few days non-stop? Or a few bucks on a ROM management app? Prices for most paid apps are so low that I imagine that the largest barrier to entry is not price, but the effort required to set up one or more credit cards. My hypothesis, for that reason, is that a large portion of the piracy comes from the age 15-20 crowd who have fancy phones and lots of free time to figure out piracy options, but no credit card(s).
Google can greatly reduce this kind of piracy by working out pricing deals with the carriers to allow charges to appear on phone bills. How else would the ringtone industry thrive as it has? Verizon certainly doesn't offer a direct-bill Android Market option. Maybe this is already the case on other carriers? How does piracy compare in those cases?
Another annoyance of the Market is currency conversion. I've bought apps for sale in both Yen and Euros, and for those purchases I had to set up a Visa card since my AMEX didn't support foreign purchases (on the Market, at least). Most users don't want to deal with that kind of crap ... again, piracy is easier. Can't Google Checkout handle currency conversion on the developer's end without hassling end-users?
Otherwise, expect us to live our lives by any means necessary.
In what way is pirating an app necessary to living your life?
It seems to come down to the inescapable fact that if you sell your code, it will be stolen and/or passed along to others. On the other hand, if you simpy put a paywall in front of your code and charge people for a subscription, you can avoid getting financially ass-raped by all of the cheap bastards out there.
When I was a kid heavily involved in the warez scene, I didn't really understand what the big deal was when people complained about piracy. Now that I work for a living and earn money using computers, I get it. Life is too short to go to work every day and crank out code, only to have it ripped off by some cheap bastard.
People seem to miss the fact that it takes time and effort to write code. If a person feels it isn't that difficult, they should do it themselves rather than steal from someone else. All of the defenses along the lines of, "It doesn't cost anything to reproduce, therefore it should be free for me." are a big fat load of crap. It amazes me how morally corrupt a good sized segment of our society is.
If someone steals a jewel from a jewelry store, the physical item is no longer in the store's hands. Likewise, if someone buys a jewel from a jewelry store, the property transfers to the customer.
But software is infinitely reproducible for next to no cost. A copy "stolen" has no value, and a copy sold does not reduce the ability of the software producer to continue making copies.
Your analogy isn't bad. It's completely incorrect.
Like I was in the 80s/90s. Best time of my life. Met lots of cool people. :-|
But instead I became a legitimate hardware engineer.
Now I'm a megacorp serf.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
He said the means were necessary not the app.
I know I've seen blurbs indicating that software piracy on the iPhone/iPod (due to jailbreaks) is huge. Does anyone know if the problem is better or worse on one side of the fence?
Just reading the summary it comes across as something like "Android pirate's heaven (thus iPhone good for developers)", when I suspect the real case is "Android pirate's heaven (just like PC/Mac/iPhone)".
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
The "means" he's referring to are the "pirated apps". Reading comprehension fail.
30% of apps have a spam link under them to go to a wares site for apps. I click mark as spam but surely google which has the best spam filtering for gmail could filter urls since I keep flagging comments with the same nonmangled urls.
Real simple google, now filter!
Piracy rate is meaningless. You can have a 0% piracy rate easily, just don't release your app. The only thing that matters is revenue. You're better off having 1000 paying customers and 1,000,000,000 pirates than you are having 100 customers and no pirates at all.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
How did they get this data ? Spyware and phonehome crap on phones seems to be rampant
perhaps a Firewall should be mandatory on these devices if only to stop this marketing obsession with "analytics" (or spying on their users for want of more accurate word)
im glad i havent got a smartphone, stick a packet sniffer on a phone (iphone or android) and the amount of callbacks to 3rd party surveillance companies and random servers is staggering, no wonder the Linux beards are always talking about cannot see the source code = no install, it would seem they are right.
if your software phones home then i as a user charge for that service data at a rate thats exactly the cost of your app, so piracy isnt applicable as its simply an exchange, you did see my T&C located in /home/T&C.txt on my phone right ?.
Instead of looking at how many pirated copies there are, how about looking at how many non-pirated copies there are? Is your product making a profit, in spite of these figures?
Not every pirated copy is a lost sale. I can't stress that enough. Make the most of what you have instead of making mountains out of molehills.
Seems to me that the people have spoken.. They don't want to pay for this kind of stuff.
Why don't devs 'get' it? The majority have spoken.
No, the "means" he's referring to is pirating apps. It isn't that the apps are necessary, it's that the money to buy them is unavailable -- thereby making piracy (or, in the alternative, going without the apps and still not paying the developers any money) a necessity.
This being /., I'm surprised the blurb doesn't rail against the developers' propriertary code and "closed" distribution scheme, and encourage them to make back their investment through "alternative revenue models", such as giving away the app for free and then selling t-shirts with its icon.
It's not piracy, it's an appallling refusal to give away one's work for free.
Wow...I don't have the money to buy a yacht. I guess going out and stealing one is a necessity? Please, the number of excuses the internet generation uses to justify its thieving ways is just mind-boggling.
What? You're on slashdot, and don't understand that software can become necessary, and that some people might not be able to afford it? Here's a tip: you're in the information age, and this need is exactly why a lot of us donate software to the free software community.
