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...'"

Comments

Numbers need a reference scale

[mapkinase]

"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.)

Re:Numbers need a reference scale

[GiveBenADollar]

I read the article and still have no idea how piracy rate is determined. Over at Keyslabs there is a writeup which covers licensing, but nothing showing how pirates are detected. Maybe it's to prevent the pirates from getting smart, but being closed about your statistics is worse than having no statistics at all. We have no way of validating the numbers against false positives so to counter I have embedded a script in this post which detects theft and have found that 95% of the people who read this are plagiarizing it for their own posts. There now we can all have statistics.

Re:Numbers need a reference scale

[linhares]

(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.)

You made an informative comment about Russia? That's not the way we do things around here, son. Watch it.

Re:Numbers need a reference scale

[tomhudson]

More important, what was the legitimate rate for the US. If 99% of the legitimate installs are from the US, then the US has a piracy rate under 62%.

However, this also ignores the simple fact that most of the people who pirated an app wouldn't have shelled out money for it. Are you going to buy something if you can't at least kick the tires first?

And let's be honest - a lot of these utilities should eventually make their way into the OS anyway.

Re:Numbers need a reference scale

[CastrTroy]

I remember reading a blog post by 2D Boy, makers of World of Goo, that stated that they calculated a piracy rate of 90%. That's on an independent game, that only cost $15. It's a great game, and well worth the money. There's also absolutely no DRM on the game so there's no reason to assume that people are "pirating" because they need to get around copy protection for a game they already bought. They added corrections to the blog post, later, correcting the number to around 82%. So 67% doesn't seem all that bad in comparison.

Re:Numbers need a reference scale

[TheKidWho]

The Android market place let's you refund any application within 24 hours of purchase. I wonder if they took that into account when they came up with their piracy statistics, although I'd have to assume they aren't that stupid.

Re:Numbers need a reference scale

[jedidiah]

"Apps" quite often are things that either should be part of the core OS or things that should be Free Software.

Re:Numbers need a reference scale

[Anonymous Coward]

You made an informative comment about Russia? That's not the way we do things around here

Which means that it is the way they do things in Soviet Russia, proving that his post is authentic.

Re:Numbers need a reference scale

[varmittang]

They probably have some part of their game that connects to a server to post scores, or some code that phones home. But most likely its a score posting and during that connection they get a unique ID for that phone so you can over write your best score. But if 8,659 people send in scores, but only 2,831 purchases were made, they can determine that most likely there is a 67% piracy rate for their application. So, its a guess, but a very educated guess, and could actually be said to be the lowest their app is being pirated, in that it could be higher amount of people having it installed but are not phoning home.

Re:Numbers need a reference scale

[hedwards]

90% is fairly typical as far as I can tell. That's what it was for Machinarium as well. From what I can tell a piracy rate of only 80% is quite good.

Re:Numbers need a reference scale

[euroq]

Exactly. It's not that hard to figure out, and if you have IP addresses you know what country they come from.

Re:Numbers need a reference scale

[KingFrog]

Oh yes, because the core OS of a tiny device should be at least as bloated as Windows. Oh, and everything should be free because magic pixies come along in the night and write the code for the developers, thus costing them nothing!

Re:Numbers need a reference scale

[s73v3r]

However, this also ignores the simple fact that most of the people who pirated an app wouldn't have shelled out money for it.

If they weren't willing to pay for it, why should they get to enjoy/use it?

Re:Numbers need a reference scale

[GiveBenADollar]

The Keyeslabs app was for screen backlight, so I doubt there are any high scores. Also wouldn't that technique give false positives if the app is reinstalled on the same phone? If it's a unique identifier tied to the hardware of each phone then that could clear up some questions but leads to others. What if you break your phone and have it replaced? Is the identifier linked to network so it shows as pirated while roaming? There are any number of ways the numbers could be flubbed up, and I find it pretty doubtful that the pirates have made a backlight utility a prime target. Also, what kind of pirate releases an app that phones home?

Re:Numbers need a reference scale

[tomhudson]

I'm not saying they should. What I *am* saying is that the "pirated app" numbers don't translate directly to anything else - not lost revenue, not even potential lost customers - some people pirate stuff just because they can, without even bothering to check first to see if it's something they might want.

Case in point - way back in the DOS days, a friend insisted I try simcity. I though the game concept was silly, but gave it a whirl. I went on to buy Simcity 2000, Simcity 3000 Deluxe, Simcity 4 + Rush hour, and Simcity for the Wii. I also bought a few other maxis games, all stemming from that one floppy.

However, if I had had to buy the original game first, none of those sales would have happened. Not one.

Some of us *do* want to reward publishers who produce good stuff - we just don't want to get sucked in by nice artwork and a bogus description that turns into an almost-immediate lunchbag letdown.

Re:Numbers need a reference scale

[jedidiah]

...yes. Bloated things like a proper file manager or a means to save your work or print it.

OTOH, a lot of "apps" are nothing more than the free tools with less functionality, less polish and sometimes ADVERTISEMENTS added for good measure.

Re:Numbers need a reference scale

[jedidiah]

Yes. Fuck the both of them for giving assholes like you a venue for crap and adware.

You're probably a big fat wimp too.

Re:Numbers need a reference scale

[BillGod]

True. I have an android phone. I have a legit copy of launcher pro. I have recently installed about 8 different roms on my phone to see which one I liked best. I re-installed launcher pro every time using my own serial #. would things like this skew the numbers?

Re:Numbers need a reference scale

[jedidiah]

...and another thing.

These are not "tiny" devices. These things have multi-gigabyte main storage.

I remember when you were lucky to have as much space for "bloated Windows".

Anymore, it's media that takes up all of the space. That's true even for something like Windows 7 Ultimate.

Re:Numbers need a reference scale

[SudoGhost]

Each Android device does have a unique identifier within /data/data/com.android.providers.settings/databases/settings.db But what I want to know is who would install a screen backlight that has network access? Especially 'pirates', who are supposedly technically minded individuals?

Re:Numbers need a reference scale

[Marcika]

90% is fairly typical as far as I can tell. That's what it was for Machinarium as well. From what I can tell a piracy rate of only 80% is quite good.

Your definition of "good" might not be universal.

I could argue like this:

1. Pretty much none of the pirates would have bought the game anyway; thus the game studio and the distributor have lost little to nothing due to the piracy. (Notice: Games with effective DRM don't really outsell games without it.)

2. Increased take-up creates positive word-of-mouth and generates more sales. Thus higher piracy rates (for a given level of current sales) should translate into increased future sales.

Re:Numbers need a reference scale

[jank1887]

"we just don't want to get sucked in by nice artwork and a bogus description that turns into an almost-immediate lunchbag letdown"

anyone who bought SimCity for the Commodore platform understands exactly what you mean.

Re:Numbers need a reference scale

[MBoffin]

They probably have some part of their game that connects to a server to post scores, or some code that phones home. But most likely its a score posting and during that connection they get a unique ID for that phone so you can over write your best score. But if 8,659 people send in scores, but only 2,831 purchases were made, they can determine that most likely there is a 67% piracy rate for their application. So, its a guess, but a very educated guess, and could actually be said to be the lowest their app is being pirated, in that it could be higher amount of people having it installed but are not phoning home.

This is why we need more transparency in the numbers. The numbers scenario you describe could actually occur with no piracy at all. The Android Marketplace has a feature where you can buy an app and try it out for 24 hours and then return it for a full refund if you don't want it. Conceivably, 8,659 people could have bought the app and then played it for a day, but only 2,831 people ended up keeping it, meaning the developer only sees 2,831 purchases, but also sees 8,659 different score submissions to the server.

Re:Numbers need a reference scale

[Spatial]

What I *am* saying is that the "pirated app" numbers don't translate directly to anything else - not lost revenue, not even potential lost customers

Gathering useful information would require time, effort and thoughtful analysis.

67% is nice and dramatic. Pirates can't talk back anyway, so who cares about accuracy right?

Re:Numbers need a reference scale

[eugene2k]

I've not been to Russia's computer stores recently, but I think that legitimate stores only sell licensed software now. Illegitimate places, of course, sell pirated software, but I found the same thing happening in UK, so Russia is probably not that different.

Re:Numbers need a reference scale

[eugene2k]

>Some of us *do* want to reward publishers who produce good stuff - we just don't want to get sucked in by nice artwork and a bogus description that turns into an almost-immediate lunchbag letdown.
That's what demo-versions, trial-versions and (specifically for Android) a 24 hour return policy are for.

Re:Numbers need a reference scale

[mapkinase]

The only cases of trials against pirates in Russia i have heard of were situations when law is used as a tool (pretext) to get rid of somebody (as it often happens in Russia)

Re:Numbers need a reference scale

[tomhudson]

Ever bought somethinge, given it a cursory look over, it seems okay, but a few days later when you actually go to use it, it really sucks? Or found out that the demo version was more fun than the full version (Speedball 2 comes to mind)?

Re:Numbers need a reference scale

[moderatorrater]

That number comes from the number of ip addresses compared to the number of legitimate copies sold. I have an internet connection that changes ip address daily or so (I think to make it so that I have to buy a static ip address). If she plays it for two weeks and posts one score each day, she's got a 14:1 piracy ratio on her legitimate copy. My laptop has been on four different wifi networks. If I were to play the game at school, at home, and at work on the same laptop, it could balloon pretty quickly.

I tend to agree with the Stardock line of reasoning, which is that focusing on the pirates is by definition focusing on people who aren't your paying customers, and that putting out a quality product will make you money. It seems to work pretty well for them.

Re:Numbers need a reference scale

[Miamicanes]

> The Android market place let's you refund any application within 24 hours of purchase.

There's a hitch -- you only get to do it once per app. So... you trip across something that looks like an interesting app in Market and buy it. It crashes and burns on your phone, or doesn't do what you thought it would, so you get a refund. 9-15 months later, you have a new phone, or they claim to have a substantially improved version available. Unfortunately, if it still crashes on your new phone, or has an intolerable bug/deficiency, you're out of luck. The second purchase is forever. This is a REALLY major problem.

Worst of all, there isn't even any way for the app's publisher to grant an exception, short of writing a refund check himself and personally eating the fees from Google and the credit card processing himself above and beyond the purchase price.

Re:Numbers need a reference scale

[TheKidWho]

It's hardly a major problem considering other App stores don't even allow refunds(iOS).

Re:Numbers need a reference scale

[toriver]

Um, have you looked at the options when you "Report a problem" with an app? There are people who have had purchases refunded from the App Store after complaints, presumably on a case-by-case basis.

Also, watch my Google Fu.

Re:Numbers need a reference scale

[do0b]

Pirates usually aren't technically minded individuals. It may be hard to break the copy protection. But once it is figured out, it's really too easy to duplicate. In this case, I'm really curious to see how they get their numbers. I mean from TFA and the company's website why would the app need network access? Aren't Android app updates managed by the Android store?

Re:Numbers need a reference scale

[Abcd1234]

However, this also ignores the simple fact that most of the people who pirated an app wouldn't have shelled out money for it.

I'm actually not convinced of that when you start taking micropayments into account.

Sure, for a game that costs $15, a user who pirates it might be doing it to save some money, and with the pirated copy unavailable, would simply have not bought it. But when you're talking a couple bucks, I find it *far* less credible that users are turning to piracy because they can't afford the purchase, or don't see the product as having sufficient value to justify the price.

Are you going to buy something if you can't at least kick the tires first?

Eh, as has been pointed out many times, the android marketplace has a 24-hour refund period. Combine that with user reviews, and I'm sorry, the try-before-you-buy justification for piracy just doesn't hold water.

And let's be honest - a lot of these utilities should eventually make their way into the OS anyway.

Oh, well, then that totally justifies piracy... ::rollseyes::

Re:Numbers need a reference scale

[ebuck]

You could be right, but the point that their statistics could be flawed still stands.

We've seen people equate "identity" with IP address in the past, we've seen people equate "identity" with possession of a special key. We've seen people equate "identity" with name. While all of these techniques provide some degree of usefulness, and many are enough in limited contexts, there are flaws in each one of these techniques. Without the release of how they equate "identity" with whatever technique they use; how are we to take their closed technique without questioning it in the least?

Re:Numbers need a reference scale

[mjbkinx]

You can get refunds. It's a common complaint that when a user does this, the developer has to refund the full price, including Apple's tax.

Re:Numbers need a reference scale

[devent]

As a demo version? If Microsoft would have 0% piracy it would not have been a standard on office suites like it is now. There are not pirates, they are potential customers and free advertisement for your app.

Re:Numbers need a reference scale

[s73v3r]

How is it the developer's fault that you didn't give it the appropriate due diligence in evaluating it?

Re:Numbers need a reference scale

[cjb658]

In Soviet Russia, Android illegally copies YOU!

Re:Numbers need a reference scale

[llZENll]

"What I *am* saying is that the "pirated app" numbers don't translate directly to anything else - not lost revenue, not even potential lost customers - some people pirate stuff just because they can, without even bothering to check first to see if it's something they might want."

100% FALSE - Think of it this way, by getting art for free you are fulfilling a want, it doesn't matter if you would have never paid for it, never buy another game, music, or movie. By simply doing it you are stealing from someone else who you would have otherwise paid for entertainment in some form. In a generalized sense by pirating anything you are stealing from the entire art community on some level. You can sugar coat it however you want, you can come with all kind of examples and stories, excuses and reasons, it doesn't matter, its stealing plain and simple. Hell even the act of pirating is stealing, yes even if you never open it or want it, or immediately delete it, if pirating didn't exist you would use a fraction of that time on entertainment, it all adds up.

Re:Numbers need a reference scale

[blahplusplus]

"That's on an independent game, that only cost $15. It's a great game, and well worth the money."

To you... most gamers rent their games and only but their favorites, the whole business model of *selling full games* has always been questionable from the outset. Most people pirate a game these days to get the full taste of a game before being let down, SOOO many games being released are huge let-downs or have no replay value over the long term. Any money is too much money for a game you don't feel has value to you (one of your favorites).

This is why I hate developers and their piracy numbers, it's like they live in some kind of bizarro land and never remembered what it was to be a gamer as a kid in the age of the NES/SNES when you could rent a game for a couple bucks and finish it that weekend and never pay the full price for a game. Note that the good game franchises from that era are still around today (Castlevania, megaman, mario, zelda, etc).

Game developers need to get a major clue - gamers only buy their favorite games, everything else is a "rental" or played it but would not buy it.

If your game isn't good enough to buy for lots of people that means your game just isn't that valuable, plenty of hugely pirated games are hugely financially successful.

Re:Numbers need a reference scale

[NiteShaed]

In the case of apps from the Android market though, you have a 24 hour "return" period, where you can uninstall the software and get a refund. This should, in theory, take care of the people who get suckered into buying crapware and don't want to lose money on it. That being the case, your experience with Maxis games doesn't really translate into a good defense for Android App piracy (makes perfect sense to me for the situation you described though).

Re:Numbers need a reference scale

[tomhudson]

By simply doing it you are stealing from someone else who you would have otherwise paid for entertainment in some form.

Or, in many people's case, simply not bothered and found something else to do, like go visit a friend, read a book from the library, take the dogs for a walk ...

if pirating didn't exist you would use a fraction of that time on entertainment, it all adds up.

I don't see it. Someone pirated a few videos I made, a layout and some css (they were too stupid to file my copyright notice from a few of the files). Did *I* lose anything? No. I found it funny that someone would actually steal what they could have had for free by asking nicely. Instead, I'm getting some free publicity, and the thief will have some problems if anyone asks him to make some more videos and pictures like that ...

Re:Numbers need a reference scale

[tomhudson]

Statute of limitations is LONG over, and I'm sure that both Maxis and EA (who produced the later titles) are happy I bought the rest of the series, and talked it up to others. A happy paying customer spreading good word of mouth is the best advertising you can get.

Re:Numbers need a reference scale

[froggymana]

Didn't the makers of World of Goo (2Dboy) basically go bankrupt since they made so little money on the game?

Re:Numbers need a reference scale

[Anonymous Coward]

The flaw in your argument is that several thousand people are regularly using the app without buying it. This isn't a case of, "Try before you buy and support good stuff." This is, "Hey, I can use this without buying it!"

And please: don't try to float the argument "Well, they wouldn't have used it in the first place if they had to pay for it." That's what the way it's supposed to work.

Re:Numbers need a reference scale

[tomhudson]

If you had bothered to understand my original post, I didn't even want to look at the game. At the time, I thought the premise was dumb. No alternate universe needed, just more than 2 brain cells to rub together.

Re:Numbers need a reference scale

[tomhudson]

The flaw in your argument is that several thousand people are regularly using the app without buying it.

Um, no - the flaw in your argument is that nowhere do we see any evidence that these people are regularly using the app. Now if they had created an app that, when pirated, said "Look, we know you swiped this. Here's the deal - if you want, we'll give you a free license for one year - just tell us why you swiped it, for our market research. If at the end of the year, you still like it, we'll sell it to you half price, or we can repeat this every year, and you'll have it for free as long as you tell us why it's still not worth paying even half price for."

Re:Numbers need a reference scale

[shutdown -p now]

I don't have the stats handy, but anecdotal evidence points to a piracy rate way above 90% on home desktops in Russia. I don't think I've ever seen a box without pirated Windows, Office, or both on it, in all the numerous times I've been asked to help people set something up etc.

They say it's also why Opera is so popular (~50%, more than IE and Firefox) there. Back in the day when it was non-free, it was a major factor against it in the West. In Russia (and other CIS and Eastern European countries), it was always cracked, and often redistributed that way already; so price never entered the equation, and browser was evaluated on its features alone (and judged superior to contemporary alternatives).

Re:Numbers need a reference scale

[shutdown -p now]

I've not been to Russia's computer stores recently, but I think that legitimate stores only sell licensed software now. Illegitimate places, of course, sell pirated software, but I found the same thing happening in UK, so Russia is probably not that different.

The difference is in the scale and prominence of those "illegitimate places".

Re:Numbers need a reference scale

[adolf]

I mean from TFA and the company's website why would the app need network access?

It shouldn't. It sounds like a very simple app.

Android apps do need to ask the user for permission to do specific things (read/write SD card, access network, handle SMS, twiddle address book, etc), but unfortunately the choice presented to the user is monolithic: You can either allow everything that the app asks for, or not install the app. One can't say "Oh, sure, it's fine for this photo-editing software to access my pictures, but never OK for it to be on the network," even though that might be a very reasonable set of tradeoffs.

I'm all for an Android firewall, myself, with application-level granularity (like, say, Zonealarm on Windows, except actually functional). AFAICT, such a thing doesn't exist.

Aren't Android app updates managed by the Android store?

Generally speaking, if that's where they were installed from, then that's where the updates will come from. However, Android also allows a user to use any other source of packages, which might also include a web site.

I see no particular reason (moral or technical) why an app should/could not handle its own updates, like Firefox does on many platforms, but I haven't seen it in practice yet.

Re:Numbers need a reference scale

[adolf]

I've done that a few times myself, as well: Pirate something, find that it is absolutely worth whatever the author/company wants for it, and immediately buy a copy. And I've done the opposite: Pirate something, find that it's a worthless lot of garbage, and delete it.

Amusingly, Android apps bought through the official Google channel offer a 24-hour refund period.