I'd probably be an alcoholic in the slum I grew up in, if not dead, if it wasn't for free software (and yes, pirated software) giving me opportunities I never had otherwise. There's a reason why people on sites like TPB rally together when attacked. Yes, software is necessary in modern life. Yes, sometimes pirating it is necessary too. Although thankfully a lot less lately, thanks to Open Source.
Really, sites like TPB are the modern equivalent of libraries that lend books to people would couldn't afford to buy them. They should be praised and donated to, not targetted. And that's why people DO donate to them.
Android Market apps are mostly super cheap. Who can't afford $1 on a game they'll play for a few days non-stop? Or a few bucks on a ROM management app? Prices for most paid apps are so low that I imagine that the largest barrier to entry is not price, but the effort required to set up one or more credit cards. My hypothesis, for that reason, is that a large portion of the piracy comes from the age 15-20 crowd who have fancy phones and lots of free time to figure out piracy options, but no credit card(s).
In general a low price is not necessarily a deterrent to piracy. Neither are alternative payment methods such as paypal. Piracy will simply occur whenever it can be easily accomplished. I've seen it done with highly functional low cost (US$12-15) software required for university coursework. Sales went from near zero to in line with corresponding textbook sales when a publisher added trivial-to-crack copy protection.
So, rather than read the article, and comment, I actually went out and checked out the software package in question. It's Screebl by Keyeslabs.com.
There is a free version out there for folks to try out. That said, it does't actually do much of anything useful. All it does is use the position of your phone to keep your screen on. They want $2 for the app. Now we're talking about perceived value. In the case of this specific app, there is no value to me.
I buy apps regularly that work, work well, and provide a good value for their money.
If this app was actually useful, and provided some value, I suspect that the would see less piracy. Oh, and their report is crap. We really need stats to look at this.
This is quite depressing. I am currently in the process of writing a game for Android right now. I am paying an artist $1000 and a music guy $100, so I actually have a little more financial stake in this than the average hobby app maker. The worst part is, there are pirating web sites that aren't just giving away pirated apps, they're SELLING them.
I was hoping to make a few thousand bucks. I'm now just hoping that I can recoup my losses. Too bad I am going to spend hundreds of hours of my free time working for maybe close to nothing.
Just because the U.S. is a republic does not mean it is not a democracy. Democracy/republic are not mutually exclusive.
Wish I had some mod points. Definitely "Informative"
If pirating software is anything but an impossible endeavor for users, then it is going to happen.
If a solid revenue stream is your primary concern as a developer, and piracy is something that is keeping you up at night, then you should be making apps that cater to businesses instead of individual users.
If the platform is such that targeting anything but individual users is not feasible, then unless your app is extremely popular, it is a poor platform to use for generating revenue.
is rampant on every type of platform.. almost as rampant as the companys that put out terrible software and giving you no chance to try it out...
Judging from your UID your either one from that gen, or a troll who has to change names often.
the lifespan of the common fruit fly? How long does Android exist? I'd say AIDS now qualifies as a longstanding disease.
When will developers/artists/journalists/courts learn about supply and demand curves?
Number of pirated copies tells you about how many copies of your art/software you would sell (to people who pirate) if the price was $0 per copy.
Number of sold items tells you how many you would sell at $x, the price that you actually sell your art/program for (to people who don't pirate).
At a price of $0 per copy, indeed thousands or millions of copies of software would be downloaded. But that says nothing about how many would be sold without piracy, when the price is greater than 0.
If I could have cars for $0, I'd have 50 cars in my driveway, one for every occasion. But that says nothing about how many cars I'd be willing to buy for $10000.
Even without piracy you can see the same phenomenon:
I have probably around 50 free apps installed on my android, but only 2 or 3 paid apps. You think that if developers stopped giving away apps for free I'd have 53 paid apps on my phone? No way! I'd probably have even less. All my paid apps are ones that I could testdrive and really liked. There are many paid apps that have no free version, and I never touched them.
but in the UK most kids don't have credit cards - the only accepted form of payment on the android market - it's piracy or nothing - accept the money!!!
If you can "steal" a yacht by making an exact copy of it without harming or taking the original, then yes, go right ahead.
Offer it free with adds and I wont complain.
What? You're on slashdot, and don't understand that software can become necessary, and that some people might not be able to afford it? Here's a tip: you're in the information age, and this need is exactly why a lot of us donate software to the free software community.
While I agree with you that there is definitely good reasons for FOSS, and I am extremely appreciate of efforts of the FOSS community - we're not talking about the same problem. If you are already sporting an Android phone (where the phone costs ~$200 and the price per month is ~$70 - $120), you can afford a $1.00 app. It's not even close to the same situation.
Is it worth bothering with?
As long as prices are decent some will pay, some won't, big deal. Don't develop for the phone if you can't accept whatever amount of money you get =P
Also: FFS remove any fees for a developer as far as getting an SDK and submitting an application goes.
"Necessary" can be defined however you like it. Is stealing food to feed your starving family "necessary"? No, because it's not necessary that any of you live. But you would likely disagree.
Are you seriously arguing that smartphone apps are both necessary to living life itself and unreasonably expensive? The one cited in TFA in particular is $1.99, and provides functionality that is easily considered to be unnecessary, yet they're still seeing exceptionally high piracy rates. In this case especially, people are not pirating because they must, but because they can.
http://theoatmeal.com/blog/apps
Like my comments? Try my podcast: http://www.baldmove.com
"Apps" quite often are things that either should be part of the core OS or things that should be Free Software.
Just because the executable part is free software doesn't mean the whole application is. It could be a free implementation of a virtual machine in which a game with non-free textures, non-free models, non-free maps, non-free audio, and non-free scripts runs. The first example I think of is a game that runs in ScummVM or FCE Ultra or VisualBoyAdvance.
According to the numbers published by one app developer, iPhone apps have a 95% piracy rate. This is despite that fact that iPhone is a closed system and requires jailbreaking the device before piracy is even possible, so open versus closed system doesn't really seem to have an effect on piracy rates. Of course, this is based on the numbers from only one iPhone app developer (but the 67% piracy rate in the above article is also based on number from only one Android app developer). As high as these numbers are, it really doesn't mean that most users pirate, it just means that the few people who do pirate install a lot more apps than those that don't.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
"If you can afford x then you should be able to afford y" is always a bad argument.
Original post in question:
In the context of this discussion, it's very clear that he's saying that "if we don't have the money, we will pirate apps." Since the option to NOT pirate and NOT use the software always exists, he is clearly stating that he considers "living our lives" to only be possible through the use of these apps, be they pirated or purchased.
Thus the apps are the "means" by which he intends us to "live our lives". You and I both know that the apps aren't necessary, but he has specifically stated that these apps are fundamental to living our lives, and so the only option is to either buy them (if we have jobs), or pirate them (if we don't).
Some apps are quite expensive. The sling player on android is $30, not *that* bad, and a garmin app for over $100. But, if you're unlucky enough to have an iProduct, there's a $1000 bar exam study guide. You also have to consider the return on investment. A $50 stick of ram will last you years. A $20 android game? A few days, maybe.
Please don't. It's not google's problem if your AMEX card doesn't support international transactions. Most credit cards do, and at a better rate than paypal (and I assume, google checkout)
Your comparison of TPB to a library overlooks the fact that the library (each individual library system, actually) purchases/liscenses/contracts the content they lend. TPB finds someone else who has purchased/liscensed/contracted content and takes it without having contributed anything to the authors/owners who created it. They do this at a scale that dwarfs the content cycle of a single library system.
The assets of a library also come with limitations (return dates, access limitations, DRM, content expiration dates) which would require a user to purchase the content if they want unfettered, indefinite access to the content. A pirated version of software and other pirated content has no such limitations and there is significantly less incentive for a pirate to convert to a legitimate copy.
You can certainly rationalize and encourage theft by playing the "poor people should have expensive stuff too" card, but most librarians would cringe at your argument. I'm all for helping people out and for free access to information, but if you want to own something (and I'm sorry, but unless you are getting firmware for a pacemaker, software is a want) you buy it. If you can't afford it you don't buy it or you find an alternative you can afford. Amazing how that works, ain't it?
What laughable bullshit. Software is not necessary unless you're talking medical, car safety, etc... There is literally no software that you need on your phone to survive.
You're drawing some non-existent parallel between jobs in software and optional, "fun" software.
Like people "need" to download some shitty movie off TPB, or they "need" to download a game.
Utterly ridiculous, and what makes it more ridiculous is in how earnest you are in shoveling that absolute horse shit.
What a fucking entitlement society we have turned into.
So what you are saying is that for some "surviving" = "necessary", while for others "playing that cool little game on your phone for free" = "necessary". Somehow, I doubt that most people agree to that latter definition of necessary.
Apple has "Mac vs PC", Microsoft has "Laptop Hunters", Linux has recession
So don't buy it then. It's not an excuse to pirate. (All the items you mentioned are not "life or death" type items as the GP poster originally was referring to.)
First off, generalizations are always wrong. (Yeah, yeah...I know...)
Secondly, the argument is SOMETIMES bad. Why sometimes?
Well, if I say, "You can afford a car, so you should be able to afford a house." That's obviously not true.
However, if you are buying an Android application, you are already assuming the cost of the phone and the monthly plan which you MUST have in order to own and use the phone. Therefore, you are already shelling out quite a bit of money. One more dollar is not going to break the bank.
Don't let those pesky wabbits eat up a bunch of cawwots without paying!
A big glaring hole in data protection I see is that if you install apps to external storage (like an SD card) anything can read anything about them because they are held on a filesystem that doesn't support permissions.
At least I remember that to be so from a previous discussion, please correct me if I'm wrong. But if the SD card is formatted FAT32 (and they pretty much all are) I don't see how Android could implement permissions directly for files.
The only way (and probably what Android should do) is to make an encrypted virtual disk image that it mounts as a filesystem that support permissions, and have apps install there. But then of course you could not mount the SD card from a computer and add/remove app files...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It would cost me more than $1.99 to figure out how to pirate this app.
Support SETI@home
[potential flame alert! That is NOT my intent!]
It is also possible that there is a cultural disparity between "antisocial geeks", and their more "normal" peers; That to the geeks like us, fitting in with the crowd is NOT considered a vital aspect of one's life or livelihood; However, to the more socially inclined this may be VERY untrue.