Buy it, try it, and if you don't like it, send it back. It only works once per app, but it should give a user plenty of time to try most sorts of apps without having to risk anything or pirate them.

Perhaps if this fact were more widely publicized, there wouldn't be so much experimental piracy of Android devices.

(Ironically, the free 24-hour trial is also likely to be a key avenue for enabling piracy: Buy it, install a whole paid copy of the software, back it up, uninstall and get refunded...and then reinstall it from backup in a more clandestine method.)

Re:Numbers need a reference scale

[Americano]

For what it's worth, I'm starting to see quite a few apps with built-in Dropbox support on the iOS store these days. If you don't mind the whole "cloud" thing, it's not a bad solution for storing your documents & working with them across your iOS device & other platforms. Obviously, I'd never store my double-secret-probation banking data that way, but for taking some quick notes, and putting them somewhere where you'll be able to access them easily from other devices (and other apps), it's a handy solution.

Re:Numbers need a reference scale

[Americano]

That's an interesting approach, and it *might* generate some actual useful feedback, but it also pretty much tells your users "If you pirate this app, I'll give you a 50% discount."

Re:Numbers need a reference scale

[Americano]

At what point does the community victimize itself, though?

Thought exercise. I write Americano's Super Cool Android App - being super cool, it does something really neat, like allows you to control your home automation system from your handheld device. I put it up on the Android Marketplace, and ask for a humble $1.99 for a copy of my work. A bargain!

Now, let's say 1000 people buy the app - I've just sold $2000 worth of software. Fucking great! Life is good, it's time to start working on an update that fixes a couple minor bugs and adds some new features. But then I notice that... nobody's buying my app anymore. Somebody's distributing a pirated copy. Life sucks. I'm bummed.

I'd say that there IS a point where most developers are going to say "You know what, everybody's making unathorized copies, that's not cool, I'm not going to keep writing this software and supporting it for a few thousand people out of my own pocket." So I stop writing the software. I stop supporting it. I decide to take up another hobby, let's say Stamp Collecting. If piracy rates are so high that nobody can expect to at least break even writing the software, you're going to drive away a lot of people who would otherwise contribute to your ecosystem. The number of people who CAN write software is larger than the number of people who WILL write software in their spare time with no external motivator (i.e., make some money at the same time).

So in the case I described above, sure, nobody's "taken" anything from me, but the piracy is driving away a developer, and your software ecosystem is slightly poorer for that loss. So at what point does anybody notice that it has a cumulative effect? If you want to help cement iOS as the dominant platform, letting Android become known as "The Platform where developers can't make any money because of rampant piracy," is a good way to go about achieving that.

Re:Numbers need a reference scale

[Ihmhi]

In Soviet Russia, Android illegally copies YOU!

Oh God... that's it! It all makes sense now!

Google is owned by RepliCarter!

Re:Numbers need a reference scale

[Rexdude]

Back when there was no internet, these same people shrugged and got on with their lives if they couldn't afford/didn't want to pay for the software/music/movie. Total revenue for software developer/studio = 0 Today they're getting copies for free, and the revenue is still zero. They were never a market to begin with, so rather than focus on preventing them from getting to it, publishers (of software/music/movies/books etc) should focus on not pissing off their paying customers and driving them to piracy by DRM or other means.

Re:Numbers need a reference scale

[tomhudson]

If it multiplies your sales by three, AND gives you useful data, who cares?

It's like all those "we'll double your order - just pay separate shipping and handling!"

Re:Numbers need a reference scale

[Americano]

Because, presumably, you haven't marked up your product by 100%, expecting to then cut the price in half. So instead, you're cutting your revenues in half and hoping that -somehow- condoning piracy will increase your sales to a point that would offset the 50% discount you're giving.

1) Cut price in half.
2) ??????
3) Profit!!

Re:Numbers need a reference scale

[tomhudson]

First, those who are going to pay the price won't pirate it - they're not "lost sales" or a "price cut". Only the people with the pirated copy get the message. Duh! Or did you not read my original proposal ???!!!

Second, even if not one of them converts, you're still getting marketing and feedback information that can be useful. For example - "What one feature would make you decide to buy this program instead of pirating it?"

Re:Numbers need a reference scale

[Americano]

And once it becomes common knowledge that you can pirate the app and only pay 50% of the cost, you don't think you've created an incentive for people to pirate, then pay less for a full copy and "forgiveness"?

Re:Numbers need a reference scale

[tomhudson]

Most people don't know how. Heck, most people still don't know about TPB or torrents. The people who would be targeted for this are self-selected.

Just like most people still forward chain emails about not flashing your headlights because the Crips will kill you, and believe Bill Gates will send them $2,450 for forwarding an email ("Who's Steve Ballmer? What do you mean, Bill Gates isn't the head of Microsoft any more?")

Besides, I don't see you offering a better solution.

Re:Numbers need a reference scale

[Americano]

"better solution"? There isn't one. It's an unfortunate mess because some people will take shit that doesn't belong to them no matter how hard you try. So you forget about those people, charge the full fair price you want to get regardless of the way somebody installed your app, and accept that some people are going to pirate your application no matter what you do.

If you want to try and collect marketing feedback from people pirating, that's fine, but I see no reason to encourage people to pirate in order to get a 50%-off coupon.

As far as "most people not knowing" - most people didn't know how to Jailbreak their iPhone either... until somebody made a webpage that would do it all automatically for you. If something is possible, it will tend to get easier over time. There's a difference between knowing random trivia ("who's the head of MSFT?" "I don't know, that's irrelevant to me, I'm a school teacher.") and "click this link to install App X with a 50% discount!"

Unless you make your app phone home, how exactly do you propose to detect that the app is pirated, anyway? Think a Pirate is going to be happy with your app phoning home to say "Am I legit?" Probably not.

Re:Numbers need a reference scale

[tomhudson]

So, you're still doing the old-style trolling, where you just knock sh*t instead of trying to encourage people to think outside the box ..

That is so USENET of you.

My solution has the chance to increase their installed base and their revenue. Tweak it, or come up with something better, instead of sitting there like yet another monkey flinging their poo at anyone who passes by.

Think a Pirate is going to be happy with your app phoning home to say "Am I legit?" Probably not.

And if a pirate isn't happy with an app doing this, maybe they'll either uninstall it or pay for it. Problem solved either way.

Re:Numbers need a reference scale

[Americano]

Pointing out that your solution doesn't solve a very difficult (perhaps even intractable) problem in any appreciable way doesn't make it a troll.

"Hey guys, I have a solution to global warming! Everybody should just leave their refrigerators open all the time, and their air conditioners running with windows open - that way we can cool the atmosphere!"

"Uh no, that won't work, and could even make the problem worse."

"You're just trolling! At least I'm thinking of ways to fix the problem!"

In fact, I did suggest an alternative: Charge a full, fair price to everybody, and don't give people added incentive to pirate your software.

Re:Numbers need a reference scale

[tomhudson]

Your "solution" is what they're doing now, and it fails - otherwise they wouldn't be complaining. If you're going to troll, try doing better. You could do worse than follow my example :-)

And Therein Lies the Rub

[eldavojohn]

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.

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 ... 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.

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.

Re:And Therein Lies the Rub

[bemymonkey]

One word: Permissions. There's a reason they're displayed every time you install an app...

Re:And Therein Lies the Rub

[martyw]

The only shaky security you can get on Android comes from the developer itself, check the source, check dev's website whether they are trust worthy or not, but given the market "open" approach this is a major problem. You bake the app, put it on the market, nothing is stopping you. The app can access a lot and can call home over the internet, so you are afraid for a good reason. Hopefully Google starts putting some fences and walls around this wild garden

Re:And Therein Lies the Rub

[Mathinker]

> The app can access a lot and can call home over the internet, so you are afraid for a good reason.

My impression was that the app can do exactly what you authorize it to do when you install it, and nothing more. Am I wrong? Could you be a bit more specific what we should all be afraid of? For example, is it more dangerous than getting into my car and driving for an hour?

Re:And Therein Lies the Rub

[c0d3g33k]

Right.

The permissions listings are about as opaque as they come. I've some experience with the soft white underbelly of technology, so I can make a good guess about what a particular permission entails and why it might be necessary, but I still can't quite figure whether an app is actually secure or not. And for many apps the list is quite long - not exactly user friendly or convenient. If I (after 20+ years of experience with computer technology) can barely make heads nor tails of the permissions, heaven help the butcher/backer/candlestickmaker who just wants to feels safe when installing an app on their phone. And I have the SDK installed and can actually read the details.

In a word, the permissions listings tell a person fuck-all about whether an app is actually safe or not. With a few exceptions. Apps that require no special permissions or just a very few, rare though they are, give one some sense of confidence. Internet connection required for a stock ticker app? Ok, can't be much harm in that. I'll install. Beyond that, as the list of required permissions grow, the difficulty in evaluating the safety of an app grows exponentially. Access to SD storage, personal contacts list, state of phone, location, yada yada. Most apps seem to require most of these. Access to SD storage is needed for reading/writing personal settings, caching data and the like. Fine. But is access to other data on the SD card limited? I have no clue. As far as I can tell, once an app has access the SD card, a full wipe is possible. There is little information to suggest otherwise.

So basically, for apps that require a non-trivial list of permissions to function, one is left with trust in the developer as the only security. The rest is a roll of the dice.

To be honest, I think most people treat the list of permissions much as they treat an EULA: a list of incomprehensible gibberish that one must ignore to get to the actual goal (an installed app, in this case). It's in the Google market, so it must be safe, right? Click, click, install.

Android app permissions as a way to assess the safety of an app? You've got to be kidding. Epic fail.

Re:And Therein Lies the Rub

[mapkinase]

"it's the other apps I've unwittingly installed willy nilly on my phone while bored or drunk on the metro. "

My religion, Islam, provides a protection from the latter. :-)

Re:And Therein Lies the Rub

[hoggoth]

I thought it was the Amish who couldn't ride the Metro.

Re:And Therein Lies the Rub

[c0d3g33k]

Yes, you are wrong. The granularity of what you can authorize is very coarse, and many useful apps require permissions that can be damaging in the wrong hands. You're left with trust - not exactly the most comfortable form of security.

Specific example: any app that needs access to your personal contacts list. A mapping app may need it to be able to show nearby contacts on a map, but that information could then also be harvested via the internet access permissions that the app also likely requires (putatively to download/update the mapping data). You have no assurance whatsoever that your personal information (family, friends, businesses and all their details) isn't being mined and sent to a server somewhere. None.

Re:And Therein Lies the Rub

[lowrydr310]

Here's a scenario that bothers me: My HTC EVO came pre-installed with a Facebook app and Facebook for HTC Sense (widgets) which I cannot remove. Sometimes an action inside the Facebook app will transfer me to Facebook's web site, within the web browser on my phone, and all of the sudden I'm logged into my Facebook account via the web site. There's some mechanism where my user ID and password gets sent to the browser, but I don't know how this is done, and I have no indication that it's secure. It just seems too easy for a piece of malware to extract my login.

I'm equally as worried about the info from my Google account; is my data and account information handled securely?

Re:And Therein Lies the Rub

[TrancePhreak]

Without access and analytics of the source code, you can never be certain what an app does with its permissions. This is the same on any platform.

Re:And Therein Lies the Rub

[cdrguru]

If it is anything like Blackberry permissions, then of course the app can only do what it is authorized to do.

Except of course that there are 37 screenfulls of permissions each one with 12 different possible values. So exactly how do you answer the question "Allow access to LBS+" with the settings Yes, No, Auto, Enable, Prompt, and Sometimes? Where do you look up LBS+ or some similar acronym?

Re:And Therein Lies the Rub

[mapkinase]

Since his comment implies that BOTH conditions: metro and being drunk are required, I thought that helping with removing one of them (being drunk) will improve his condition.

Re:And Therein Lies the Rub

[daveime]

Funny that, years ago I worked in Oman, and the locals were very emphatic on the subject (especially after their 5th beer).

Apparently their reasoning was like this.

The Koran says you shall not pray while drunk. It does NOT say alcohol is forbidden.

So they'd get steaming drunk till 3am, then spend the next 2 hours sobering up on very strong Arabic coffee, so they'd have a clear head for the morning prayers. Problem solved.

Re:And Therein Lies the Rub

[suy]

Permissions are pretty badly designed from a usability point of view. An example: A huge amount of free apps require permission to have full internet access. Why? Because they need to display ads. Even if you check with a sniffer (which isn't trivial for even the average geek) that the phone is using the network only to display ads... are you going to do that for every app, and every version of the app?

Even worse: I was looking for a keyboard alternative, and I found one in the market. It's not free, but still needs full internet access to use the voice recognition from Google (or so it's claimed by its developers). Given that you have a clear, scary warning from the OS about how dangerous is giving a 3rd party app the control of the text input, how do you feel about that if that app also has full internet access and can "call home" with your passwords or credit card numbers?

The proper solution would be that, if your app uses some Google API for ads and or voice recognition, such API gives no way of the developer to use the access as a backdoor. This way the message that the app installer would display would be different "full internet access", because it's just a limited access.

Re:And Therein Lies the Rub

[Mathinker]

> You're left with trust - not exactly the most comfortable form of security.

It's actually the most ubiquitous form of security there is, in the field of software. Even in the case of open source applications, very very few people only use an application after doing a thorough security audit.

So I ask again, more bluntly: is this FUD, or is it actually more dangerous than other things I do in the course of a typical day, like commuting?

Re:And Therein Lies the Rub

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't understand why you can't deny a given permission for an app. Don't use the internet functionality? I'd like to disable that part, but I can't.

Re:And Therein Lies the Rub

[gad_zuki!]

>To be honest, I think most people treat the list of permissions much as they treat an EULA

Exactly. I also don't like how all permissions are weighed the same. Why isn't the one to make outgoing phone calls or SMS messages in red? What exactly do some of them mean? Clicking on them does nothing.

Not to mention you can't say "Okay, you can run but no internet access or running in the background."

Permission listings are better than nothing, but frankly, the Pandora app could say "I'm going to send your SS# to one of our servers" and most people would click yes because they just want to hear some music. I don't think there's real pushback here. Consumers arent voting with their dollars and refusing to install apps based on permissions. They'll just put up with whatever to get by.

Re:And Therein Lies the Rub

[Beezlebub33]

Um....not that I'm a scholar in the Koran, but 5:90-91 seems to indicate that you should not drink alcohol.

Re:And Therein Lies the Rub

[yareckon]

Ok, so here is the solution... the single biggest step that could clean up the android ecosystem.

Simply allow users to revoke permissions.
http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=10340

I download the app, remove all the silly permissions it asks for and then install it to test it out.

Dunno why google is so driven to butter up the phone carriers still. They have won. Why not start looking out for the users? Exactly this type of change is needed.

Right now, I am driven to install only open source software on my phone--not just to support the free software movement-- but by sheer terror of what all those crazy proprietary android apps want to do with their totally out of control permissions. Web access for a password safe, are you FREAKING KIDDING ME?!

Next version of androidOS needs to drain this swamp. Just saying "people should only install trusted apps on their phones" is the worlds stupidest, lamest, cover-yer-butt cop out.

Re:And Therein Lies the Rub

[daveime]

Like every other "holy book" it's all in the interpretation.

An example of such incoherence and unintelligibility is the Quranic view of strong drinks and wine. The Quran is clearly confused regarding its view of intoxicants as the following passages conclusively demonstrate:

And We have not revealed to you the Book except that you may make clear to them that about which they differ, and (as) a guidance and a mercy for a people who believe. And Allah has sent down water from the cloud and therewith given life to the earth after its death; most surely there is a sign in this for a people who would listen. And most surely there is a lesson for you in the cattle; We give you to drink of what is in their bellies -- from betwixt the feces and the blood-- pure milk, easy and agreeable to swallow for those who drink. And of the fruits of the palms and the grapes -- you obtain from them intoxication (sakaran) and goodly provision; most surely there is a sign in this for a people who ponder. And your Lord revealed to the bee saying: Make hives in the mountains and in the trees and in what they build: Then eat of all the fruits and walk in the ways of your Lord submissively. There comes forth from within it a beverage of many colours, in which there is healing for men; most surely there is a sign in this for a people who reflect. S. 16:64-69 Shakir

The impression given by this passage is that intoxicants are something good, since the context deals with signs or proofs of God's care and provisions for mankind. Nothing is said about the negative affects of intoxicants or whether it is impermissible for believers.

O you who believe! do not go near prayer when you are Intoxicated (sukara) UNTIL YOU KNOW (WELL) WHAT YOU SAY, nor when you are under an obligation to perform a bath -- unless (you are) travelling on the road-- until you have washed yourselves; and if you are sick, or on a journey, or one of you come from the privy or you have touched the women, and you cannot find water, betake yourselves to pure earth, then wipe your faces and your hands; surely Allah is Pardoning, Forgiving. S. 4:43 Shakir

This verse forbids Muslims from coming to prayers while intoxicated. This gives the impression that drinking before praying is permissible, provided that one doesn't get drunk.

They ask thee concerning wine (al-khamri) and gambling. Say: "In them is great sin, AND SOME PROFIT, for men; but the sin is greater than the profit." They ask thee how much they are to spend; Say: "What is beyond your needs." Thus doth Allah Make clear to you His Signs: In order that ye may consider. S. 2:219 A. Yusuf Ali

Here, wine (which falls under the category of intoxicants) is said to be both sinful and profitable, with the sin being greater. Even this passage stops short of explicitly prohibiting the consumption of wine.

Finally:

O ye who believe! Intoxicants (al-khamru) and gambling, (dedication of) stones, and (divination by) arrows, are AN ABOMINATION,- OF SATAN'S HANDWORK: eschew such (abomination), that ye may prosper. Satan's plan is (but) to excite enmity and hatred between you, with intoxicants (al-khamri) and gambling, and hinder you from the remembrance of Allah, and from prayer: will ye not then abstain? S. 5:90-91 A. Yusuf Ali

This passage says that intoxicants are the handiwork of Satan! Hence, the Quran goes from describing wine as something good to something completely evil.

Now a Muslim may interject here and claim that the verses which permit intoxicants were abrogated. Yet, this is precisely the point. How does a Muslim know that these verses have been abrogated? Where does the Quran explicitly, or even implicitly, state this? Second, how does the Muslim know for certain which verses came first? Does the Quran give the date these "revelations" were allegedly sent down so that we can know which passage came first? After all, one can just as likely claim that S. 16:66-67 was "revealed" last and therefore abrogated S. 2:219 and 5:90-91. How can one know for certain?

Re:And Therein Lies the Rub

[c0d3g33k]

I use that selection method too - it's the only meaningful one that can be made. But the choice isn't an informed one based on any *real and useful* information supplied by the permissions list. IT experience isn't needed to make the decision. Trouble is, some apps that are useful and safe do legitimately need all the permissions in the list. So the list doesn't really help with anything other than rather coursely avoiding risk. You have to use criteria other than what's on the list to make an informed choice. So the list is useless for all but the most trivial apps.

Re:And Therein Lies the Rub

[phantomcircuit]

But is access to other data on the SD card limited? I have no clue. As far as I can tell, once an app has access the SD card, a full wipe is possible. There is little information to suggest otherwise.

Access is limited each app runs as it's own user.