Take for instance, somebody that HAS to work with the dreaded "Apple Hipsters." They might be able to scrounge up enough dough to get that new iPhone (like everyone else in the workplace, to keep from standing out and being ostracized.) but after doing so coughing up the dough to get $super_awesome_flavor_of_the_week_app that everyone else is raving about becomes much more difficult, but the pressure is still there.
This is especially true in vocations that revolve exclusively around interpersonal skills, such as lackeys in marketing. (No, not the marketing director that makes bank; I mean the lackey that actually makes the adverts, and probably gets shafted regularly.) Or, perhaps a sales consultant -- etc.
These people have a legitimate *need* to have that software, even if they dont USE it, because of social pressures that would otherwise exclude them from vital opportunities.
When you take into consideration the "Culture" being foisted onto the US population by the MSM and multinational corporations, this paints the whole "Filthy Pirates!" thing in a whole new light, at least concerning software that also doubles as a status symbol.
One might assume that, and for a $1:$200+$70-120/mo ratio, you might be correct. At what ratio, though, does that statement not hold true? 1:1? 2:1? less? Depending on your budget, the phone might consume all allocated to disposable spending and there might not be any extra $$'s left for apps, unless you're advocating budget-less spending habits (which I wouldn't recommend). That's the whole reason the statement 'Just because you can afford x, you can afford y' is a fallacy.
If you can "steal" a yacht by making an exact copy of it without harming or taking the original, then yes, go right ahead.
I would suspect that the company that made the yacht would object to your making an exact copy, especially if it also bears their name (remember, it is an exact copy). Now, if you didn't put their name on it, they probably would still have a case against you, as they likely have a number of patents that you violated.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
The largest contributor to piracy, by far, is the United States providing 4,054 or about 70% of all pirated installations...'
1. I'm not sure I'm comfortable with my tax dollars being used for this.
2. The U.S., being one of your larger, more technologically-saturated nations, and a developer and early adopter of Android, is likely to have more of anything androidal. This shouldn't be used to camouflage the fact that the U.S., being a nation steeped in outlaw culture, is full of people who would pirate their own grandmother's apple-pie recipe, if the exploit used to get it was script-kiddie ready and ran on a smartphone.
"necessary" in terms of "I will die without it", No.
"necessary" in terms of "I will lose standing with my peers, and lose out on potentially valuable opportunities"-- Possibly quite true.
Software on mobile phones is more than just "idle entertainment", and/or "productivity inclined"-- it is also a status symbol in and of itself.
"Not only do I have this BOSS new phone, I have all these awesome apps! I am obviously more software literate than my peers; choose me to do the project, and give ME the raise."
See where that's headed?
If the company knows that 67% of the apps accessing their system are pirated and simply counts these as theft instead of doing something about it, then these app installs are considered a gift from the company.
Companies need to take responsibility for themselves... not google and especially not apple.
Phone apps should require online authentication as the device has the network capabilities by its nature. To not protect the bulk of your apps functionality in this nature is not protecting it at all. When a company does not protect their own software, you can safely copy this to others and consider it a gift to society.
The public should not be held responsible for insufficient protection of code. Furthermore, the public should not pay for any code that is not worthy of such a stringent mechanism of copy protection. ie: most apps should be free anyways and those that aren't need to pay for their own protection mechanism or not exist at all.
An company who doesn't take responsibility for protecting their code and still expecting people to pay for it is equivalent to putting a jar at the entrance to D*sneyland and expecting everyone to pay... they won't... and this is not a statement about the people who don't pay!
IMO: Copied, shared and re-distributed code will always generate better software (more features, bug fixed faster, community help/documents) in the end then private and proprietary development. The smart phone operating system that provides the most sharing will also end up with the most advanced and secure software in the end. If Android continues to offer more means of sharing code and software, then it will beat both blackberry and apple in the application market.
You also have to consider the return on investment. A $50 stick of ram will last you years. A $20 android game?
Did you really just describe a mobile phone game as an investment?
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
the cost of the phone
Birthday present.
the monthly plan which you MUST have
But is that A. Google's fault for not letting devices without cellular data support (such as Archos devices) onto Android Market, or is it B. developers' fault for not releasing their products on AppsLib (which doesn't require a cellular data plan) in addition to Android Market (which does)?
"Not only do I have this BOSS new phone, I have all these awesome apps! I am obviously more software literate than my peers; choose me to do the project, and give ME the raise."
"Sorry, I can't promote you because you'd be a liability if BSA audits us."
If they spent that much on the phone.. and then can't afford the $1 app, then there IS a budgeting issue. Obviously they should have spent their money on a cheaper phone. Or god forbid do what I had to do as a child, and wait until the next time I actually had the money, which meant saving up.
But don't expect to make money on the internet. You are a fool to try.
If it is useful software, people will develop for it for free.
Then why aren't there more video games with even WiiWare-class or DS-class production values that are released as free software? And, to make a bit of a bad analogy, why aren't there more notable Free music albums, notable Free TV shows, notable Free feature films, etc.? (Here, a "notable" work has been reviewed by two separate mainstream media sources.)
I love how the size of your UID is the /. equivalent of your dick size. But judging that you posted AC chances are your /penis is smaller than his.
Whenever people study people using infringing copies of software on PC platforms, they report something like 90% of copies are infringing. Thus, with "an overall piracy rate of over 67%," we can conclude that Android copyright infringement is remarkably well controlled, and app publishers should be grateful. (Admittedly, it's worse than iOS apps, which might see a 50% infringement rate, but another way of putting it is: Apple put up far more aggressive barriers to copyright infringement costing the, in the process made iOS less useful to customers and more hostile to development, and still only lowered the rate from 67% to 50%.
And, of course, the old rule applies: Those infringing your copyright aren't your customers. If you've made good software, are selling it as a reasonable price, and it's conveniently available, it's unlikely that anything you can do will improve your profits. Sure, you might reduce the number of infringing copies in use, but you'll have spent money accomplishing that for minimal to no additional sales. Worry about your customers, not those violating your copyright.
Search 2010 Gen Con events
It is a beautiful thing to read all the OUTRAGE over software piracy. Don't get that so much when the topic is music piracy.
Must depend upon whose ox is being gored!
Isn't that the same bullshit argument Eminem threw out when people were copying his CD with the DRM that could be defeated by using a black marker?
No one cares what your captcha was
Houston TX, USA
I'd probably be an alcoholic in the slum I grew up in, if not dead, if it wasn't for free software (and yes, pirated software) giving me opportunities I never had otherwise. There's a reason why people on sites like TPB rally together when attacked. Yes, software is necessary in modern life. Yes, sometimes pirating it is necessary too. Although thankfully a lot less lately, thanks to Open Source.
And I'm sure this is the use case in question - this guy needs his Android apps to save himself from alcohol addiction or worse.
Though... if he can afford a few hundred dollars for an android and data plan.. perhaps he's not as bad off as all that ;) WE're not talking food here, we're talking about phone apps. I'm struggling for find the "need" in any phone app - particularly the "need" that drives one to steal. (Aw, I shouldnt've said that. That's going to wake up the 'pirating is not stealing' trolls.)
Really, sites like TPB are the modern equivalent of libraries that lend books to people would couldn't afford to buy them. They should be praised and donated to, not targetted. And that's why people DO donate to them.
TPB serves many purposes, regardless of what their predominant purpose is. Those other purposes are what makes them worth donating to.
Sophistry. You equate pirating apps to stealing food for survival.
While a couple dollar application isn't going to break the bank, letting my kids install whatever application happens to be popular at the moment eventually adds up. My kids know to check with us before installing any applications. For some families, especially in this economy, they may be stretching the budget to afford the phones/plan and the kids may resort to pirating the application.
FOSS is a great solution to the piracy problem. Not only will it reduce piracy in third world countries, but many of those who use it will also contribute to the effort.
I pirate a lot less now that there are free alternatives.
As an Android developer, my response is, "Who Cares?".
If we make good software, the vast majority of users will purchase it. Average users are not pirates and have no qualms about dropping a few dollars for good apps.
Also, Google has recently introduced another way to verify that a running app was purchased legitimately which is not at all intrusive or difficult to implement. I dropped it into my game in 5 minutes. It would take some serious (more than 99 cents worth) of effort for a person to circumvent it.
But if you block out the pirates you are going to block out any potential customer as well. Think of the pirated app as a free demo version. It will promote you, make your app more visible and people that have the money and want to buy stuff for their phone will buy your app.
Ask you one question, where would Microsoft be, if you absolutely cannot copy Windows or MS Office for free? What would be Russia, China, the Philippines, Malaysia, India, the students in Europe and USA and small office businesses using? Linux or OO.org? Now ask you, is a waterproof DRM scheme really in the interests of Microsoft? If you answer is No, why should be DRM in your interests?
http://www.mueller-public.de - My site http://www.anr-institute.com/ - Advanced Natural Research Institute
Not if Daddy bought the phone and has it on a family plan but doesn't want to give Junior access to the credit card. It's easy to manage the purchase price for an Android phone, plus a predictable monthly plan cost. It's not so easy to manage "Don't spend more than $10/month" with children that aren't directly accountable for family money management.
US piracy? Check the poverty stats for the US. They US *IS* a third-world country on poverty statistics.
Now, 67% is low. One story about iPhone apps had 90% "piracy". However, there's nothing wrong with piracy because all you need are enough users to pay for the product.
And, given that despite demanding copyright, no binary apps normally sold have the expressive source code (expressive content is copyrightable, and you need the source code to learn from it and use it when copyright relapses), AND that copyright keeps extending, AND that nobody actually gets hurt, there's not a lot of moral outrage to make people stop pirating.
Short copyright, source code and honest on the part of sellers of software are needed to build up moral authority and this will take time because it's taken 50-60 years of ass-raping of the copyrights to get to this stage. It'll take 50-60 years to undo the damage.
google: KeyesLabs
"Did you mean: Keyes Labs" ... 4th result: "KeyesLabs Fights App Piracy with Automatic Application Licensing"
They open sourced the project, though on this page:
http://keyeslabs.com/joomla/donate
while the link has 'donate' in it, you're apprently "buying" online support
you know... like many open source "business" models
What about the ones that are lost sales though? Should they be ignored? What about the ethics of it? Should people enjoy the fruits of your labour for free when you've made it clear that you want to be paid for them?