Re:And Therein Lies the Rub

[mapkinase]

Islam does not guarantee complete freedom of ignorance. There are many Muslims, may be majority, that are ignorant in such basic things. You can never judge the ideology by worst adherents and by majority of adherents.

Why do they consider it piracy?

[BadAnalogyGuy]

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.

Re:Why do they consider it piracy?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you own a jewelry store, it will be robbed. the very act of owning a jewelry store is tacit acknowledgment that you accept being robbed. companies that sell jewelry should accept this and consider alternative income methods like polishing jewelry or beet farming.

as long as jewelry stores think that their jewelry has monetary worth, they will continue to fight a losing battle to gun technology itself.

/ in other words, you are an idiot.

Re:Why do they consider it piracy?

[Darkness404]

Exactly. There are a -lot- of ways to fund development, making an application, overpricing it, failing to maintain it, etc. will end in failure. If your software fills a needed niche, people will pay for it if you aren't a dick about it, but most software doesn't fill a needed niche. For example, I have no problems downloading the full versions of things like an NES emulator because the free version A) Wasn't very crippled (no save state support, I can live with that) B) Didn't have obnoxious ads that blocked the gameplay C) Did its jobs well and D) Didn't have crippling updates (like Shazam has). On the other hand, something like Shazam was nice, then they reduced the number of playbacks to 7, then they reduced it to 5, so I removed it and encouraged all my friends to do the same. Yeah, Shazam is cool, but they were dicks, I'm not going to buy the full version of software that treats me like crap.

Re:Why do they consider it piracy?

[mjbkinx]

Thank you for your advice. Since I don't believe I can interest you in a support contract for my jump and run game, I'm going to plaster it with ads as an alternative source of income.

Re:Why do they consider it piracy?

[geekoid]

Of course it has monetary worth. I think MS has made a lot of money from selling a binary.

There is nothing wrong with making money from selling software.

Re:Why do they consider it piracy?

[BadAnalogyGuy]

Sure, but they make the bulk of it licensing it directly to hardware manufacturers. Most users who acquire the software on its own pirate it. Microsoft has accepted this fact and found alternate means of making money that works around the software pirates.

Re:Why do they consider it piracy?

[s73v3r]

Companies that develop software should accept this and consider alternative income methods like support contracts and priority upgrade access.

Except that doesn't work for a lot of software, especially software on phones. How are you going to sell a support contract for Words with Friends, for instance?

Re:Why do they consider it piracy?

[RAMMS EIN]

Actually, the first part of your post is correct. When you run a jewelry store, you take a (hopefully) calculated risk that it will be robbed. You can hire security and/or take out insurance to protect against losses from robbery, but this eats into your profits. You can make it harder for people to get into or out of your store, and this will make the store harder to rob. It will also make it harder for legitimate customers, and they might decide to do business with some other store, instead. Also, some people will not buy your jewelry.

To a certain extent, this parallels the situation with software and piracy. There is one major difference, and that is that software has zero marginal cost, whereas jewelry doesn't. If you lose a copy of your software, you can replace it with another copy at essentially zero cost (you do have working backups, right?). If you lose a piece of jewelry, replacing it will cost you. This makes a world of difference, but many things are still the same: when you run a software company, you will (hopefully) take into account that your software will be used without your authorization. You can erect barriers to unauthorized use or shift the risk by getting paid for development rather than per copy sold, but this will eat into your profits. You can do things like making the software get authorization from the server before working, and this will make unauthorized use harder. It will also cause trouble for legitimate customers, and they might decide to do business with some other store, instead. Also, some people will not buy your software.

Before someone misinterprets my words: I do not condone software piracy, nor robbing jewelry stores. I am only saying that, when you run a jewelry store or a software company, you should be aware of the risks, and decide how you will deal with them.

Re:Why do they consider it piracy?

[BadAnalogyGuy]

Selling access to the servers and developing apps for handset makers seems like a way to do that.

Re:Why do they consider it piracy?

[Kijori]

Thank you for your advice. Since I don't believe I can interest you in a support contract for my jump and run game, I'm going to plaster it with ads as an alternative source of income.

And many of the same people that claim that the reason for piracy is that the prices are too high will then download the hacked, ad-free version. Because the problem isn't anything to do with the software - the software is both desirable and desired. The problem is that once people have grown accustomed to the idea that they can get an unlimited amount of digital content for free, without the inconvenience of advertisements and without any real probability of legal consequences, it is almost impossible to get them to start paying again.

Re:Why do they consider it piracy?

[mjbkinx]

Which leads to another problem. If I provide an ad free version, many will use the pirated ad-free version instead of the one that actually generates income. Therefore, there is something to be said for not providing an ad-free version at all.

Luckily, I have other options. I can just do normal client work instead of working on that game, and bill by the hour.

Re:Why do they consider it piracy?

[Miamicanes]

> Since I don't believe I can interest you in a support contract for my jump and run game,
> I'm going to plaster it with ads as an alternative source of income.

And THERE, you've just hit the nail on the head as to why Google isn't terribly interested in fixing the problems with Android Market's handling of paid apps. Google knows that developers whose paid apps get universally-pirated tend to go with Plan B -- in-app advertisements. 999 times out of a thousand, ads from AdMob, which Google happens to own.

When you sell your app through Google Market, the credit card company gets the biggest chunk, followed by some crumbs for the purchaser's carrier and Google. But when your use of the app drives ad sales, Google reaps 100% of the financial benefit. Ergo, no real motive to make Market work for commercial apps.

Truth be told, Android Market and the way Google runs it sucks *so badly*, I'm genuinely shocked that Valve hasn't partnered with Amazon to launch their own Android app store and bribe the major carriers into giving them equal phone status with Google's. As long as they allowed anyone with a valid credit card to purchase apps (regardless of carrier and/or country, unless the developer/publisher literally bent over backwards to restrict the app's international availability) and didn't completely drop the ball, they'd *own* the market for commercial Android apps within a matter of months.

Re:Why do they consider it piracy?

[mjbkinx]

In the long run, getting a share of content sales will make them more money.
Advertising budgets are limited. The value of ad space goes down if there's too much of it. Not just because of oversupply, but because banner blindness leads to a lower effectiveness of ads. It also reduces the value of the device itself, since it will be perceived as nothing but a carrier for ads, and the lower revenue will lead to less apps to get developed.

What they need is a mixture of both. A share from payed content, and a small enough amount of ad space to be sought after.
An ads-only strategy will lead to the same result as on the Web. It will annoy users and result in low-quality content. Just look at how much trouble newspaper sites are having.

But right now, gaining market share on the mobile OS market is paramount. Profits come later. Unfortunately, quality of apps are important to gain market share.

Re:Why do they consider it piracy?

[david_thornley]

Jewelry is physical. The jewelry store has a stock of valuable physical objects, which are difficult and expensive to copy. The jeweler doesn't really care if I come in, look at a ring, and somehow acquire a ring that looks just the same.

Now, suppose I rob the store. This can be defeated by normal security measures, since we've got a lot of experience in securing physical objects, even if they're on display. If I'm successful, I've deprived the jeweler of valuable physical objects, which cost money to replace.

Software isn't physical in the same sense. It can be trivially copied. Unlike the jewelry store, you're telling me that the copyright holder cares if I come in, look at the software, and acquire a copy.

Now, suppose I copy the software without authorization. This can't be defeated by normal security measures, since there's a physical copy of the software is not under the control of the copyright holder. Moreover, once I've copied it, the copyright holder has not lost anything, and hasn't been able to notice a thing.

The copyright holder doesn't get paid for my copy. Then again, the copyright holder doesn't get paid if I just don't buy the software. If I tell people the software isn't very good, I'm likely cutting into sales just as if I'd given some people illegitimate copies, but if I keep on the good side of libel and slander laws I've not done anything legally wrong.

I'm not advocating the violation of copyrights, but it's really hard to discourage people from unauthorized copying while people like you are filling the media with bad analogies and stupid arguments. If people like you call copyright infringement theft, then people who notice that it doesn't directly deprive the copyright holder of anything will realize it's not theft, and fail to see what's wrong with it.

And, yes, I just told you your analogy was worse than BadAnalogyGuy's. Deal with it.

Re:Why do they consider it piracy?

[citylivin]

And then the free version of your game will be released by a "clone" developer who developed it "for fun" and everyone will switch to that. (see hedgewars for an example)
At least in the first model you may have made some money. Ruining your app to stop pirates will guarantee that you make NO money!

Personally, i always look for free or open source tools as they are all around less hassle, generally better quality, and i dont have to give people possibly dicey pirated versions off the torrents or whatever.

No one owes you a profit though. Applications made with profit as a focus will always fail in the long run because everyone is so fucking greedy and end users just want a no hassle solution. We live in an age of horrible artificial scarcity, propped up by raping people with advertising and marketing.
You want to go down that road, go right ahead buddy. It will leave you burned out, jaded and lobotomized. And in the end, people will still pirate!

trust me, ive been a pirate since bbs times. heck, that was the whole point of bbses!
that and naked ladies!
(which were also I should point out, pirated...)

Re:Why do they consider it piracy?

[mjbkinx]

No one owes you a profit though.

I don't owe anybody to spend my free time working on a game, either. So I won't. I do some mobile app development when a client pays for it, but mostly they pay me to work on other stuff.
I would love to spend time on a game, but whenever I try I lose interest after the juicy bits work in principle. Most of the work to get it polished are boring details that I don't particularly enjoy working on. I simply don't have the skills to produce good graphics, so I'd have to find a professional to do it for me. If I can pay for it, this is much easier.

In the end, I simply won't do it. If I spend my spare time on a project, and you don't even think it's worth paying me a beer for it but still go through the effort of downloading a pirated copy elsewhere, then this is a slap in the face.
I don't owe anybody to take that, either.

You call me greedy, because I want users to pay a minimal amount for my work. At the same time, you still install a pirated copy.
You complain about getting "raped" by ads, but aren't willing to give developers another option.

Personally, i always look for free or open source tools as they are all around less hassle, generally better quality, and i dont have to give people possibly dicey pirated versions off the torrents or whatever.

Good for you. What are your favorite open source games? Do you help developing them? Or is free (as in beer) the only attribute that is important to you?
And if what you say about the quality is true, then why do you feel the need to pirate software in the first place?

KeyesLab app?

[SoupGuru]

I'm sure something like a KeyesLab app is representative of most other apps, right?

Re:KeyesLab app?

[v1]

That's something I was contemplating... the app itself and the price its set at (as well as other factors) could dramatically affect these numbers.

For example, if adobe were to loosen their DRM system on say, elements, a very useful and respected app, and price it at $500 a license, the pirated vs legit licenses would be somewhere around 95%. OTOH if the app was priced at $10/license and kept its DRM, the rate would probably be somewhere around 5%. The piracy rate is a function of the DRM and and of the value of the software and the reasonableness of the price for a specific market.

The market also plays into it a bit. You may have a wickedly useful app in a highly specialized market, so you price it high and still get low piracy rates because the ones buying it need it, recognize its quality, and can easily afford it. But then say a smaller amateur market realizes how useful it can be to them, but no way in hell they want to pay whats being asked for it for a hobby, so the piracy rate in that market, for the same app, could easily be over 90%.

Compare say, photoshop in CS, versus elements. They used plan B. When people with shallower pockets want to use your pricey software, the profitable way to do it is to offer a lower grade of software, at a lower price, so they can reasonably buy instead of pirate. It's when a small number of large sales gets less profit than a much larger number of smaller sales.

You have to fine tune your price point to optimize your revenue. Too low and you're missing out on what people are willing to pay. Too high and piracy starts to drive the curve downward on the other side. Either find the sweet spot for your one product, piss everyone off with draconian DRM, or offer multiple tiers of your product at different price points. Of course having multiple versions of your software makes fine tuning your price points a major headache, but can work to squeeze the most out of the market.

I guess all I'm saying is that piracy rate in itself doesn't really say much about where the problem is. Anyone that tells you that this leads to just one obvious conclusion, (like, oh we NEED DRM! or THIS PLATFORM'S USERS ARE ALL PIRATES!) is either an idiot, or is pushing an agenda. So someone bringing up a specific software example without providing any of the necessary details to sort out all the possible factors is either an idiot or is trying to deceive you.

Re:KeyesLab app?

[JustSomeProgrammer]

Just to throw this out there... even if your app was $1.00 and it was the perfect application for its purpose I don't think you'd see piracy rates of 5%. I would be absolutely shocked to see piracy rates under 25 - 35% for anything.

Re:KeyesLab app?

[ICLKennyG]

I would also like to point at the convoluted/cumbersume checkout function of the android market. If I could buy a pre-paid card with cash at a retail outlet like Wal-Mart, Target, K-Mart, Lowes or any other major retailer like I can for apple, I would feel a lot better about buying that $1 fart app (not really but just go with me on this). The problem that I have to whip out my credit card and go through that hassle means I may as well just whip out my uTorrent and head over to the Pirate Bay. The problem lies in the ease of integration as well as the quality of apps, DRM and other factors. Further, there aren't many more closed systems than that of Apple, and some stats have their piracy rate very high as well too.

Re:KeyesLab app?

[euroq]

I believe the core premise is not entirely correct. While software that costs $500 (Adobe and Microsoft stuff) will be pirated because of costs, $1 MP3s and $1 apps aren't. They are pirated because of ease of use of obtaining them. The reason online music works now is because Apple made it easy for users to find music. (Before it was easy with Napster).

So, this article regards the Android marketplace. It is not that easy to use, and it is apparently easy to get pirated software. Google can and should fix this.

Re:KeyesLab app?

[euroq]

Wow, I just posted something very similar to what you said. Totally agree!

Re:KeyesLab app?

[SETIGuy]

Cumbersome checkout function? Isn't the second purchase one click more than installing a free app? Or are you reentering everything every time?

Re:Hire Americans, and they can afford things

[Anonymous Coward]

Hire Americans, and they can afford things...

Right, like Android Smartphones, which they will then pirate apps on!

Sounds like hiring Americans will just increase the piracy rates.

Do they?

[KillaGouge]

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?

Re:Do they?

[KillaGouge]

Also, did they break it down by carrier, or if they where all phones?

Re:Do they?

[WillyWanker]

Of course not. Why would they actually report useful information instead of some kind of unsubstantiated half-truth?

Re:Do they?

[DerekLyons]

Translation: Did they give us any information that will give us any excuse to excuse the pirates?

Re:Do they?

[KillaGouge]

actually. Translation: did they give any useful information to determine what makes up that 70% of American pirates and if they ever do buy.

Re:Do they?

[GiveBenADollar]

Translation: Did they give us any information that will give us any excuse to excuse the pirates?

This is not a fair statement. If the article had any facts to back up it's numbers then it would be a lot more believable. Just defending the article without questioning it is as bad as defending the pirates without looking at the cost to the developer. Lets agree to this: It's a bad article and proves nothing on it's own.

Re:Do they?

[hedwards]

Well, pirating if you could pay is one thing, but the only method of paying for apps is Google Checkout which isn't available everywhere that Android phones are available. So, there's clearly something that I'm missing. A lot of people live in areas which don't allow you to pay for the apps even if you want to and have the money to do so.

App developers in other parts of the world, which Google doesn't allow to sell apps, have had to go to lengths to get around that by doing things like selling registration codes for supposedly free apps.

Re:Do they?

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Translation: Did they give us any information that will give us any excuse to excuse the pirates?

Translation: Everybody must be a thief even though there's no proof anything is missing.

Re:Do they?

[icebraining]

If you can't assess the if the conclusions of a study are valid, it's just FUD, regardless of it being pro or anti-piracy.

Your prejudice is showing.

Re:Do they?

[s73v3r]

This right here, is one of the major reasons why being an Apple developer can be better than being an Android developer. Just about everywhere the iPhone is, the App Store is, and everyone in those countries can sign up to buy/sell apps. Google only lets a small handful of countries buy apps, and an even smaller group sell apps. This is completely unacceptable, especially for a company the size of Google.

Re:Do they?

[Score Whore]

I have a scenario for you. Say you go out one day and get to thinking you'd like a new laptop but find that you have no money. Not being a criminal sort, you look around and note that that store over there has a now hiring sign in the window. So you go in have a talk with the manager, they get you your tools and you spend the day working. Then the next day. And so on for a month. So payday finally rolls around and surprise, surprise, no pay check for you. The boss has decided not to pay you.

How do you feel about this? Do you feel ripped off? Keep in mind that no one has gone into your wallet and taken anything away from you. The only thing you've "lost" was your time and the things you invested in in order to be able to go to work (rent, food, clothing, fuel, etc.) Also remember that he may not have ever intended to pay an employee anyway.

Well, that's exactly how a software developer feels. Why do they feel like that? Because they live in a country where the law says that they can make the investment in time and money to create a work and then they will get paid by people who choose to benefit from that work.

When you pirate software you are exactly like the boss who chooses not to pay his employees after they've already done the work.

Re:Do they?

[Score Whore]

I'm curious. What facts could they provide? Because the numbers they provide are facts and more detail would provide no more veracity than what they have now. Even if they presented their source code, sales data from the android store and their server logs, there still would be people who will turn around and say things like "Well, where are the grapes? If they don't provide grapes then they prove nothing."

More detail may be interesting, but it's not any more or less proof than the number they have provided.

Re:Do they?

[cdrguru]

Sorry to break it to you, but there is no guarantee that you are going to get paid in the software business.

Didn't you hear? Kids are pretty much being trained in school that it should all be free today. They see the teacher pirating software and figure it must be OK. Didn't you watch Star Trek?

The days of actually getting paid are probably numbered. I think it is pretty funny that people actually believe they should behave as if we were all living in the Star Trek universe, except when it comes to paying rent.

Re:Do they?

[Score Whore]

Sorry to break it to you, but there is no guarantee that you are going to get paid in the software business.

Indeed. Similar to how laboring doesn't necessarily mean you'll get paid. The labor has to be something that creates value for someone. And when they receive that value, it's reasonable to expect to be paid. That is, if you dig random holes don't expect a paycheck, but if you dig post holes for someone who wants to put up a fence, then expecting a paycheck isn't unreasonable. Correspondingly, if you make software that no one wants, then you won't make money. But if you make software that people want and that they use, then you should receive payment. It's a simple concept.

As far as the rest of your post, I'm in total agreement. There is a crapload of entitlement weenies in the world.

Re:Do they?

[Andorin]

> So payday finally rolls around and surprise, surprise, no pay check for you.
This is one of many bad analogies that often get trotted out in an attempt to bash pirates. When you work for somebody you essentially enter into an agreement to exchange your services for money. Your services are not something that can be copied at will; they are scarce, and there is therefore substantial monetary value in them. Compare that to something that can be pirated, which can be copied at will, which means that any given digital copy is, essentially, worthless.

So basically, your scenario is a bad comparison between something with unlimited supply and something with limited supply.

Re:Do they?

[SETIGuy]

Well, developers could put their apps in one of the non-Google operated android markets.

Re:Do they?

[JAlexoi]

When people want statistics to be believable, they explain how those statistics were gathered. Those are the facts.
PS: Their "facts" are mere claims.

Re:Do they?

[Score Whore]

Your argument would actually make sense if software occurred randomly in nature. But since software doesn't just appear -- that it is in fact scarce -- your argument fails.

However even if that wasn't the case, your argument is also easily dismissed by noting that it's not the person doing the labor that is being bought, it's the act of labor or the product produced by the labor. That is, when someone hires you to sweep a floor it's not the fact that you are sweeping the floor that they care about, it's the swept floor. And the reality is there are six billion people on this planet, at least half of which can trivially sweep a floor. So, in fact, the act of labor necessary to sweep a floor is not scarce, it is highly abundant. (This is the sole purpose of modern labor unions, to artificially reduce the labor supply.)

Still, even if you want to argue that it's not the swept floor that matters, that it is indeed the laborer who is sweeping the floor that matters. Then you are still wrong as the corollary case would be the software developers' labor that matters, not the software product itself.

So which is it? The person laboring, the act of labor, or the product of the labor? In every single case you're wrong and my illustrative example holds true.

Re:Do they?

[mjbkinx]

You enter an agreement when you install software, too. If you don't want to accept this agreement, then don't install the app.

So basically, your scenario is a bad comparison between something with unlimited supply and something with limited supply.

There is an unlimited supply of copies, but not of titles. Whenever a developer makes a decision whether to spend time on a project, s/he will consider the opportunity cost of not doing something else instead. If the unlimited copies of existing apps are enough to fill demand, then the developer is best advised to not waste any time.

Re:Do they?

[EETech1]

I wonder if the sweeper would / could / should ask for more of money for sweeping the floor if there were only around 100 people a day walking on the floor, and suddenly there are 10,000 people a day walking on the same floor.

Then, say the majority of the new people walking across the floor are not spending any money to make your boss any more money. Is he going to want to pay to more if he is not making more too?

I bought games

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:I bought games

[samjam]

In fact, I'm willing to pay the pirates to remove the DRM from the apps I already paid for.

Re:I bought games

[hedwards]

It's linked to your Google Checkout so you shouldn't be having that trouble. If you are, I'd suggest you contact Google. Personally, I have yet to have that problem with any of my Apps. Well, apart from the one which I purchased directly from the developer and had to manually input my registration info.

Need to make incentives..

[Darkness404]

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.

Re:Need to make incentives..

[f0dder]

Obligatory when talking about app prices: http://theoatmeal.com/blog/apps

Re:Need to make incentives..

[Rik Sweeney]

You can return Apps for a refund (within 24 hours) which is quite a good idea.

http://market.android.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=134336

Re:Need to make incentives..

[gonzocanuck2]

Love the link. I wonder how I missed that one on The Oatmeal! I have spent about $60 or so on Android apps for my lovely Nexus One and find the prices are often a pittance for all the usefulness they provide me. If there's a tip jar for free apps, I always donate a small amount. I guess it all boils down to how much a buyer values something (or not). Kind of like how people love dollar stores and then ask why a handmade piece of art or jewellery is priced more than $1.

Re:Need to make incentives..

[Anonymous Coward]

After he was done typing, Darkness404 went to the break room. While there, he bought a $0.85 bag of salty chips, and a $1.50 bottle of sugar soda. He ate the chips. He was almost done with the soda but was distracted, and it became warm. So he tossed the last 1/4 of it. Later that day he went on to think about the injustices of paying a one time fee of $0.99 for an application.

Re:Need to make incentives..

[ADRA]

wow, its .99. Your lunch probably costs 5x as much. The return policy gives you the ability to return apps that are really bad. If YOU don't think an app isn't worth the money then by all means don't buy them. I always find the opposite; good apps get released for free with no way besides annoying ads to monetize the developers for their work.

Re:Need to make incentives..

[Darkness404]

The thing is though, hardware is certain (well, unless you have a PS3, then Sony disables half the features), I know what my phone can do when I buy it and its been reviewed thoroughly. On the other hand, I have no guarantee that that app will even run decently. And 24 hours isn't really enough to fully review most applications, what happens if an update breaks it? What happens if the game is only like 10 levels? Etc. all those things leave you a feeling of being ripped off, even if it was just for a small amount of money.

Plus, software isn't forever, my phone I can theoretically use for a decade, that app may not run on newer hardware, etc.

Re:Need to make incentives..

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Funny, it always seemed to me that the "incentive" for buying a product was being able to use the product.

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

True. I expect people to not use those apps if there is no way to get a free trial. Why is this so difficult to do? If the developer isn't cooperating in making his app available, why not move on to another product? And if there is no other product, why not do without?

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.

This is subjective. I've received emails from people for my app on BB saying "it doesn't work". And that's true - it doesn't work for that user because their service provider hasn't correctly set up networking, or any of a hundred other reasons specific to that user's configuration.

I can accept that one doesn't want to pay for something only to have it completely fail to work - especially in the digital context, where you can't just walk in to the store and get your money back. But again I'd say - why not just avoid the app in the first place, if no free functional trial is offered? Why do you feel entitled to a free trial when the person who developed it is not giving one? What is it that you bring to the table that the developer should be saying "oh, yeah, for YOU I can make an exception"?

And in both cases, let's face the truth: once someone downloads a binary to "try it out", the odds are good that if the user continues running the app - they're still not going to go back and pay for it. What incentive is there to do so, when they already have the app for "free"?

Re:Need to make incentives..

[SupremoMan]

That's pretty great feature, and it pretty much removes any excuse for piracy.

Re:Need to make incentives..

[cparker15]

I was expecting creamy Caesar dressing, not this thin, runny stuff! If this is what I wanted, I would have ordered Italian dressing! I want a refund!

Re:Need to make incentives..

[Abcd1234]

It's *99 cents*, ffs. Read the user reviews, and if no one is complaining about anything relevant, buy the fuckin' thing. Honestly, people are willing to drop 5 bucks on a cup of coffee that a) is entirely transient, and b) could very well completely fucking suck, but apparently paying 99 cents for an app is just too darn risky...

Re:Need to make incentives..

[hedwards]

Depends on the app, some of them go for quite a bit of money. By which I mean $30 and more. But, you do have the opportunity to return it within 24 hours if you don't like it and most have some sort of trial available.

Depending upon the app, it can be quite worth the cash. Documents to go for instance is quite nice.

Re:Need to make incentives..

[think_nix]

This is how I justified buying my n900 at a price of 469 € . Although the device is somewhat expensive, all apps that I need to work and are free and OS . Further than that you can even install a debian app type system to install and run some programs from debian. Nice model but at a high initial price, although afterwards no hassles with licenses.

Re:Need to make incentives..

[s73v3r]

So you never go to new places for lunch? And why do you need to evaluate its updates? You don't have to update an app if you don't want to, and things like Titanium Backup allow you to keep old versions of apps around if you want.

Re:Need to make incentives..

[icebraining]

And if there is no other product, why not do without?

Pirated App. Result for the developer: $0. Result for the user: 1 app.
Do without. Result for the developer: $0. Result for the user: 0 apps.

This is the difference with between actually stealing and downloading a copy illegally. Pirating or going without is exactly the same for the developer. You may feel good about yourself for going without it, but you haven't actually done anything good.

I mean, I pay for games (Machinarium, World of Good, and a couple of others) and donated to some software because it benefits me, by (hopefully) keeping the developers interested in maintaining, enhancing the software I find useful.

But I don't really see the attraction in actions that are apparently "good" but ultimately meaningless.

Re:Need to make incentives..

[Stan92057]

HHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA Heres a great incentive,buy the product or go to jail for taking the product without paying for it. No fines,no community service just plain old jail time as punishment for being a common criminal.

Re:Need to make incentives..

[gorzek]

It amazes me that the same people will drop $40-60 on a crappy video game fret about whether or not they wasted their 99 cent app purchase.

Re:Need to make incentives..

[Andorin]

> It's *99 cents* [with a credit card], ffs.

Fixed that for you. Does everyone have one of those?

Re:Need to make incentives..

[Andorin]

Yeah, it's not theft and it's not a crime.

0/10, obvious troll is obvious

Re:Need to make incentives..

[Abcd1234]

Does everyone have one of those?

Umm... yes. Of course.

Well, unless you're 13 years old or mentally unfit...

Re:Need to make incentives..

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

In other words, the only reason not to pirate in a situation where you would not have paid is to satisfy the righteous indignation of authors who assume that every pirated copy is a lost sale. And in an instance when you personally know that that assumption is wrong, that rationale has no weight.

Much of what you say seems based on this straw man, but if you paid any attention to my post... you'd see that I said nothing about it. We all know it's a foolish position to hold.

What we're talking about here is when someone sees a product for sale, decides he doesn't want to pay for it, then takes it anyway. You say this has no cost - but it does. It devalues the author's time; and provides disincentive for the author to make more products

But that is a different question than the one you asked -- which is why someone should ever choose free stuff over either paying or doing without. The answer is that honest people know when their own decisions are socially beneficial in a way that external observers cannot determine, and there is nothing morally wrong with picking what you know to be the optimal choice just because no one else can verify it.

So everyone should decide for himself whether to steal someone's labor; and as long as they're honest in their evaluation of that theft, it's OK? I'd just call that as a thin veneer over a strong sense of entitlement.

Re:Need to make incentives..

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Pirated App. Result for the developer: $0. Result for the user: 1 app. Do without. Result for the developer: $0. Result for the user: 0 apps.

Where did I mention a dollar cost?

This is the difference with between actually stealing and downloading a copy illegally. Pirating or going without is exactly the same for the developer. You may feel good about yourself for going without it, but you haven't actually done anything good.

What in my statement led you to infer I was talking about the "cost" to the developer? It's obvious to anyone with a brain that 1 pirated app != 1 lost sale.

I mean, I pay for games (Machinarium, World of Good, and a couple of others) and donated to some software because it benefits me, by (hopefully) keeping the developers interested in maintaining, enhancing the software I find useful.

That's spiffy, four or five whole games you paid for. Yet - I'm going to assume that you played through more than that and in your infinite wisdom, deemed the authors unworthy of your funds. After taking the time to hate their products through to the end ;)

But I don't really see the attraction in actions that are apparently "good" but ultimately meaningless.

I suppose this might make you feel better about it, but I can assure you it's not meaningless to the developer. The issue is not whether a sale is lost or not (as that's not something that can be measured). Instead, look at it from someone else's perspective if that's not stretching your empathy too thin :

You spend months building an application. You get it out the door and it makes moderately good sales. But as the numbers trickle in, you realize that 80% of the people using your application haven't paid for it.

Then you have to ask: is it really going to be worth doing this again? You know that there's nothing you can do to change these numbers - any time you make an app, about the same number of users will pirate it. Anti-piracy measures just punish your legit users.

You don't work for free; and now you're not getting paid commensurate with your application's usage - all because of people felt entitled to use the your product without compensating you. For those who pirated your app, you essentially are working for free.

Now maybe if you have a million users, the money is good enough that you can live with that; or maybe you're getting paid a salary by someone else such that you're not working for your end users anyway. (In which case the question must be asked by those paying you.)

To claim that it's "neutral" or "has no cost" to anybody is very misleading. If the cost is not one that you can perceive in your mindset of "I want", you're only showing the narrowness of your own viewpoint when you say the cost does not exist.

Re:Need to make incentives..

[Travelsonic]

Ah, Stan, but copyright infringement != theft, and != serving jail time. Doesn't make it right, but only a moron would confuse clarification with justification.

Re:Need to make incentives..

[Wormfan]

... no one wants to spend even $.99 on something that doesn't work then deal with the hassle of returning the application.

Install > doesn't work > uninstall (within 24 hours) > automatic refund.

Painless.

Re:Need to make incentives..

[Stan92057]

I'm not saying its right, there common criminals.Theft is theft wither its a plain piece of sand or a diamond, follow the plan like everyone else does or pay the consequences and thats paying heavy fines or jail time. Its just that simple

Re:Need to make incentives..

[icebraining]

That's spiffy, four or five whole games you paid for. Yet - I'm going to assume that you played through more than that and in your infinite wisdom, deemed the authors unworthy of your funds. After taking the time to hate their products through to the end ;)

Yes; plenty of free games (played Wolfenstein:Enemy Territory for two years, and recently Quake Live), dozens of loaned games and hundreds of older games that come in a 5E magazine every month (this month was Rainbow Six: Vegas).
The only games I've downloaded illegally in the last six years were ROMs of games that are not on sale anymore, from companies that sometimes don't even exist.

The rest of the software is all legal - FOSS from the drivers to the applications (well, some closed firmware, but it's legal too).

Just because I have a certain position doesn't mean it's an excuse for my behavior. I also defend free speech for (e.g.) racist organizations although they disgust me. But thanks for the ad-hominem.

I suppose this might make you feel better about it, but I can assure you it's not meaningless to the developer. The issue is not whether a sale is lost or not (as that's not something that can be measured). Instead, look at it from someone else's perspective if that's not stretching your empathy too thin :

I hope you don't fall from the weight of your own sense of superiority. The way you make judgment calls about others so rapidly is appalling.

You don't work for free; and now you're not getting paid commensurate with your application's usage - all because of people felt entitled to use the your product without compensating you. For those who pirated your app, you essentially are working for free.

For almost all professions this is true - including programmers. They get paid once to develop a product, regardless of how many people use it. Why should it be any different for a few?

If the developer is being well paid for the work he does, why would he stop?

If the developer is not getting enough to pay for the work, does it matter if people are pirating or simply not using it? He'll stop anyway.

Piracy is irrelevant. Either you have enough costumers or you don't.

Re:Need to make incentives..

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

As you've started ignoring the points you had no answer for, there's probably not much point in continuing. I do apologize for the ad hominem though. I made an assumption based on how you phrased your statement -- my bad.

Re:So

[hsmith]

Sure, but what if they are using server resources for their App? What then? Oh, they would have never purchased it anyway! So that bandwidth doesn't matter!

Kids these days?

[courtarro]

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?

Re:Kids these days?

[MrEricSir]

Let's also not forget that there's no way to "return" an app or even to politely ask for your money back. If the app doesn't work, you're screwed.

I can see why piracy is an attractive option.

Re:Kids these days?

[KillaGouge]

Thank you for the information on the Verizon Android Market. I was thinking of getting an Android phone from them, thinking it would be like the store they have now. You buy the app, get charged on your bill.

If more carriers moved to that, I think the piracy numbers might go down.

all things equal, ease of use wins.

Re:Kids these days?

[couchslug]

"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?"

Mod Up "Insightful as Fuck!" Easy money.

Re:Kids these days?

[KillaGouge]

So not all apps fall under the 24hr return policy the Android Market has?

Re:Kids these days?

[zombieChan51]

There's no way to get my quarter back after buying bubble gum, if I didn't like the flavor or it was to hard I'm screwed. Doesn't mean I should go and break the machine and steal all the bubble gum.

Re:Kids these days?

[kidgenius]

How is a ROM management app encouraging piracy? I use Koush's ROM Manager to install (and keep up to date), my install of Cyanogen Mod for my droid. Where's the piracy? Cyanogen had an issue with Google a while back, but they've both come to a reconciliation that works well for both parties, and no piracy of google's apps are taking place.

Re:Kids these days?

[beanyk]

Let's also not forget that there's no way to "return" an app or even to politely ask for your money back. If the app doesn't work, you're screwed.

According to Androd Market, you can return the app for a refund within 24 hours:

http://market.android.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=134336

Does this not work for you?

(I'm just parroting the link given a few posts above -- I haven't tried this myself)

Re:Kids these days?

[MrEricSir]

Any serious application is going to take weeks if not months to QA. 24 hours is meaningless.

Re:Kids these days?

[RebootKid]

I think the poster was referring to ROMs used by the phone, i.e. Cyanogenmod and the like. Those aren't piracy.

Re:Kids these days?

[Paradise Pete]

Doesn't mean I should go and break the machine and steal all the bubble gum.

No, but if you could somehow taste the gum before you buy it I'll bet you would.

Re:Kids these days?

[mdw2]

parent post appears to be thinking that you're talking about ROMs from old video game consoles and probably doesn't have an android phone. Being able to manage your android ROMs is damn useful.

Re:Kids these days?

[KillaGouge]

If the apps are as broken as people have said, then 24 hours should be more than enough time to see that they are broken.

Re:Kids these days?

[hedwards]

As opposed to desktop apps which don't allow you to return them once the shrink wrap has been broken, even if it's less than 24hours?

Re:Kids these days?

[hedwards]

Didn't you get the memo? Every time you install free software you're committing piracy. Also you're a bad person and like to stomp on puppies.

Re:Kids these days?

[bluefoxlucid]

Most apps are free. I haven't found any worth buying.

Re:Kids these days?

[hoggoth]

Just an FYI: there is usually some gum stuck under the bubble gum machine. You can pull some off and taste it before buying. You're welcome.

Re:Kids these days?

[D Ninja]

That's because Angry Birds hasn't yet been released...

(Such an awesome game.)

Re:Kids these days?

[TooMuchToDo]

Tasker. I have over 100 apps on my Nexus One, all free except Tasker. Cheaper than Locale, and so much more functional.

http://tasker.dinglisch.net/

Re:Kids these days?

[Rogerborg]

You know, it's really hard to feel good about ripping off developers if people like you insist on bringing "facts" into the discussion. Total dick move, dude.

Re:Kids these days?

[KillaGouge]

That is why I am here.

Re:Kids these days?

[robmv]

and you are tied to the Verizon network (using the Verizon market) for the time you want to use that application you paid, move to another network, buy the app again, no thanks

Re:Kids these days?

[BatGnat]

What if I don't have a credit card?

Re:Kids these days?

[moeluv]

All apps can be returned in the first 24hrs. THe only time you caan't return for a refund is if you return it and then redownload it. That second download makes it yours for good. But would you really redownload an app you thought sucked so bad that you returned it?

Re:Kids these days?

[moeluv]

Seriously, months to decide whether or not you find an app useful? Any app I've ever downloaded I was able to tell within the first hour or two if it was sufficiently performing the task it was intended for. How the hell do you keep an app for months w/o knowing if it's working? I think sir you should get a simpler phone and leave smartphones alone.

Re:Kids these days?

[mdm-adph]

Or a few bucks on a ROM management app?

Nice try, Koush.

Re:Kids these days?

[damas]

A theoretical approach to piracy on the Android:
Pirates fall largely into two categories - Can pay, Won't pay and Can't pay, Won't pay - for Laconia's sake* let's call the Can Pay Pirates and Can't Pay Pirates.

The Can't Pay Pirates are not an issue on Android since - the device is very f.g expensive and the apps are comparatively cheap (oh, did I mention that the devices - just like most stuff except food, services probably clothes - it's MORE expensive in POOR countries than in the good old US of A?)

The Can Pay Pirates are therefore the area of concern - and looking at the world map of piracy it's expected that the good old US of A would come on top by a large margin, as usual (since it's holding the top spot for software piracy by value on all charts ladies and gentlemen - all - freaking charts from BSA: http://portal.bsa.org/globalpiracy2009/studies/globalpiracystudy2009.pdf).

What a surprise. Good bye and good night.

*In case you were wondering Laconia was the region surrounding and ruled by the Spartans, who were known for their brevity in speech.

Re:Kids these days?

[blind biker]

Parent is best post in thread. Yes, does it really take that long to figure out how to charge for apps? Just do it through the phone bill. Simple as that.

Re:Hire Americans, and they can afford things

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Otherwise, expect us to live our lives by any means necessary.