Not a personal rip on you or anything, just a general observation. Capitalists are only ethical when it is profitable to them. Make of this what you will.
Like it or not, your morals are irrelevant here. An entire generation has grown up with the basic truth that you can download anything you want off the internet for free, and no matter how much you rage against it you're not going to change their minds. You are no different than grandparents a generation ago who were appalled at the immorality of the younger generation committing such heinous acts as boy-girl dancing and girls wearing pants.
Granted, the RIAA doesn't *like* this either, but a lot of my portable is filled with files imported from CDs that I bought legally in physical form.
And I'm under 30. :P
BTW, I always saw/heard it as the software (the music files) as a relative loss leader to sell fancy hardware. Sounds like a fairly standard example of Apple's business model.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
Standard excuses for not paying for this or any other game (pick any that apply):
1) I will pirate it first and then pay only if it is PERFECT (as defined by me, of course).
2) My pirating is good for the software developer (more people playing, even without paying is good, it gives them lots of free publicity). Piracy increases sales! I am doing them a HUGE favor.
3) I am a cheap ass.
4) There is no such thing as copyright (or shouldn't be). Other people should create art, music, games, films, and entertainment for me as a favor and fund it out of their own pocket.
5) Piracy is a fact in the gaming world. Get used to it. It's the developer's own fault because they should have taken it into account in their business model (besides, they should have been working on this full time as an open source program for free anyway).
6) You charge too much. And if it is only $10, or $5, or even $1, then pirating it shouldn't be that much of a burden to the developer.
7) I do not want to try the demo because the only meaningful way to try out a game is to try out the ENTIRE game.
8) Who cares if there is 99.9% piracy, all the developers need is to make just enough money to fund developing another game. They don't need to get rich (after all, I'm not).
9) "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need."
10) Because I have never had to create, develop and market a game and I don't have a clue as to what it takes to run a business.
11) It is just normal human nature to take the product of others' labor without compensating them.
12) Taking it without paying is not a lost sale, which applies to 100% of all pirated copies (who can prove otherwise?).
1. Pirate all Android "Fart" applications.
2. ???
3. Profit!
I understand what you're getting at, though I have to admit that I'm fairly unsympathetic to this argument.
My desire to have something doesn't automatically confer on me the right to take the product of someone else's efforts without paying.
I'd also suggest that "keeping up with the Joneses" is not exactly a situation where "NEED" truly applies.
More flash news - bears shit in the woods!
Actually he meant that "by any" means "necessary".
As in they have the same meaning.
Okay I'm just making this up because this argument is retarded.
Well, I'm not sure about phone software, but pirating PC software does help people to survive.
E.g. in Russia, buying 3DS Max or Photoshop, or even Visual Studio was and is out of reach for commoners. Heck, even Windows itself used to be out of reach just ten years ago. Yet without proficiency with this, you only qualify for shit jobs with yearly income below 2000 USD, which is barely enough to survive.
So, dare I say, whole IT industry in countries like Russia heavily relies on piracy, because you won't be able to find skilled personnel otherwise. Some companies use pirated software for their business because law enforcement in Russia is weak and playing fair is not a rational behavior in such conditions (your competition will leapfrog you). The situation is gradually improving over the years, but fighting piracy is still unrealistic in the short term.
And no, FOSS is of nearly no help for these areas. If your employer requires you to know 3DS Max or even specific plugins for it, you can't convert your Blender skills that easily.
Coding etudes
First, it's IMPOSSIBLE to figure out how much piracy is costing, because, well, it's piracy. There is no way to find out any sort of accurate count.
The real question is, are you (the app devs) making any money selling the apps? If so, shut the fuck up and quit complaining. If not, make a better app, or quit trying to clone the other fucking 30 apps that are similar.
Until last night, I didn't run a pirated version of anything on my android. I broke down and installed some games I downloaded for it. Why? Because, even though I don't game on my phone much, I wanted to check some out.
Civ 4 don't run on it, so I'm glad i checked that out, 'cause that's one game I might of bought, if any good.
So ya, I suck. I'm part of the problem.
But that doesn't change shit. And the more devs bitch about deserving money for every copy of their program/app being used, the more I can care less.
Piracy is part of life. It's part of the entertainment industry, it's part of the digital age, it's part of life. Accept it, learn to use it, and then you can profit from it. Quit treating your paying customers like they are criminals, and fucking chill. I mean, fucking look at history. Computer games & programs have been traded around since the start of computers. It's nothing new at all. It hasn't destroyed any industry, and it hasn't kept the producers from making a shit ton of money.
If piracy was as half as bad as the industry tries to make out, there wouldn't be the tech we have today. There would be NO xbox, no playstation, no nintendo. No PC games, no mac games (wait, there are mac games?). Piracy is the industries "wolf" (as in, The Boy Who Cried Wolf, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boy_Who_Cried_Wolf)
oh ya, and quit with the bogus reports that are just well, plain lies.
Okay, I'm done with rant now, it's almost 4:20 and time to get stoned, and maybe play my pirated bejeweled on my android, just to stick it to the man.
Be seeing you...
If they weren't willing to pay for it, why should they get to enjoy/use it?
If they aren't harming you by using it, why should you be able to force them to stop?