In what way is pirating an app necessary to living your life?

No wonder SaaS seems so appealing

[dave562]

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.

Re:No wonder SaaS seems so appealing

[geekoid]

Ahhh, no.

People know it takes effort.

Don't presume the idiots you hung around with represent a 'good sized' segment. they don't. If they did, iTunes wouldn't have sold billions of songs.

Re:No wonder SaaS seems so appealing

[bieber]

I find it difficult to believe that anyone has even stolen code from you...perhaps you mean copied? Lets be perfectly clear, so-called "piracy" is not stealing anything, it's violating a (theoretically) temporary monopoly that you've been granted by the government. Aside from that monopoly, you have absolutely nothing to do with two people copying data between their computers. You can argue that copyright protection is a necessary incentive to produce creative works in our society, but I don't believe---and a great many others agree with me---that those protections should extend to private copying in the digital era, and that stance does not make us "morally corrupt."

Consider this. I don't use proprietary software. I'll gladly pay for software, but not so long as the author is going to restrict what I'm allowed to do with it. So whatever software you may produce, am I not "stealing" just as much money from you by not using it as those who share it amongst themselves are by not paying you for it? Or are only some of the people who choose not to pay for your software "thieves," despite the fact that we all have exactly the same net effect on your pocketbook?

Re:No wonder SaaS seems so appealing

[SerpentMage]

Cool dude...

I really dislike people like you! Want to know why? Because you are the jerks that make this entire situation unbearable.

Let me illustrate...

GPL... What is it? It is law based on copyright! So if you are violating via piracy you are violating the GPL. Where people like you are jerks is because you will be the first ones yelling and screaming on how evil corporations are when they violate the GPL.

Well you can't have it both ways! Either you accept the copyright or you don't. Because if you don't accept copyright then you better accept the fact that vendors are completely free to take any GPL code and not share it. And let me tell you corporations can be more clever than you with respect to DRM. An example, take a look at how Bloomberg protects its IP. Absolutely stunning and very very very very difficult to crack. If you say, "hey it can be cracked..." Think again many have tried because Bloomberg is very expensive and people would love to have it for free. I actually challenge you to break into the Bloomberg system and get their terminals for free!

I for one accept the copyright and stand by the copyright. Not because I like content owners like the big studios. But because I like the rights of the open source community. I know with open source and my fair use with it, and my paying for each and every piece of binary only software I have the right to bitch and complain on dumb binary only vendors! And yes I do donate to open source. Regularly as a matter of fact.

Re:No wonder SaaS seems so appealing

[bluefoxlucid]

We need to turn into Japan.

Re:No wonder SaaS seems so appealing

[SudoGhost]

There's a flaw in your argument. If a company makes a profit off of piracy, it's the same as a company using GPL'd code in violation of the GPL. GPL doesn't care what I do with the code for my own personal use, but if I transfer my movie to my iPod without buying the movie all over again for the 'iPod version', I'm suddenly a criminal?

Re:No wonder SaaS seems so appealing

[bieber]

Well you can't have it both ways! Either you accept the copyright or you don't.

Oh sorry, I didn't realize that I wasn't allowed to hold nuanced opinions :/

Now, if you'll return to reality with me for a moment, you'll find that there are very few people out there asserting that copyright should be abolished, and I'm certainly not one of them. What I stated was that I think private copying should be legal under any circumstances...that does not include commercial distribution or the creation of derivative works, which are the keys to the GPL. I'm not stupid. I use and write GPL software and I thoroughly understand how it works. I'm also in favor of drastically reduced copyright terms (five years seems reasonable enough), and of course that would mean that corporations would be free to incorporate my code (albeit from five years ago) into proprietary software. As far as I'm concerned, that's an acceptable compromise for the greater societal good that more realistic copyright terms would accomplish.

...but please, ignore everything I say, I'm just a jerk that makes the entire situation unbearable...

Re:No wonder SaaS seems so appealing

[GodfatherofSoul]

Truth. Notice how many people are jumping through hoops to rationalize away this story.

Re:No wonder SaaS seems so appealing

[bieber]

The reason the "digital segment of society" refuses to recognize that "intellectual property" isn't the same as regular property is that it is not, in fact, even remotely the same. You can make all the flawed analogies you want (heck, you can't even get in line with the normal trolls who want to analogize software as property, you seem to think that the thing you're trying to rationalize as if it were tangible property is best analogized as a service), but the bottom line is that software is not a physical product, and it is not a service in any conventional sense. It is completely and utterly different from any other economic product that mankind has ever produced. If you start your argument by trying to treat it as such, you're just showing your ignorance from the very start.

You do realize, don't you, that copyright infringement, theft, and theft of service are completely different, and that copyright infringement in most cases is not a criminal offense but a civil matter? If software is exactly the same as goods and services, then why is it subject to a completely separate set of rules and regulations? Do you really expect anyone to take you seriously when you can't demonstrate even a basic understanding of the way the law considers "intellectual property"?

Now, if you want to be sensible about this, you should try making some reasonable arguments about economic incentives to justify crippling the ability of society at large to copy data freely amongst themselves for the benefit of the smaller segment of society that produces that data in the first place. It helps if you refrain from making ridiculous analogies and calling everyone who disagrees with you an idiot...

Re:No wonder SaaS seems so appealing

[cdrguru]

iTunes sells songs to people that can't, won't or don't know how to download music.

iTunes has maybe 1% of the total music downloads today. Yes, that is billions and billions of individual songs. Should be a good clue on what people are doing with their Internet connections. I don't know anyone that would actually pay for music that is under 30.

iTunes exists because without it the whole "iPod is a pirate tool" would be obvious. If the only way to fill up a 60GB iPod was piracy they would have been back in court faster than you would believe. Now Apple can point to the iTunes store and say this is how people are buying music today. Understand as well that the iTunes store operates at no more than break-even for the most part. It costs them just about every penny they make on a sale. They do it because without the store it would be obvious to all that people aren't spending $60,000 to fill their iPod with music.

Re:No wonder SaaS seems so appealing

[rantomaniac]

Your analogies are so inappropriate it hurts to read.

A person who produces something gets to dictate the terms under which it is used.

Good thing the workers that built my house don't know about that, or I'd be paying them royalties. I wonder if murderers get sued by gun producers for unauthorized shots fired.

If I pay someone else to dig a ditch for me, I do not have some stupid notion that they are obligated to dig other ditches for me at no further charge.

There's a big difference between a product and its copy. Ditches take time and effort to dig, a copy doesn't and more importantly, no pirate is asking the original creator to send them a copy. The act of unauthorized copying doesn't cost the creator time, effort or money, they aren't even aware of it happening. Therefore your analogy is invalid.

The reality of the matter is that real people are spending their lives and brain power writing code that makes life better for everyone who uses it.

They should also spend some brain power developing business models that don't revolve around selling an infinite resource. Software as a service has its flaws, like the lack of control over your data, but at least it's feasible and it touch with reality.

If you aren't creating it, you don't own it and you don't have any right to it. How idiotic do you have to be to believe otherwise?

Copyright was created as an incentive to creators, in the form a temporary monopoly on reproducing and distributing their creations, to boost the number of people making art and releasing it to the public. It was never a law with roots in morality or ethics. These days, when billions of people are connected by the Internet, lots of them creative for the sake of creativity, not for monetary gain, it's more of a hindrance to the propagation of scientific and artistic thought. You don't have to be an idiot to believe in cultural and technological evolution more strongly than in obsolete business models.

When you copy software, you're ignoring the wishes of the person who created it. You are violating them. You are taking away their right to earn a living for their labor.

Actually you aren't taking away their right to earn a living, they're free to choose a feasible business model.

Re:No wonder SaaS seems so appealing

[SerpentMage]

Here is the problem. You say that you would like private copying. But in fact what you are saying is that I want a personal exclusion due to my situation. A corporation can do the exact same thing.

The end result is this mess of laws where you are left interpreting what things mean. IMO copyright laws should be left strong with no exemptions. Thus if a vendor does not want private copying so be it. It also means that they will not be getting my monies. But in turn I want shorter copyright laws as you suggested.

But the question of greater societal value? According to whom? We cannot agree since well, that is what our society is about. Thus I tend to stick to monetary and being reasonable.

Re:No wonder SaaS seems so appealing

[Raenex]

What I stated was that I think private copying should be legal under any circumstances...that does not include commercial distribution or the creation of derivative works, which are the keys to the GPL.

What does "private copying" mean when the software is made publicly available as torrents or on download servers? Also, the GPL says nothing about commercial distribution.

Re:No wonder SaaS seems so appealing

[Andorin]

> GPL... What is it? It is law based on copyright! So if you are violating via piracy you are violating the GPL.
One, the GPL is not a law. It's a software license.

Two, your argument doesn't make sense. Most piracy committed is noncommercial copying and redistribution. The GPL expressly permits this. If copyright law were amended to make noncommercial piracy legal, it wouldn't affect the GPL at all.

> Well you can't have it both ways! Either you accept the copyright or you don't.
Yeah, that totally isn't a false dichotomy, because it's totally true that the only options are to keep modern copyright law or throw it all out entirely.

Re:No wonder SaaS seems so appealing

[Rob_Bryerton]

SaaS is not about "piracy" issues, it is about the subscription model. Why sell something once when you can sell "nothing" over & over to the same people. This is the holy grail of the software industry.

The lock in aspect is also very nice for the seller.

Re:No wonder SaaS seems so appealing

[Zarf]

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.

I think it's more fundamental than that. Software is non-physical so it is hard to understand paying for it.

Software as a Service ties the utility of the software to the physical machine since to get the utility of the software you must effectively rent the machine's time. This should be several orders of magnitude cheaper than buying machines and using them for short specific tasks for the vast majority of situations.

So this re-unification of the code's utility and machine use should be much easier for people to grasp and should ultimately yield business models that make more sense. I expect the change will push most software developers in one of two directions... small custom in-house (web|platform) applications versus large "Cloud Computing" applications.

Time will tell if I'm right. I've chosen to try and position myself on the side of large SaaS applications with small light clients. It makes more sense for everyone since the value of the code and the machines are implicitly tied together. Much easier for people to understand and understand why they need to cough up money for the software.

Re:No wonder SaaS seems so appealing

[Andorin]

Your mentality is a good example of what's wrong with copyright today. You appear to believe that because "it takes time and effort to write code," it follows that a developer should be paid for every single copy of his code that is produced by others, completely regardless of the fact that in the digital environment, copies are non-scarce, effectively making them worthless. There is nothing, except for tradition (which has been totally invalidated by modern technology), to connect the ideas that "software takes effort to make" and "software authors must be paid for every copy." Why not pay them for the actual creation of the software in the first place, rather than after the fact?

I'm also interested in how a lot of people are "morally corrupt" because they disagree with your old-fashioned view of copyright. Care to elaborate on that?

Re:No wonder SaaS seems so appealing

[jjohnson]

It's absolute myth that stopping piracy turns the other 5000 pirated copies into sales. It just doesn't work that way.

It's also a myth that if pirates are prevented, they won't ever pay. Somewhere between 0 and 5,000 users will pay for it, and if the choice is between having and not having those extra payers, I'll take having them.

But more than that, the iPhone has created a certain culture where piracy is possible but unusual--less than 9% of iPhones are jailbroken, which is required for pirated apps. For the most part, people with iPhones start from the perspective of having to pay for what they play. On the Android, the culture is that paying is for suckers or the exceptionally morally upright. The wobbly middle cases will pay on the iPhone and pirate on the Android, which means more revenue for the iPhone dev.

Re:No wonder SaaS seems so appealing

[dave562]

You're confusing "data" with "tools". I have no problem with people copying data. If Bob wants to give Jane a copy of his family pictures in jpg format, more power to him. When Jane sees that Bob has a great tool that makes his business more effective, and shes for and Bob supplies her with a copy of it, I have a problem with that. Bob should have a problem with it too. By giving away what he had to pay for, he limits the revenue going to the developer and makes subsequent releases of the software much less likely. That hurts everyone who paid for the software.

For a business, and for any professional, a software purchase is an investment. Just a carpenter needs tools, like a plumber needs tools, computer people need tools. There are a whole slew of free tools out there. In that way, digital workers have an advantage. However a lot of tools are not free. They are not free because in most cases, they were difficult to develop. The developers who developed the tools deserve to get paid for them. What is so objectionable about that? Why are you against paying people?

I don't buy the populist argument about "crippling" society at large. Well written software applications help society by making businesses more efficient, among other things. Those efficiencies come at a cost. You don't have to use proprietary software. You can go back to pen and paper and an abacus for all I care. I think you'll find that people will expect you to pay for those too.

In my mind it comes down to respect for each other, and respect for our time. If someone produces a product that improves my life, it has value and I will pay for it. That is the right thing to do.

You mentioned laws, and the differences between different kinds. Have you considered that the laws themselves are only there because of the degeneration of society? If people were upstanding to begin with, laws would be unnecessary. The laws are there because people, by and large, will fuck each other over first, and only treat each other well a distant second.

We probably share some common agreement about intellectual property law. I think a lot of the "process" patents are crap. Those should be fair game. Society losses when the best way to do something is locked up and kept in the realm of a select few. Software is not like that. Software is a tangible product.

Re:No wonder SaaS seems so appealing

[bws111]

Good thing the workers that built my house don't know about that, or I'd be paying them royalties.

The discussion is not about one-time payments vs royalties, it is about payment or no payment. Try not paying those workers (after the work is started) and see how long you remain in control of the house.

They should also spend some brain power developing business models that don't revolve around selling an infinite resource.

OK, so they do that, and decide digging ditches is better than having their work ripped off. Now you have no apps, pirated or not (and before you yell FOSS!, why aren't you using FOSS apps now instead of ripping someone off?) Does that somehow improve your life?

These days, when billions of people are connected by the Internet, lots of them creative for the sake of creativity, not for monetary gain, it's more of a hindrance to the propagation of scientific and artistic thought.

Yep, which is why there is this huge explosion of freely available creative stuff which has just entirely removed the market for the stuff created by those greedy for-the-money bastards, right? So remind me again why it is necessary to pirate stuff which the creators did NOT want to give away for free.

Re:No wonder SaaS seems so appealing

[Travelsonic]

The fact that software is a different class of "stuff" and not subject to the same laws as previously existing "stuff" doesn't change the fact that you didn't create the software.

I didn't create Firefox, OpenOffice, wxDev-C++, etc, yet they are legally free.. whats your point if not to create untrue arguments and logical errors?

Re:No wonder SaaS seems so appealing

[bws111]

The purpose of copyright is, and always has been, to give people a reason to CREATE. The only viable model we have is 'pay after creation'. How would any possible 'pay first' model work?

Re:No wonder SaaS seems so appealing

[Twanfox]

A person who produces something gets to dictate the terms under which it is used.

See, I take a little offense at this. A person who produces something (hardware or software) does not get to dictate how that product is used, not under the law. The right of first purchase allows a purchaser to resell his item and compete (for one sale) with the original manufacturer. And, if I choose to use my toaster as a foot stool, I can do so and the manufacturer can't enforce squat on me. EULA 'usage control' attempts aside, the only controls over use of an item come from laws passed for safety reasons, not from what the manufacturer says you can or can't do with it.

What you probably MEANT to say is that a software publisher has been granted a "temporary" monopoly to define how that product is reproduced (the right to copy or... copyright) in exchange for that product eventually falling into the public domain. That is accurate and it is what has been granted/protected under the law. By phrasing it badly like this, you're doing a disservice to what has been granted, and distorting for others what copyright really means.

I'm sure that a lot of people like myself are getting annoyed with copyright holders. Sure, I get it that it takes time and effort to produce something like music or movies or art or software. However, why should you get paid ad infinitum for the same work for eternity (effectively)? The work I do today I won't get paid for later, what makes copyrighted works so special? And don't say it's because I'm not creating anything, because I most certainly do.

Return the balance to copyright and the public domain, and perhaps people will feel more respectful of it in the future.

Re:No wonder SaaS seems so appealing

[rantomaniac]

OK, so they do that, and decide digging ditches is better than having their work ripped off. Now you have no apps, pirated or not (and before you yell FOSS!, why aren't you using FOSS apps now instead of ripping someone off?) Does that somehow improve your life?

I don't feel obliged to explain what software I use, which I bought and which I obtained illegaly.
I'm sorry, I'm not sure how to respond to your argument, because it's so inconsequential, first you suggest that there will be no software when piracy makes commercial software developers quit. Then you acknowledge the existence of FOSS and thus software created for no monetary gain or based on non-copy-based business models.

Yep, which is why there is this huge explosion of freely available creative stuff which has just entirely removed the market for the stuff created by those greedy for-the-money bastards, right? So remind me again why it is necessary to pirate stuff which the creators did NOT want to give away for free.

There is an explosion of creative stuff, in the form of deviantart, youtube, wikipedia, CC licensed music sites and facilitated by free creative software. It hasn't displaced commercial content because the latter is still of higher quality, but give it time, as the tools mature and the public domain fills with more base art to start with, so will the quality of amateur-created culture improve. Copyright harms free culture, because it forbids, even for non-commercial purposes, the creation of derivative works.

Anyway, copyright infringement is not necessary, but it's so trivially easy and natural (and mostly victimless), that restricting it makes no sense. You can call some works victims - those that won't be created, because alternative business models can't raise enough money for them. But you can't call creators or publishers victims, because they are deprived of nothing in the process. It's their choice to cling to the old business model or search for others. I imagine they like copyright so much, because it allows them to work for a couple weeks and then get paid for the rest of their lives for it, but too bad, it simply stopped working. Any attemps by the publishing industries to make copyright enforcement ever more strict is the morally questionable path, putting the interest of so few over the interests of everybody else.

And back on subject, the software industry has it exceptionally easy because of the SaaS model, so they should be the last ones whining.

Re:No wonder SaaS seems so appealing

[dave562]

However, why should you get paid ad infinitum for the same work for eternity (effectively)? The work I do today I won't get paid for later, what makes copyrighted works so special?

You answered your own question without realizing it. Although you won't get paid tomorrow for the work you did today, if you do the same work tomorrow, you will get paid for it again. If you think about software, it's an even better deal. You pay for it once and get to use it for as long as you have a computer that will run it (ignore shady things like forced obselesence). Imagine if you did some work for someone, and then that person expected you to do the same work for their friends, and thought it was stupid to pay you for it. Would that be fair?

If a person writes a song, that song brings enjoyment every time it is played. If a person writes a book, that book can be enjoyed by anyone who wants to read it. If a book needs to be re-published, it makes sense that the publisher should get paid for it. If a digital copy needs to be retained, it makes sense that the infrastructure to store the copy needs to be paid for. Likewise if software continues to be useful, it should be paid for (once) by everyone who finds it useful.

Re:No wonder SaaS seems so appealing

[cyber-vandal]

Because that data costs time and money to create. Your solution would be to have less data which would leave us all poorer in the end. It wouldn't just be the dross from the mass-market that disappeared, it would be the good stuff too.

Re:No wonder SaaS seems so appealing

[dave562]

What are you talking about? What exactly is my solution? The way I see it, I am suggesting that people pay for the tools that they use. You are free to create whatever data you want with whatever free tools you can find, or proprietary tools that you can afford. If you can't afford the tools, that is your problem. Your inability to afford something does not give you the right to steal it.

Software is not a physical item

[BadAnalogyGuy]

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.

Re:Software is not a physical item

[Shakrai]

But software is infinitely reproducible for next to no cost

Too bad it's not "infinitely developable" for next to no cost.

Re:Software is not a physical item

[BadAnalogyGuy]

If it is useful software, people will develop for it for free. This is the core concept of Open Source software.

Re:Software is not a physical item

[Paralizer]

Maybe you can understand it better if it were you selling something.

Suppose you made something intangible and "infinitely reproducible", like an ebook or an android app. You sell it for $20.

Scenario 1:
I give you $20
I get a copy of the product

Scenario 2:
I get a copy of the product

The net difference between these two is that you don't get the $20 yet I still get the product. If I were not a potential customer to begin with (this has been discussed on /. before and I agree with it), then you really didn't lose anything since I was never going to pay anyway. However, if I were a potential customer and I pirated it, it would be the same as me buying it then stealing my $20 back, except you never really got the $20 to begin with. It's obvious that you not getting paid is the same as stealing, how can you disagree?

Re:Software is not a physical item

[PylonHead]

This is amazingly disingenuous.

Commercial software that gets pirated is useful by definition... otherwise it would not be pirated.
Commercial software that gets pirated has no open source replacement of the same quality.. or people would simply use that instead.

So it is clearly not true that all useful software will be developed for free. This is the value of a commercial software market. By letting people copyright their work and sell licenses to use it, we as consumers have far more choices than we would if no such system existed.

Re:Software is not a physical item

[Bert64]

There are plenty of people who are willing to develop software for free.
There are also plenty of companies out there willing to develop software for free and use alternative methods of obtaining revenue (support contracts, hardware sales, advertising etc).

When you share, the development work becomes considerably less too. Compare the time/effort of developing your own OS from scratch vs creating your own customised linux distribution.

Re:Software is not a physical item

[Sarten-X]

Correction: If it's useful software, but not quite easy enough to use, or if it's some philosophical proof, or if it's attached to the promise of free money, people will develop for it for free.

If a project's useful, but not fun to work on, nobody will want to work on it.

If a project's useful and easy to use, the majority of observers will consider it "done enough" and move on.

If a project proves some political point, like implementing HDCP in free software, people will work on it until the point is proven.

If a project might win some prize, people are more likely to persevere through significant problems.

Sadly, being useful isn't quite enough.

Re:Software is not a physical item

[Lunix Nutcase]

Is this ignoring the fact that the vast majority of the Linux kernel development is done by paid programmers? Or that many of the KDE developers are paid by Nokia? Or how GNOME is mostly developed by people funded from Novell? Or how a lot of GCC and libc development is funded by IBM and Red Hat, etc? The fact of the matter is that the core parts of the GNU and Linux projects are being worked on by people paid to do so by corporations. They aren't doing it for free.

Re:Software is not a physical item

[Shakrai]

There's also games to consider. The quality of a few open source games is decent but I doubt you'd see the number of titles that are available if it wasn't for the profit motive. Franchise games (games set on the Star Trek universe for instance) would not be possible at all under an open source scheme, unless the license holders were inclined to give those rights away for free.

Re:Software is not a physical item

[abigor]

FYI, BadAnalogyGuy is an honest-to-god, old-fashioned troll.

Re:Software is not a physical item

[zeroshade]

Just because the result is the same, it doesn't mean the actions are.

Scenario 1:
You jump off a bridge
You die

Scenario 2:
I push you off a bridge
You die

The net difference is I don't go to jail for murder. If you weren't going to kill yourself anyways, then nothing wrong happened since you were going to die anyways. By your logic I shouldn't go to jail for murder. However, if you were going to kill yourself anyways, and I killed you before you did. Then it would be the same as you just killing yourself, except I beat you too it. Clearly it's obvious that suicide is the same as murder, how can you disagree?

Not to make light of either suicide or murder, but I think my point is made. The end result is not the only thing that matters in a given situation. You not getting paid is NOT the same as stealing because...I didn't steal that $20 from you.

Re:Software is not a physical item

[Lunix Nutcase]

Oops. Didn't notice the name. Can't believe I fell for him.

Re:Software is not a physical item

[Anonymous Coward]

If it is useful software, people will develop for it for free.

What about people who want to eat?

If it is tasty food, people will develop it for free. Have you been paying ANY attention?

Re:Software is not a physical item

[Bassman59]

If it is useful software, people will develop for it for free. This is the core concept of Open Source software.

PCB layout (EDA) software is, to a particular group of engineers, incredibly useful software. Without it, we simply wouldn't be able to make our products.

There are at least two open-source EDA software packages.

Both suck. And when compared to commercial offerings, built by paid developers who work on their programs full time, the open-source alternatives are just sad jokes.

I once made a simple suggestion to the guys who work on gEDA's PCB package. It was, "Ya know, the commercial layout programs all have this neat feature where the net name appears on the pads and in the traces you've laid down." The reply was, "Huh? Why would you want to do that?" That clarified for me that the whole gEDA package was being developed by amateurs who had no interest in projects with more than two copper layers.

So, at least in this one area, the Open Source option is a big fail.

Re:Software is not a physical item

[Achromatic1978]

Well, no! That's different! Because, uhhh... hmmm, because open source is an ideology. The way of the future, man.

Or something. Meh.

Re:Software is not a physical item

[eugene2k]

>we as consumers have far more choices
Like, for example, a vendor lock-in choice.

Re:Software is not a physical item

[tompaulco]

I propose a new slashdot survey:
In the future would you rather have:
1. All software be free
2. A white-collar job

Probably needs something about cmdrtaco, too.

Re:Software is not a physical item

[DragonWriter]

If it is useful software, people will develop for it for free. This is the core concept of Open Source software.

No, its not. Plenty of people who develope open source software are paid to do it. The key concept of open source software is that giving people the freedom to modify and redistribute software (including the freedom to pay people other than the original developer to do so) produces better software.

Now, inherently, the permission to redistribute source freely that is necessary to FOSS software means that open source software is generally incompatible with traditional commercial software sales business models, as FOSS software, once someone other than the developer has their hands on it, is likely to be available free (gratis) as well as Free (libre), even if the initial user of the software may have to pay for it.

That means that the software that gets developed as FOSS software tends to be:
1. Software that scratches the developers own itch, such that the utility is principally in having it rather than selling it, and kudos, feedback and improvements from the community are more important to the creator than licensing fees.
2. Software that fills a use need of the person underwriting development (this is mostly similar to #1, except that instead of the developer having the interest, someone else has the interest and pays the developer.)
3. Software that the developer/underwriter has an interest in being widely available to others to use because that promotes some other interest of the developer/underwriter.

Note that multiple of these can apply to the same software, and when multiple different entities are doing and underwriting the development, different considerations might apply to different participants.

Re:Software is not a physical item

[Miamicanes]

> Commercial software that gets pirated is useful by definition... otherwise it would not be pirated

You underestimate the number of packrats with ADD -- users who have dozens and dozens of pirated apps installed... 99% of which they never use, and only keep around because having lots and lots of apps makes them happy. The trick to monetizing these users is to create an app that has two levels of piracy... an "easy" level of cracking that lets them feel like they got the real app, then a much harder level of cracking that suddenly manifests itself at a point when they urgently need the app to work and will *instantly* pull out the credit card and spend a few bucks just to solve their problem *immediately*.

No, I'm not talking about apps that are borderline-malicious. For example, suppose you wrote an app to lay out PC boards (unsuitable for a phone, but this is just for illustration). Officially, you limit it to 2x2 inches and one side, but make it fairly easy to crack and allow nominally unlimited size, two sides, and four layers. HOWEVER... the app knows it's pirated, so it just sits and waits. And waits, until the user goes to export it to a Gerber file for manufacturing. You even allow him to export as many Gerber files as he wants to, until 5 minutes elapse without an export attempt. Then you pull the trigger -- the next time he goes to print a Gerber, make it look like your app has somehow reverted to "lite" mode and needs to be purchased to continue. No, you don't jack up the price at that point... remember, the goal isn't to piss him off and motivate him to go hunting for a crack. The goal is to get him to the point where he's stressed out, racing to meet a deadline, and desperate... then hit him with a reasonable charge that will make the problem go away forever. For this to work, you have to make it blame-free, easy, fair, and (most importantly) *guaranteed to be instant*. If you tell him his order will be processed within 24 hours, you've just lost the sale. He's going to go right back to hunting for a crack so he can fix it *now*, because you just admitted that buying it *won't* solve his problem *immediately*.

Something similar can be applied to games (and, in fact, HAS been applied to games, but in a way intended more to extract revenge on pirates rather than drive sales). A game appears to be cracked and goes along with it, then at some critical moment pretends to have reverted to demo mode in a way that can be instantly restored to full mode upon purchasing an activation code (possibly from within the game itself). Pull out your Visa card in the next 5 minutes, and you can slay the dragon & save the day. Spend too long thinking about it, and you'll be the dragon's lunch & your past 16 hours will have been wasted. The key is to make sure that the only people who even GET to this point are the hardcore gamers who REALLY play it. First, because they're the ones with enough invested in it to pony up the cash to continue. Second, because if you reveal it TOO soon, you'll just motivate some lesser script kiddies to try cracking it for everyone else. Urgency works. Wait until the player is *so* into the game, he won't WANT to waste time cracking it, because that would distract him from playing the game. To pick up more low-hanging fruit, make the game sold and crackable on multiple levels. Free demo, $3-5 base game that's easy to crack, but starts showing ads a few days after cracking, then a $10-25 'advanced' module that pretends to be easy to crack, and just lies in wait for the right moment to make its, *cough* sales pitch *cough*.

It's basic security, really. If someone is hyperfocused on compromising your security, the best thing you can do is to let them think they've won, and get them distracted for a few days. Then, it'll be that much harder for them to continue when you start throwing challenges at them again. They'll have to re-learn things they forgot, and get back into "the zone". You're not going to make a sale to someone who's invested 3 days trying to crack y

Re:Software is not a physical item

[Abcd1234]

ROFL, and who do you suppose contributes to, for example, Linux, Open Office, or Mozilla? Oh yeah... *paid developers*.

Re:Software is not a physical item

[froggymana]

>>>"Commercial software that gets pirated has no open source replacement of the same quality.. or people would simply use that instead." I would have to disagree with that as its not that simple. I know plenty of people that have pirated versions of Microsoft Office 2003 and 2007, when OpenOffice would often be better suited for them. They pirate the commercial version because that is all that they know of, before I ever mentioned anything to them about OpenOffice they never had even heard of it. Most consumers are simply not educated about alternatives that are free.

Re:Software is not a physical item

[cyber-vandal]

Don't be silly - all open source software is identical if not superior to its closed source equivalents. Open Office is an exact replacement for MS Office, and Linux is a drop-in replacement for Windows. Even though Linux won't run any of the software you want to use there are equivalents for about 10 apps out of the tens of thousands and that's fine for everyone. At least that's what I keep being repeatedly told when I dare to suggest that you can't replace Windows with Linux on here.

Re:Software is not a physical item

[mirix]

Have you tried kicad?

It's not altium or anything, but I've found it more usable than gEDA.

Re:Software is not a physical item

[Bassman59]

Have you tried kicad?

It's not altium or anything, but I've found it more usable than gEDA.

I tried kicad, and it's marginally better than gEDA. It's not even as good as the old OrCAD 386. It's sightly less sucky than EAGLE.

I should have been a Pirate

[commodore64_love]

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. :-|

What about the iPhone

[MBCook]

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)".

Re:What about the iPhone

[Penguinisto]

Thing is, you already mentioned why it's not as big of a deal on the iPhone... jailbreaking isn't something you see a whole lot of (tech media notwithstanding).

Most folks either don't know how to jailbreak an iPhone, or don't want to risk bricking the thing (and therefore blowing the $$$ they have tied up in phone and contract). Sure - you and I know it's fairly easy and safe to do, but Joe PhoneUser doesn't know that, and they have actual money tied up in the beastie before they even get it out of the box it came in.

Given this, the majority will buy the apps from the store. Now if jailbreaking were uber-common, then yeah - pirating apps would be just as common. Otherwise, overall? It's pretty self-evident that piracy is going to be an Android (and WinMo, and Symbian) thing.

From a developer's POV, yeah - the piracy rate w/ iPhones is going to be a lot lower, and therefore more lucrative for the dev. OTOH, the dev will miss out on folks trying the product out, and on any of the marketing bennies that piracy can give his products.

Re:What about the iPhone

[TrancePhreak]

I dunno about that. Considering it was as easy as viewing a pdf just a short time ago...

Re:What about the iPhone

[edxwelch]

Dude, you couldn't be more wrong. Jailbreaking is legal, is the only way to unlock your phone and is done simply by browsing a web page. There was even episode of Diggnation where Kevin and Alex jailbroke their iPhones live - just for a laugh.

Re:What about the iPhone

[khchung]

OTOH, the dev will miss out on folks trying the product out, and on any of the marketing bennies that piracy can give his products.

False dichotomy, lots of iPhone apps have a free "lite" version that let's you try it out before paying for the full version.

Re:So

[geekoid]

That is an excellent point.

However if an app depends on a server, authentication can pretty much remove that concern.

Re:Hire Americans, and they can afford things

[Americano]

The "means" he's referring to are the "pirated apps". Reading comprehension fail.

Is revenue still increasing?

[Hatta]

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.

Re:Is revenue still increasing?

[Even on Slashdot FOE]

Not according to the *AA groups. They will tell you that each pirate causes them to lose more money than each song/movie/program costs in the store. I don't know how, but their argument seems to be persuasive.

Re:Is revenue still increasing?

[SupremoMan]

I agree. As a matter of fact knowing the piracy rate is nothing but a headache. You are better off just knowing how many people bought the app and ignoring the rest.

Re:Is revenue still increasing?

[hedwards]

Because calling it theft gets all those law and order morons to back it reflexively. If you called it infringement then they'd have to think about it and understand it.

Re:Is revenue still increasing?

[master_p]

So you are advocating people not being compensated enough for their efforts? Because if you have 1 billion pirates, then your effort is worth a lot.

Re:Is revenue still increasing?

[onefriedrice]

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.

Obviously. The real debate is about whether or not and to what degree we should "go after" the pirates in an attempt to turn them into paying customers.

Re:Is revenue still increasing?

[jjohnson]

As a mobile developer, it's certainly not meaningless to me because when I look at the possibility of recouping my costs, I can choose between a channel where piracy is a very minor concern (iDevices), so I can expect most of my installs to pay me, or Android where few will pay me. It's not the deciding factor, but it is a significant factor because if I expect 10,000 installs, one will get me $9,900 in revenue and the other only $3,000.

This is the problem with piracy on the Android: It's keeping a lot of devs away in favour of the closed channel.

Re:Is revenue still increasing?

[JAlexoi]

Incentives to pay for the app or buy bundled services.

Re:Is revenue still increasing?

[Hatta]

You're assuming a constant number of installs. I'm not sure why you'd do that. The number of installs, and the piracy rate are both meaningless in isolation. What matters is (1 - piracy rate)*(number of installs) = number of paying customers.

Re:Is revenue still increasing?

[jjohnson]

You're correct that the important number is the number of paying customers. I don't see why I should think that I'll have a higher number of paying customers on Android. iDevices are widespread, there's a culture of "if you want it, you pay for it" (less than 9% of iDevices are jailbroken), and the perceived level of quality of apps in the app store, compared to Android, means that paying is more likely.

A large part of the problem with Android is that it now has a culture where paying is for suckers. Not every pirate will pay if they can't pirate, but there's a squishy middle who will pirate if they can and pay if they can't. I don't see why I should surrender that squishy middle block of customers--which is to say, I don't see that the benefit of wider distribution from piracy overcoming the loss that squishy middle.

Re:Is revenue still increasing?

[JesseMcDonald]

You are over-simplifying by assuming that you will get the same number of installs on both platforms. As the GP stated, all that really matters is the revenue you can reasonably expect from a given platform, not the percentage for which you are paid. Moreover, even if a given platform has a lower percentage of paying users, it still makes sense to port to that platform provided the increase in overall revenue exceeds the economic cost of porting the software.

The only downside to porting the software would be the risk that the port could cannibalize sales on other platforms, which is unlikely unless many of your potential customers already own multiple devices. (Who's going to spend hundreds of dollars on a second smartphone just to make it easier to get a few $1 apps for free?)

Re:Is revenue still increasing?

[bug1]

Are you saying being compensated for you efforts is more important than helping 1 billion people ?

Just remember these small apps that developers want to be paid for sit on top of tens of millions of lines of libre code.

How about donating some money to a Free software project instead of paying the commercial developers ?

Re:Is revenue still increasing?

[jjohnson]

As the GP stated, all that really matters is the revenue you can reasonably expect from a given platform,

Agreed, but my point is that my likelihood of receiving revenue is higher on the platform where piracy is harder. I've seen no one plausibly suggest that Android sales of my app would be higher than iPhone sales, so the obvious choice for me is iPhone.

The only downside to porting the software would be the risk that the port could cannibalize sales on other platforms, which is unlikely unless many of your potential customers already own multiple devices.

This is a collective action problem for developers. If I'm choosing which device to buy, and I see that one clearly has superior apps than the other, I'm going to choose the one with better apps. If the same app is available for money on the iPhone and easily pirated on Android, then I'll likely choose Android, so as a mobile dev, my interest lies in not porting to Android because that does lead to a degree of cannibalizing my own paying market.

Re:Is revenue still increasing?

[Hatta]

Hey, at least we agree in principle. My main point is that piracy rate in isolation tells you nothing important. The details of how each software economy works out are complicated. There's less piracy on the Apple platform, but Android is more widely used. A widely pirated app might have more name recognition, which leads to more paying customers. Or it might not. How exactly the numbers work out is a question that needs to be determined empirically.

Re:Is revenue still increasing?

[RAMMS EIN]

``So you are advocating people not being compensated enough for their efforts?''

I don't think that's what the parent was saying. In fact, he said that more compensation is better.

This is not directed at you personally (your post just happened to be the drop in the bucket), but I think the debate about copyright would be more productive if we stopped putting words in each other's mouths and stopped the hyperboles and exaggerations.

Unauthorized copying is NOT piracy and is NOT theft. Saying this is NOT the same as advocating unauthorized copying. Criticizing current copyright law and the way it is enforced is NOT an outright rejection of the concept of copyright. People are doing such criticizing are NOT necessarily in favor of enforcement of the GPL, and even if they are, that is NOT necessarily inconsistent. On the flip side, people who are in favor of copyright do NOT necessarily approve of the current laws and the way they are enforced.

Not all of the above applies to your post, but I see a lot of posts that (accidentally or purposely) jump to false conclusions in every discussion about copyright. In fact, I see more fallacies and name-calling than productive discussion. At least as far as I am concerned, that makes whatever valuable idea you might have had get lost in shouting matches or "that wasn't what I said" conversations that aren't about the main point. Do us all a favor: save yourself the keystrokes and everybody the time, and concentrate on the point you are trying to make and what someone _actually_ said.

Re:Is revenue still increasing?

[adolf]

I realize that it's late in the day, but if someone would please help mod the parent +5 Reasonable, I'd be very appreciative.