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
It's a time investment. Depending on where you work, $50 may be 5 minutes, or it may be 5 hours. Don't know about you, but most of the people I know consider time in vs time out when valuing things. Then again, most of the people I know have an idea what 'ls' does.
Not arguing for piracy. Arguing against the fallacy that being able to afford the phone plan equates to being able to afford all its bells and whistles.
please correct me if I'm wrong.
Sure: you are wrong. Apps on the SD card aren't run directly from the SD card, they're run from a loopback device that's mounted using the data from the SD card. It's a filesystem jail enforced by the kernel. Put some apps on the SD card, then connect your android device up and run "adb shell mount"; you'll see a pile of mounted filesystems at the end of the list, one for each app moved to the SD card.
Does my bum look big in this?
If you could replicate a yacht or a ferrari as easily and as fast as you can a digital file, we would all have yachts and ferraris coming out of our asses.
Its that simple.
He did not say they were fundamental to living our lives. You injected the word fundamental. He said people will live their lives by any means necessary... which means they will live their lives as they see fit with or without the ability to afford it due to the lack of jobs and general lack of concern of the middle class from the wealthy's point of view.
You spun his statement and injected the idea that he said apps are necessary. He did not say that. You did.
But there are certainly apps necessary... as in todays world, you better know a few of them if you want a job that isnt already taken by an illegal mexican.
I dont think that is true. I never pirated apps for my iPhone. But many certainly do... not not nearly as many who actually PAY for their iphone apps.
Well, not really; it's never *necessary* to pirate software. However, here's a thought:
On the iPhone App Store, most applications don't go higher than $5; in fact, the majority of them are under a dollar. Unless you're trying to use your iPhone as a Blackberry replacement (bad idea), one doesn't need an email or calendar client. iPhones are iPods through and through, so they don't need music software. From a usability perspective, most of the core functions anyone would want are already there; in other words, they've bundled with the price of the phone.
Not so with Android. A lot of people rightfully point out that a big advantage of the Android Market is that many of the applications are free to keep with Android's "open" nature. However, what they don't tell you is that getting anything that goes beyond the absolute basics costs money. LOTS more money. (Relatively speaking.) You want to have a decent Exchange experience on your phone? TouchDown's $20. Want a music player that can do full-screen cover art and has an equalizer for your Ultimate Ears IEMs? MixZing's $6. (They have a free edition, though.) How about a decent camera app that can use the whole screen and give you some basic editing features? Camera ZOOM FX is $3 [?].
I'm not saying that justifies piracy; it doesn't. It just doesn't make sense to do a phone that "does" when it does less (out of the box) than its iPhone counterpart, and buying MORE stuff is the only way to remediate that. I hope this situation changes in Gingerbread; I really want to have a clean phone; no add-ons.
Now thats a huge assumption isnt it?
Do you think most people can easily afford a $200 phone that is $120 a month?
I tend to think most people who own an Android phone, are overextending their budget, just to afford a phone that has overpriced service fees.
No telecommunication service should cost $120 a month to any end user.
First, software writers have asked for special privileges. One is free to make hand copies from a library book as long as it is for personal use and not for sale. But these days the music, film and software industries argue that because copying is now too easy that special protections must be allowed. And even more is asked. Who ever said that there was to be any commercial use of the net when it was created? The film and music industries as well as software people have a tendency to believe that commercial use of the net should be allowed. That is quite debatable. Allowing that concept has a full 50% of the net bogged down with porn and mail boxes bulging with all kinds of nut job product offers.
What he said: "Hire Americans, and they can afford things. Otherwise, expect us to live our lives by any means necessary."
This statement was made in the context of an article about piracy of Android apps, and how many of the pirates appeared to be in the US. His response: If you don't want piracy, Americans need jobs. That way they will stop pirating.
He never mentions that it is possible to, you know, live without the apps, he clearly is stating that he considers them "fundamental," to living, and thus they will be acquired "by any means necessary."
I'm sorry this is so hard for you to parse, but it's really quite clear. I'm injecting no hidden meaning into his statement, he never even considers the notion that people without the money to buy the app could simply do without.
"He never mentions that it is possible to, you know, live without the apps"
Right, and nor did he mention the word fundemental. Which you keep injecting into this.
He also did not mention food, sky, water, videogames, ponies, or whales.. but i'm sure they all apply somehow... So how would you like to inject your believes into those scenarios that also do not appear in his statement?
Do you think his statement applied only to apps, or as a general human response known as survival... and thats survival as one sees fit... not how others see fit. Which is what you're imposing by injecting the idea that one must think apps are fundemental to life. They are not, and they are.... it depends on who you are, what you do, and the situation doesnt it
But the point is.. the statement made... made no declaration of what you say it did.
More reading comprehension fail.
I'll stop now, this is like talking to a brick wall, except the brick wall might be capable of grasping the point eventually.
And all the new ferraris and yatchs would be crappy as hell.....just like music and movies are these days
www.RacquetUp.org - Helping Detroit Youth
because they only support credit cards here, and in europe credit cards are an uncommon payment method.
You are correct, that is another problem with the library/TPB comparison. The vast majority of libraries these days charge for use of their copier(s) and even if they didn't you're probably not going to copy an entire work as the investment in time to photocopy "War and Peace" would be more than the cost of buying the book outright. And then, the pages you've copied are nowhere near the quality of the source material nor is the product perfectly identical.