Re:Is revenue still increasing?

[JesseMcDonald]

Agreed, but my point is that my likelihood of receiving revenue is higher on the platform where piracy is harder.

Believe that if you wish, but in my opinion anyone willing to pay for your app on a closed platform would most likely be willing to do so on any platform; those unwilling to do so would just go without. Either way, your revenues are unaffected.

"Free" is an easy sell. Everyone likes to get something for nothing, even if they have no real use for it. However, raise the price by as little as one cent and people will start to think twice before pulling out the credit card.

Re:Is revenue still increasing?

[jjohnson]

in my opinion anyone willing to pay for your app on a closed platform would most likely be willing to do so on any platform; those unwilling to do so would just go without.

I don't believe this because I believe there's a significant segment who would normally pay for an app, but don't on a platform like Android because it's not just possible but easy to get it for free. Once you know how to download movies, how often do you go to the video store? Put another way, it's possible to jailbreak your iPhone and so use pirated apps, but it's not (usually) easy, so a lot of people don't. Jailbroken iDevices count for less than 9% of the 80 million that are out there.

Sure, charging anything at all reduces the number who will use your app. But there's a middle ground between "I'll happily pay for the app" and "I won't bother if it's not free": that middle ground is "I would pay for it, but why should I when it's for free over here? I'll install it and if I like it, think about tossing the dev a buck for it, and then forget to toss the buck."

Re:Is revenue still increasing?

[drinkypoo]

So you are advocating people not being compensated enough for their efforts? Because if you have 1 billion pirates, then your effort is worth a lot.

No, if you have one billion paying customers, your effort is worth a lot. If you have 1 billion pirates, your effort is worth pirating. Lots of people copy software for which they would never pay. If they couldn't copy it, they just wouldn't use it. No matter how furiously you imagine, these people will never be customers, they will never produce sales, they do not suggest that your product has monetary value. Not even if you imagine so hard that your brow sweats, sorrry.

Re:Is revenue still increasing?

[bit01]

Not all of the above applies to your post, but I see a lot of posts that (accidentally or purposely) jump to false conclusions in every discussion about copyright.

You're dealing with RIAA shills and socket puppets. They deliberately endlessly repeat the same old simplistic propaganda and deliberately ignore and/or misconstrue the much more sophisticated understanding that most slashdotters have after several years of debating this topic. Basically, these shills are paid by the obvious entrenched interests to wear people down.

---

Like software, intellectual property law is a product of the mind, and can be anything we want it to be. Let's get it right.

Re:Is revenue still increasing?

[whoop]

Anecdotal and all, but, I have pirated things, and I know people who have. At the time, it was primarily due to low income (too young, students with no job, etc). There is a collection-compulsion to some of it as well. So just because you have X-thousands of pirates, does not mean they all would have been paying customers in the first place. At the time, if I couldn't pirate what I did, I would have just done without. Either way, the developer would have gotten nothing from me.

Today, with a good job, family, it's easier for me to buy something off Steam, Android Market, etc than to hunt down pirating resources. I'd say it's this way for a lot of people. Google Checkout doesn't even work in many countries, so for those, pirating is the only way to see a great many apps. With all Google's power, why aren't they pursuing that potential market more?

Re:Is revenue still increasing?

[whoop]

Google saw my post and has announced almost 40 more countries added, Android Developer's Blog.

Those numbers mean nothing

[airfoobar]

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.

Re:Those numbers mean nothing

[Shrike82]

Not every pirated copy is a lost sale. I can't stress that enough.

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?

Re:Those numbers mean nothing

[euroq]

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.

You must feel really good about all the software you pirate, because you wouldn't have bought it anyways, right?

Anyways, the point is that the Android Marketplace is more of a wild west market. The economy of the Apple app store is many many millions. The best selling apps on the Google Marketplace have sales in the thousands. Although not everyone discloses their data, I've read on two separate blogs about how they broke 5000 sales, and those two apps were in the Top 10. So, if we didn't have a control group to compare the marketplace to (i.e. the Apple app store), people like you could be snarky and claim that "this is just the way it is". Apple has proven you wrong, and that piracy actually does affect the economy of software developers. People are willing to purchase software, but when piracy becomes so easy, people stop purchasing software.

Finally, this isn't a molehill to many people. To many people, it is their careers. One may have that anti-capitalist inclination to say "oh these developers just want to get rich." Well, actually many of these developers just make 5 figures (i.e. $40,000 to $99,999 a year), which is not rich in the U.S. So 5,000 sales vs. 10,000 sales really is a mountain to many people.

Re:Those numbers mean nothing

[airfoobar]

Firstly, I feel great about all the software I pirate, except I'm a linux user who doesn't own a smartphone. Funny that.

Apart from Apple's powerful marketing, the fact the iPhone has tens of times more market share than Android, and the fact that iPhone users are likely from wealthier backgrounds than Android users, I'm sure the iPhone market is a perfect control group to compare the Android market to.

Finally, there is no indication that illegal copies equal to lost sales -- let me say that in a different way: there is no indication that piracy equals to even one lost sale. Unless someone can provide some evidence that piracy has any negative effect on the market, then it's a molehill as far as I can see (and as far as legislators etc should see, but that's a different story).

Re:Those numbers mean nothing

[euroq]

Firstly, I feel great about all the software I pirate, except I'm a linux user who doesn't own a smartphone. Funny that.

Touche. But the attitude is the same as a PC user who pirates. I can't say anything about YOU personally because I don't know you.

Apart from Apple's powerful marketing, the fact the iPhone has tens of times more market share than Android, and the fact that iPhone users are likely from wealthier backgrounds than Android users, I'm sure the iPhone market is a perfect control group to compare the Android market to.

Actually, there are ALREADY more Android users than iPhone users. And the number is just going to grow. However, you are absolutely correct about the fact that iPhone users are more affluent.

Finally, there is no indication that illegal copies equal to lost sales -- let me say that in a different way: there is no indication that piracy equals to even one lost sale. Unless someone can provide some evidence that piracy has any negative effect on the market, then it's a molehill as far as I can see (and as far as legislators etc should see, but that's a different story).

This is a bullshit answer that people fighting against piracy always come up against. You can't EVER prove this statement one way or another. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability I worry that this discussion will go into a different rant about this, though. I know that there is a degree of levels about how to compare piracy for a given "group" of software (i.e. Microsoft Office and Adobe Photoshop, vs. cheap games). What I am absolutely sure about is that when it is easier to put pirated software on your computer than legitimate, there are many people who would have normally purchased the software will pirate. The problem that is being addressed in the article is that Google's marketplace is very susceptible to piracy, and it is killing the economy of the marketplace and app developers. As of now, the process of having an iPhone and then purchasing apps is easier than having an Android phone and purchasing apps. You seem to be indicating that piracy on Android is irrelevant, and there is no evidence otherwise. I strongly believe, although I can't call this a "fact", that the iPhone marketplace is evidence otherwise.

And although it isn't relevant to the conversation, I think it would be fair to admit that I myself have pirated software on a PC for various reasons, although I would no longer do so now (I'm 29). (well, I guess just one reason: money. Maybe one could argue that the times that I download pirated software to circumvent DRM on games that I have validly purchased... hello E.A. ... is legally piracy, but that doesn't kill the economy of the games market)

Re:Those numbers mean nothing

[airfoobar]

Actually, there are ALREADY more Android users than iPhone users. And the number is just going to grow. However, you are absolutely correct about the fact that iPhone users are more affluent.

I don't believe that's true. According to CNET, the iPhone still has over three times more market share than Android. Also, we are interested in how the two systems have performed over time (as the sales counts have been accumulating over several years), and the iPhone has had upwards of 50% share at the times when Android was still languishing around 0%.

This is a bullshit answer that people fighting against piracy always come up against. You can't EVER prove this statement one way or another.

It goes both ways. Piracy advocates (or sympathisers like me) can't prove that piracy is NOT harmful, either. I often don't use that argument as a real argument, but as a way to highlight meaningless stats and generally the faith- or entitlement-based stance most anti-pirates take ("I sold 10000 copies, but there were 30000 illegal copies, OMG I must be losing millions! -- even though I made millions, too." "If I don't control it, it must be bad!" etc)..

I strongly believe, although I can't call this a "fact", that the iPhone marketplace is evidence otherwise.

This is one of those things where we have to agree to disagree. For the reasons I've given in this and my previous post, I think the iPhone market has little in common with the Android market.

In a way, it's like comparing the commercial application markets for Windows and Linux, where it's quite clear that if someone wants to invest in software development, Windows is where the money is -- regardless of whether the piracy rate for Windows software is many times more than for Linux software!

And although it isn't relevant to the conversation, I think it would be fair to admit that I myself have pirated software on a PC for various reasons, although I would no longer do so now (I'm 29). (well, I guess just one reason: money. Maybe one could argue that the times that I download pirated software to circumvent DRM on games that I have validly purchased... hello E.A. ... is legally piracy, but that doesn't kill the economy of the games market)

I've been there before in my time. While I don't really care to make time for anything other than books these days (the paper kind, mind you), I too have pirated a few things before. Mainly movies and some Windows games from the olden days.

My reasons were often very different from yours, however. I would pirate before buying, to make sure I was buying something that was worth it. I would start watching/playing the pirated version, and would buy based on the quality on the product, rather than the quality of the marketing.

I have to admit, I'm not so much pro-piracy, as much as I am anti-anti-piracy. I think walled gardens/braindead devices, stupid DRM, draconian copyright laws, internet censorship, the loss of internet privacy and so on are all the result of creators that are panicking without any evidence that it's a time to panic (and are being taken advantage of by some of their middlemen). All those things are WAY more dangerous to a much larger number of people than piracy. I just don't want my kids to grow up in a world where everything has been torn apart for such a lame reason, so I'm happier to tolerate some piracy (and any unwanted side-effects it might or might not have) than to accept the "solutions" we are being presented with.

Incidentally, the "Home Taping is Killing Music" campaign from the 80s comes to mind. Music is still alive, even though home taping is still with us. It's "music" that almost killed home taping, not the other way around!

Re:So

[Archangel Michael]

People having server resources for apps should tie the app to the server via some sort of registration code tied to a phone #, email and/or something else. A simple three way sanity check would suffice, and if done right would be no more than a single packet of data each direction.

In fact, If I was an app developer, I'd build such a system into all my apps. I'd give the apps away with a free 3/10/30 day "trial" period. People paying the fee (service) would continue unabated, and get free updates, etc. I'd hope that my apps weren't crap, and people would be willing to simply pay me the $12 year (or whatever) to keep using said app.

But then again, I'm sure many people would balk at $12/yr (three lattes). Can't afford that? You probably shouldn't have a smart phone you cheap bastard.

I thought everything had to be free now

[realinvalidname]

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.

Re:I thought everything had to be free now

[zeroshade]

Gah, "Free software" does not mean what you think it means. It does not mean "give away the software for free." Even using the GPL with FLOSS you are completely at will to charge for your software and no one will look down on you for it.

Re:I thought everything had to be free now

[blair1q]

But I already bought the T-shirt, you insensitive clod.

Re:I thought everything had to be free now

[Abcd1234]

Gah, "Free software" does not mean what you think it means. It does not mean "give away the software for free." Even using the GPL with FLOSS you are completely at will to charge for your software and no one will look down on you for it.

You, my friend, are playing with words to try and defend in indefensible position.

"Free software", using GPLv3 as a baseline, requires that an individual be able to:

a) Get the source for software they run,
b) Produce binaries from that source, and
c) Run those binaries without restriction.

The minute you give the user this power, they can produce their own binaries and give them away for free, at which point the genie is out of the bottle and the revenue-through-software-sales model vanishes. Period.

There's a reason why companies like Red Hat and Ubuntu have enterprise editions: support is, fundamentally, one of the few ways to make money on open source software, as any attempt to charge for the product will ultimately lead to a free fork being made.

Re:So

[hedwards]

Google doesn't have a way of getting paid by people living in various parts of the world, and won't allow devs in those places to charge either.

At most that's a third of the pirate copies, but it is still a substantial number, and it's a bit dishonest to suggest that those people without the ability to pay would do so.

Re:Hire Americans, and they can afford things

[KingFrog]

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.

Re:Hire Americans, and they can afford things

[CarpetShark]

In what way is pirating an app necessary to living your life?

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.

Re:So

[RevWaldo]

These are people who looked up the app, saw that is cost TWO DOLLARS (the cost of one Red Bull! one subway ride! eight games of Galaga!), and instead of just clicking "Buy" and letting the app download and install itself automatically, did the cost/benefit analysis and decided it was worth their time to track down a pirated, unsupported, who-knows-what-additional-code-has-been-added version of the software and go through the added steps required to install it.

These aren't pirates - these are morons.

(Also, there's a free "light" version available too...)

.

Re:Yay for global warming!

[MrHanky]

Stop spreading that retarded meme.

Low price no deterrent to piracy

[perpenso]

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.

Software Quality

[RebootKid]

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.

Re:Software Quality

[tompaulco]

There are literally a billion products and services out there that are offered at more than I value the service or product. However, I don't steal the product or service. I do without. That is the way the market works. You don't get to procure something illegally just because they are charging more than it is worth to you.
The reality is, that even at $2 for that piece of crap app, lots of people have bought it, so it is a valid price point. If you think the app is overpriced, then you can develop your own and offer it at the price which you think it is worth.

Re:Software Quality

[RebootKid]

For starters, I posited the theory that if there was a better value provided, there would be less piracy. I didn't condone the piracy.

Additionally, piracy isn't "stealing" contrary to what the RIAA and MPAA are trying to program into our culture.

I'm writing a game now

[euroq]

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.

Re:I'm writing a game now

[Altus]

How are these sites selling pirated software? Are people giving them their credit card number? I cant imagine trusting someone who is already distributing pirated software with my credit card.

Re:I'm writing a game now

[euroq]

I don't want to post the website out of princple. There was a Slashdot article on it earlier. Basically there are some douchebags in Sweeden who talk about supporting FOSS (free open source software) and the Pirate Party (a political party in Sweeden, Google it if you're interested), and they want software on Android to be free (which they interpret unfortunately as free as in beer instead of free as in speech). They charge $9.99 for access to all the pirated apps.

Re:I'm writing a game now

[euroq]

Hey, thanks! Although I probably would have researched this more once I got to the point of releasing it (which I'm hoping to do before Christmas when people will be getting new phones), you have lifted my spirits! :)

Re:So

[icebraining]

The app they mention specifically is Screebl Pro, which is an app that allows you to keep you screen on.

Screebl is an application that was written to do exactly one thing: keep my phone's screen from locking (turning off) when I'm using it.

I can certainly believe that people might try it if it's free, but not pay for it. It's not exactly a killer app.

Re:Hire Americans, and they can afford things

[zeroshade]

Wish I had some mod points. Definitely "Informative"

Re:So

[s73v3r]

Obligatory Oatmeal comic: http://theoatmeal.com/blog/apps

Revenue Stream

[Omniscientist]

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.

Re:So

[mjbkinx]

Say I want to sell a small game. Nothing special, but fun to play non the less. It didn't take several man years, but it wasn't a weekend hack, either.

Someone who doesn't have any other games installed would happily pay a few bucks to play it once in a while. It would be well worth it.
If another person has a habit of pirating, then this one probably has dozens other games already. The more alternatives he has to play with, the lower the value of my game to him. He'll probably end up pirating it because he's curious about it, and spends the money on the latte at Starbuck that he drinks while playing instead. He may even have the honest intention to buy it eventually, you know, if he ends up playing it a lot. But in the end, there are so many other pirated games he could play, and by the time he spent hours playing it, he gets bored and tries something else instead, and the cycle repeats.

With so many pirates out there, how should I price my game? Do I price it for the first person, who doesn't have many other games, and for whom the added value the game brings to his life is, say, $10? Or do I price it for the other, who already has plenty of alternatives, and for whom the added value is negligible?

supply and demand

[leehwtsohg]

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.

Re:supply and demand

[Zarf]

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.

I would have at most 2 cars if I could have any car for $0. I don't like cars. I would get rid of one car if I got a 3rd car for some reason. I don't like having cars around.

I recently paid for an app where the developer had created a "pay what you like" system. He had a toggle for the price. $0.99, $1.99, $2.99 ... up to $5.99 IIRC. I chose to pay $2.99 because I had used the demo version for a week and liked his work.

After paying an email arrived with an unlock code and I unlocked the application from demo mode. I quite liked the experience. If I ever do an Android application I think I'd like the pricing to work that way.

Re:supply and demand

[leehwtsohg]

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.

I would have at most 2 cars if I could have any car for $0. I don't like cars. I would get rid of one car if I got a 3rd car for some reason. I don't like having cars around.

OK, I lied. I don't even have a driveway. But I'd have more than 2. Maybe I'd buy a new one every time I needed it, and then give it away right after.
I'd probably have a ferrari for fun, (I'm not sure how they handle as I've never tried one... probably ok) and a Landrover for hiking trips and a truck for buying furniture, and a van for when I have visitors, and a caravan for road trips, and a smart for driving around in town, and, well, maybe you got the picture.

I guess it would be kinda like http://teilauto.net/ which I do have ;)
Except that they don't have ferarris. They did have smart roadsters for some time. But I guess it isn't quite the same.

I think this is of-topic.

Re:supply and demand

[Waccoon]

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'm sure that developers are quite aware of supply and demand curves. If free apps are good enough to keep you happy, there's not much point targeting people like you.

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.

Yeah... more than 2 or 3.

Re:supply and demand

[leehwtsohg]

I'm sure that developers are quite aware of supply and demand curves.

Yes, they probably are. But they don't behave as if they are. We keep hearing how they could make so much more money if all the people how pirated music or software would buy it instead. I was pretending they aren't lying to the press/court, but instead just ignorant. You are right - they are probably lying through their teeth.

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.

Yeah... more than 2 or 3.

Sorry, that was badly worded. I'd have less than 2 or 3. I bought only software I could test. If I couldn't test it, I wouldn't get it.
And 24 hour testing isn't really enough for me. I need to really see that all the bugs/missing features that the software has aren't affecting how I will use it.
Though 24 hour testing is a good start.
And in my case, I can verify my claims by looking over past devices I had. On the my previous devices (palm/win mobile/symbian) there were hardly any testing versions of software, and my rate of software purchase was way low. It took me a year or two till I found 2-3 pieces of software I was willing to buy. On the android it took a month or two.

Re:Yay for global warming!

[Yvan256]

Would you prefer Dihydrogen monoxide instead?

Re:So

[abigor]

Therefore, they are entitled to pirate it, against the developer's wishes. Great logic.

Here's an idea: instead of not paying developers who wish to be paid for the use of the software they've written, why don't people who don't want to pay for software just write their own? Oh yeah, they don't know how, which is why developers ask for money in the first place.

Re:Hire Americans, and they can afford things

[D Ninja]

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.

or: so what?

[aliquis]

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.

Re:Hire Americans, and they can afford things

[dbet]

"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.

Re:I don't know about in america..

[larry bagina]

I don't know about the UK, but in the US, most kids have parents.

Obligatory TheOatmeal

[neolith]

http://theoatmeal.com/blog/apps

Free EXE != Free app

[tepples]

"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.

Re:So

[cdrguru]

Yes, but the case is often that you want to read more about something and do a search on Google. The top five hits are for pirate sites to download it for free.

Now why would anyone pay? The pirates are advertising their services more effectively than the publisher. And Google is showing ads on the pirate pages and gettng paid for it as well. The pirate is getting paid by Google for the ads. Everyone is getting paid except for the developer.

iPhone is worse (if you believe the numbers)

[Comboman]

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.

Re:Hire Americans, and they can afford things

[Americano]

Original post in question:

Otherwise, expect us to live our lives by any means necessary.

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).

Re:Hire Americans, and they can afford things

[wshs]

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.

Re:Hire Americans, and they can afford things

[eltonito]

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?

Re:Hire Americans, and they can afford things

[RightSaidFred99]

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.

Re:Hire Americans, and they can afford things

[eugene2k]

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.

Re:Hire Americans, and they can afford things

[D Ninja]

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.)

Re:Hire Americans, and they can afford things

[D Ninja]

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.

Quick! Get some walls up around that garden!!

[Pointy_Hair]

Don't let those pesky wabbits eat up a bunch of cawwots without paying!

Installed to external storage, anything can read

[SuperKendall]

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...

Re:Hire Americans, and they can afford things

[SETIGuy]

It would cost me more than $1.99 to figure out how to pirate this app.

Re:Hire Americans, and they can afford things

[wierd_w]

[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.

Re:Offer it free

[mjbkinx]

Thank you for your encouragement. I was a bit hesitant to do this, because I personally would rather pay a small amount and not get harassed by ads. So many others are doing it already. This has made ad space cheap, it will take a significant number of ads for me to recover my costs.
You've already seen how this works on the Web. Luckily ad blockers won't work, so the video commercial I'll have to play in the beginning won't have to be too long.

Re:Hire Americans, and they can afford things

[Twanfox]

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.

Re:Hire Americans, and they can afford things

[tompaulco]

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.

The largest contributor

[blair1q]

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.

Re:So

[icebraining]

Therefore, they are entitled to pirate it, against the developer's wishes. Great logic.

Well.. yes. You know the saying "My liberty ends where yours begins"? Well, the corollary to that is that my liberty goes *all the way* until it reaches yours.
Which is the same as saying I'm "entitled" to do _anything_ that doesn't collide with your liberty - and I don't think that action infringes on anyone's liberty.

Here's an idea: instead of not paying developers who wish to be paid for the use of the software they've written, why don't people who don't want to pay for software just write their own? Oh yeah, they don't know how, which is why developers ask for money in the first place.

If the software doesn't exist and people want it, they'll have to pay. But if the software already exists and can be copied without effort, why would people pay to reinvent the wheel? It's not rational, and it's a waste of time and resources.

And as the developer, if you write software for money and nobody paid you to write it, why have you?
I'm not saying something extraordinary, this is how most software is paid for: clients need software, so they pay some developers to write it.

And it's not limited to companies: thousands of projects are being developed that way through Kickstarter.

If you can't get money you need to write an "app that keeps the screen on" maybe you shouldn't write it.

Re:Hire Americans, and they can afford things

[TheRaven64]

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?

Again, the Android pod touch problem

[tepples]

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)?

Re:Again, the Android pod touch problem

[hasdikarlsam]

You don't need a data plan to use android market; it works fine on wifi. Just saying. ;)

Though using an android without that is really missing the point. A pay-as-you-go data plan isn't that expensive, is it?

Re:Again, the Android pod touch problem

[tepples]

A pay-as-you-go data plan isn't that expensive, is it?

It is in the United States, where phones are typically purchased from carriers, and the carriers specializing in pay-as-you-go plans tend not to carry Android phones.

Re:You can't Pirate a gift.

[jjohnson]

So when I stole your TV because you forgot to lock your door while you were out (or didn't put an unpickable lock on it), you were gifting it to society by failing to properly secure it?

And think back to the Civ V thread last week, and the amount of GRAR around the use of Steam and requiring online activation as the most onerous and useless form of DRM possible.

Re:So

[SETIGuy]

I'd be pretty pissed if I bought a backlight utility and found out it was dialing home. Remind me to never purchase an app from this crew.

Business Software Alliance

[tepples]

"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."

Re:Business Software Alliance

[wierd_w]

It has been my experience that most MBAs dont ask questions about the gritty details of "how" something gets done, unless there has been a round of corporate scare mongering. (EG, the BSA has sent its legal drones to give powerpoint presentations.)

As such, the MBA operates in a knowledge vacuum; What they see:

Persona A is "trendy", has enthusiasm for technology (that I dont understand\have patience for), and is constantly finding creative uses for things.

Person B is constatnly using outdated software and hardware, and always seems behind the curve.

What is REALLY going on:

Person A has misallocated their personal finance budget for image reasons, and has splurged on an expensive smart phone that they don't actually "need", Jailbroke it, then loaded it up with pirate software. (We presume it is their personal phone, not a company one.)

Person B is much more financially frugal, and has bought a cheap 30$ prepaid phone, then got a cheap T-Mobile contract that doesnt have a data plan, because they dont need it on that phone. They are unconcerned about their "Image", and just use their phone to recieve calls and important text messages.

The point, is that the MBA does not KNOW that person A is a consumate software pirate, and does not care to know. That is outside the scope of their world-view. They judge mostly by appearances, since that is what they know. Unless person A is a blabber mouth, and blabs about being a pirate, the MBA doesnt know; Thus they PRESUME that person A is more productive than B, because A has more symbols of status than does B. As such A gets the job, and B does not.

Re:Business Software Alliance

[tepples]

Thus they PRESUME that person A is more productive than B, because A has more symbols of status than does B. As such A gets the job, and B does not.

Unless B occasionally jokes about threatening to call in the BSA drones after having learned of A's mass infringement.

(We presume it is their personal phone, not a company one.)

Jesus told his disciples: "Whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much." (Luke 16:10) So I guess those who pirate on a personal phone are more likely to to pirate on a business PC.

As for phone habits, I'm very close to the B in your story. Perhaps I keep my job because I'm in a small company, and I've saved the company money with open source.

Re:Business Software Alliance

[wierd_w]

Sadly, decisions based on ACTUAL value are rare in mid to large size enterprises. This is precisely the reason why the phrase "Dress for success" remains applicable, even today. It is ironically also one of the reasons why so many people in the upper tiers of corporate power are statistically sociopathic. (they are actively looking for means to gain an edge over their more capable peers; physical attractiveness and "image" are powerful tools to do this with.)

This sad truth is not just applicable to office politics, but also to consumer purchasing as well. Take for instance, the domainance of the iPod over other, technologically superior or equivilent offerings. Being "trendy looking" provides a powerful edge.

Same thing with expensive cars and the rate a person has sex per month.

They all revolve around image, and similarly, imply a degree of sleezyness to use that image to your advantage. It is not a large step for somebody already walking that road to use pirate software, especially if they are not yet "really successful."

People who actually try to shine via the quality of their work are often upstaged by the handsome young man with the iPhone. This is because we focus all our energy into our work, while they focus it into their image, and into being manipulative. When it comes time for your boss to show off the star employee who's hard work landed the company the contract, they want to show off the "Hip" "charasmatic", and "attractive" person; not the cubicle troll. (doesnt matter if that cube troll can spin straw into gold or not.)

That being said, I *STILL* choose to be the cube troll. I do however accept that the dashing young asshats of the world have an advantage over me, but I dont care. I have real skills, and they don't. (I have created presentation materials that have won multi million dollar contracts for my company. I really dont care about rubbing elbows or driving mazzarattis. I work second shift, and CHOSE it.)

TLDR; the point is that for many people, in order to get ahead in the world they HAVE to be unscrupulous. For such people, I am able to see how pirating "useless" software for an already useless iPhone becomes "vitally important" to their way of life.

The issue then, is that people like you and I disagree with their way of life.

Re:Business Software Alliance

[Americano]

What a bunch of hand-waving, generalizing bullshit. Who runs around a corporate office showing off their new phone? And who the fuck gets excited over "Bob's new Android phone?" I've never seen it happen, and I work with a lot of gadget-loving IT guys.

They judge mostly by appearances, since that is what they know.

Yes... the problem is, in your example, Person A is the engineer who appears to run around the office showing off his new fart app and getting very little done, while person B is the engineer who appears to be diligent & who is constantly busy getting things done and doesn't spend 3 hours a day dicking around with his personal phone in the office.

Guess who I'm going to pick to work on that new project? (Hint: Not the dude with the fart app. He's already too busy wasting time to do the job.)

Re:Business Software Alliance

[Americano]

(I have created presentation materials that have won multi million dollar contracts for my company. I really dont care about rubbing elbows or driving mazzarattis. I work second shift, and CHOSE it.)

Then you've disproven your own wild generalizations. You're a self-professed cube troll who isn't focused on your appearance, and yet... you still managed to win multi million dollar contracts. And you managed to get the opportunity to create the materials to win those contracts in the first place, showing that your managers value *performance* and *ability* over *appearance*.

And I find it amusing how this discussion of piracy on Android phones has suddenly become a "assholes with iPhones need to pirate shit to show off" rant.

The majority of people get ahead in the world by being scrupulous: making & keeping promises & commitments, behaving courteously, treating others with respect. If "many people" needed to be unscrupulous to just to get ahead, humanity would have killed itself off a long time ago.

Re:Business Software Alliance

[wierd_w]

I am also wildly underpaid for my vocation (I get paid 50% less than baseline pay for that vocation in my area.), thus actually proving only that I am "stupid" by the metrics most people use to measure success.

What I have "Actually" shown the director of quality assurance (the one who spotted that I could make crazy-good looking promotional materials, and has since been pimping me out to do it without any pay increase left and right) is that I was a previously unleveraged resource that is fairly reliable.

The last project I did for him was in creating a virtual representation of a machining cell with high resolution nurbs models, and doing it in under 3 days. The only compensation I get for this work, is the occasional email telling me how awesome things looked, and how well the presentations went. I know I have won contracts, because I have subsequently gotten work to do that is related to the materials I was making for the presentations, and I know they are worth millions of dollars because I have access to Planning. (Need it to do my job.)

That is to say, I am the exception that proves the rule.

to me "Success" does not come attached to $. "Success" comes attached to a reduced stress environment (Second shift baby-- I have the WHOLE damn cube farm to MYSELF, and can crank the radio up without some bitch whining! Likewise, I dont have a direct supervisor on my shift; and work totally unsupervised! SCORE!), and overall happiness (I enjoy doing good work.). As far as money goes, I am happy as long as I have enough to pay my bills, buy my food, and have some left over for some fun every now and again. Before you suggest that the reason I am underpaid is because I am not aggressive about it, I will point out that EVERYONE in our company is statistically underpaid, because we are only a single location enterprise, doing business with multinational ones.

(as for humanity killing itself off; I suggest you take a more detailed look at the annals of human history. We have nearly been wiped out several times already, the cold war just being one of the most recent. "War" is OLDER than human kind, and being an asshat is FAR older.)

Re:Business Software Alliance

[Americano]

That is to say, I am the exception that proves the rule.

I think what you mean to say is that you're generalizing about how other people behave in an organization which you admit you're more or less totally disconnected from (second shift, no direct supervisor, whole cube farm to yourself - how exactly do you know all your co-workers are running around all day showing their hot new iPhone apps to each other... if you're never there?), in order to make yourself feel like a special snowflake who manages to buck the system that so many other people fall victim to.

as for humanity killing itself off; I suggest you take a more detailed look at the annals of human history.

Really? We've been wiped out before because of the behavior of unscrupulous people? To your point about the cold war - being wiped out in a nuclear holocaust" actually would have required VERY FEW unscrupulous people in just a few positions of power to make it happen. And yet, even with the Cuban Missile Crisis, which was probably the closest we came to all-out nuclear war, it didn't happen. Why? If the world is rife with unscrupulous, awful people who only care about themselves and their pride and their appearance, it should have. Fortunately, the majority of people (including a few in power with cooler heads) were more sane than the unscrupulous ones engaging in holocaust brinksmanship.

Re:Business Software Alliance

[wierd_w]

Uhm, No. This is NOT my first time around the block, so to speak.

I USED to work a day job. I no longer do, for exactly the reasons I cited.

As for the latter, it seems apparent to me that you have never worked near people that are in positions of power. I'll just leave it at that.

What I am curious about is why you feel so argumentative about this particular issue? As I pointed out 2 posts up, this is based on my personal experiences; I am simply stating an obvservation-- Why are you so insistant that "I am wrong", that you need to pull an XKCD like stunt?

Further, since you state that it is wrong, what alternative explanations do you have for the well documented "People who drive fancy cars have more sex", and the notorious "iPod" popularity issues, or the origins behind the practice of "Dressing for success?"

It is one thing to claim that I am wrong, but forgive me if I ask you to put up some proof. I am willing to change my viewpoint, but it needs more than just your assertions.

Re:piracy..

[jjohnson]

It's not rampant on the iPhone. It exists, but it's minor.

Re:Hire Americans, and they can afford things

[Roogna]

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.

Re:So

[euroq]

As I'm totally on board with what you're saying, I do have to bring up that Google doesn't make the process of purchasing an app on your Android device as easy as it could be. Using a web browser on your PC is easier than purchasing an app on your Android phone.

This is something that I hope Google fixes.

Then where are the Free video games?

[tepples]

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.)

Re:Hire Americans, and they can afford things

[ooshna]

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.

Android piracy well controlled!

[ChaosDiscord]

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.

Fun Thread

[MarkvW]

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!

Re:So

[RevWaldo]

It seems pretty easy to me - perhaps the process varies per phone/carrier?

1) Look up app in Android Market
2) Click Buy
3) Review access requirements, click OK
4) Google Checkout - click Buy*

* you may need to add your credit card info the first time, but it remembers it afterward.

And if you don't like it after 24 hours, you can get your money back (admittedly haven't tried this yet.)

.

Re:Hire Americans, and they can afford things

[DaFallus]

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?

Re:Hire Americans, and they can afford things

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

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.

Re:Hire Americans, and they can afford things

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Sophistry. You equate pirating apps to stealing food for survival.

Re:Hire Americans, and they can afford things

[Jim_Maryland]

Just throwing out a more likely scenario...

• Parents obtain cell phones and plan for entire family
• Kids are around friends and see "cool new app"
• Kids ask parents to get the application and parents say "no" (for whatever reason).
• Kids pirate the application

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.

Re:Hire Americans, and they can afford things

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Who cares about piracy?

[devent]

Face it, piracy exists and will exist on every device no matter how much DRM you throw in it. Fact is, not every pirate is a customer. Even if your device is 100% piracy prove, you just won't magically see an explosion of customers. If they can't pirate, they don't use your app. Your customers will buy, but the 67% of the pirates will not. The 67% will just never use your app.

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?

Not a a personal rip

[Chicken_Kickers]

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.

Re:You can't Pirate a gift.

[jjohnson]

If my bank locks the vault with only a pad lock... I sure don't blame the burglar when my money goes missing.

Really? I would. Theft is illegal.

In France, some thieves have found a way to drill holes into buildings and vaults and vacuum out the contents. Points to them for cleverness. By your definition, the bank did not sufficiently protect the money, therefore the blame is all on them, and not the thieves? By your definition, all a thief has to do is succeed in stealing something, and they're blameless, because by your definition the victim's failure to prevent the thief from succeeding makes them entirely culpable.

In response to your analogy: No... I would not mind if someone came into my open house and copied my television. Only the television company would care about this and would incorrectly claim this as lost revenue.

If we want the analogy to go that far, then you should be the TV company, who actually is losing revenue in some portion of cases of copying. It's not true that every pirate would pay if they couldn't pirate, but it's likewise untrue that no pirate would ever pay. There's a squishy middle of people who pirate when it's convenient and pay when it's not. If there are X pirated copies, then there's some fraction of X that is, in fact, lost revenue because of copying.

There is great value in sharing software.

There is some value in sharing, I agree. The value of piracy is more widespread distribution.

The system that provides the most open sharing (aka: currently Android) will provide the most value.

I don't understand what this means. Value to whom? To the developers? I find that very doubtful. On iDevices, the squishy middle pays for their apps, which they pirate on Android. To users? Possibly, except that the app marketplace for iDevice apps is far better because compensated developers are building better apps there because it's a relatively secure channel.

It is the responsibility of the company who retains proprietary code to keep this code from becoming public knowledge and entering the shared software stream.

And yet every attempt to protect proprietary code is met with cries of "jackbooted facism!" from the people here, who refuse to pay on principle and use that as a justification for cracking the software. And by your definition above, all they need to do to justify it is success, since that means the company failed in its responsibility.

You're putting developers in a double bind here: You're telling them to release their code for free, or to try to protect and in so doing justify the piracy of it. All without demonstrating that there's greater value on that path.

We cannot legislate security... either dictated to us by the operating system maker (apple) or by law (dmca).

Apple is successfully demonstrating that we can legislate security--not perfectly, but sufficiently to maintain a marketplace that developers choose over other marketplaces because the likelihood of compensation is higher.

Re:Hire Americans, and they can afford things

[Mister_Stoopid]

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.

iPod+iTunes

[KingAlanI]

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.

Our business plan.

[porky_pig_jr]

1. Pirate all Android "Fart" applications.

2. ???

3. Profit!

Re:Hire Americans, and they can afford things

[Americano]

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.

Re:Hire Americans, and they can afford things

[RCL]

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.

Once again, a bullshit report

[Nyder]

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.

Turn it around

[Mr2001]

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?

Re:Hire Americans, and they can afford things

[wshs]

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.

Re:Hire Americans, and they can afford things

[wshs]

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.

Re:Installed to external storage, anything can rea

[kyz]

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.

Re:Hire Americans, and they can afford things

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

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.

Re:Hire Americans, and they can afford things

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

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.

 

Re:Hire Americans, and they can afford things

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

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.

Re:Hire Americans, and they can afford things

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

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.

Out of necessity?

[MrCrassic]

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.

Re:Hire Americans, and they can afford things

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

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.

Re:Hire Americans, and they can afford things

[b4upoo]

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.

Re:Hire Americans, and they can afford things

[Americano]

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.

Re:Hire Americans, and they can afford things

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

"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.

Re:US piracy? Check the poverty stats for the US.

[pandrijeczko]

However, there's nothing wrong with piracy because all you need are enough users to pay for the product.

I'm glad *YOU* think it's fair that legitimate users subsidise those that pirate because *I* most certainly don't!

Re:Hire Americans, and they can afford things

[Americano]

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.

Re:Hire Americans, and they can afford things

[Dthief]

And all the new ferraris and yatchs would be crappy as hell.....just like music and movies are these days

Re:Hire Americans, and they can afford things

[eltonito]

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.

Re:Hire Americans, and they can afford things

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

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?

Re:Hire Americans, and they can afford things

[Briareos]

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)

Software developers too will starve without food!

[krischik]

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

Ad-blocker

[krischik]

will then download the hacked, ad-free version.

No need - just install an ad-blocker.

Martin

Re:Hire Americans, and they can afford things

[KingFrog]

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.

Re:Hire Americans, and they can afford things

[KingFrog]

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.

Re:Software developers too will starve without foo

[Bert64]

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.

No support needed.

[krischik]

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

Dine and dash

[krischik]

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