I still don't see a difference that magically turns theft into something morally commendable. Sure, software vendors, movie studios and record labels can be jerky and use off-putting DRM to piss off their potential customers, but that is their right as the author and manufacturer. If one doesn't like it, they can support a competing product, produce their own product or simply abstain from the market.
Do I agree with it? Not always. Would I fight far reaching restrictions? Most definitely. Am I going to steal a bunch of software/media because I've invented some moral high ground that rationalizes it based on my disagreements with behavior of the industry? No.
You spun his statement and injected the idea that he said apps are necessary. He did not say that. You did.
he said:
Otherwise, expect us to live our lives by any means necessary.
In the context of a discussion about pirating apps. So how did I inject this idea, given the context of the discussion?
But there are certainly apps necessary... as in todays world, you better know a few of them if you want a job that isnt already taken by an illegal mexican.
Clarify?
If you are already sporting an Android phone (where the phone costs ~$200 and the price per month is ~$70 - $120), you can afford a $1.00 app.
While I agree that just about anyone with a (non-stolen) Android phone should be able to cough up a dollar for an app - is it just me, or are American cell phone users getting hugely shafted here?
I've got a Motorola Milestone from Amazon without any plan tied to it, and I'm paying 0.04 EUR per minute or SMS and 4 EUR per (started) GB of data, with no monthly fee...
So, ummm... yay? o_O;
np: Senking - Skidozer 301 (Pong)
"I'm not anti-anything, I'm anti-everything, it fits better." - Sole
here are plenty of people who are willing to develop software for free.
Only those who have a payed day time job making software which is not gratis. Or live of unemployment benefit. It that what you want: A world where all software is made by those being “in between” jobs?
Martin
will then download the hacked, ad-free version.
No need - just install an ad-blocker.
Martin
First off, generalizations are always wrong. (Yeah, yeah...I know...)
Secondly, the argument is SOMETIMES bad. Why sometimes?
Well, if I say, "You can afford a car, so you should be able to afford a house." That's obviously not true.
However, if you are buying an Android application, you are already assuming the cost of the phone and the monthly plan which you MUST have in order to own and use the phone. Therefore, you are already shelling out quite a bit of money. One more dollar is not going to break the bank.
Way to flip and blow the magnitudes of the items out of proportion.
More like, if you can afford a car then you shouldn't have to steal the fuzzy dice you want to hang from the mirror.
Indeed...the truth is this: I don't care if I write a great novel and no-one buys a single copy of it, and everyone downloads it for free, provided I'm paid a reasonable amount to write it up front. When you build a yacht, SOMEONE pays the big bucks to get that yacht. If you want to pay me $100K to write the next great American novel, I'll happily do it and make it freely available. But this concept that because it's easy to copy something means you should get the benefit of years of someone else's labor with no compensation is wrong.
Yes, because the first thing I did when I got on the internet was run right over to Slashdot and sign up. Or maybe I read slashdot for years before I bothered creating an account. Dude, slashdot didn't exist the first time I got on the internet. But if eyeing my UID is your bag, you go right ahead. I charge $50 an hour, more if you want a horse.
Sure, people who are writing code because they enjoy it and are taking their time rather than rushing are likely to make much better code than someone who is forced to work to a deadline.
But that's not even the case, many free software is written by students, researchers, or by people who's day job isn't writing code such as network admins. Many people are even paid to write free software, by companies who make their money through offering goods or services which cannot be trivially duplicated such as hardware and support services.
And as i pointed out already, distributing your code under an open license makes it easy for you to reuse other code available under the same or similar terms, so you may find that most of what you want to write already exists and you just need to add to it.
Surely the software is free, support costs model should be preferable to virtually everyone on slashdot... A site populated by people who are generally clued up enough to not need support services means we don't really need to pay for anything.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
And as i pointed out already, distributing your code under an open license makes it easy for you to reuse other code available under the same or similar terms, so you may find that most of what you want to write already exists and you just need to add to it.
Free has a double meaning. For example I charge a fee for the binary copies of my open source software. That is entirely legal under the GPL. Actually it is even encouraged. My suggestion is to use the word gratis for free of charge.
Surely the software is free, support costs model should be preferable to virtually everyone on slashdot... A site populated by people who are generally clued up enough to not need support services means we don't really need to pay for anything.
But it would not be preferable to me. But I call your bluff, go ahead suggest a viable support cost model for my products:
http://fx-602p.krischik.com/index.php/FX-602P/Price
http://fx-602p.krischik.com/index.php/HP-45/Price
Martin
Actually i wanted to make a snippy quick answer like “Sure it is not theft, it is " But then I discovered that there is no english translation for zechprellerei. Only the unwieldy explanation “Dine and dash" - which is a form of fraught.
But then it explains it all. If you anglicans are missing a word for it you probably also miss a feeling of guild when taking something without paying.
And you did take something away from me: The time I spend to develop the application. Which reminds me: How would you feel if your boss told you at the end of the month that he won't be paying your salary? Would you then think:
a) “It's Ok, It is not stealing as I never had the money in the first place”.
b) “That bl**dy thieving bastard stolen a month worth of my hard work.”
Martin