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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...'"
"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.)
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The dilemma: protecting developers' investments, and revenue stream, while keeping an open platform.
From (note: there's no reason to read the article I'm about to link, it's badly laid out with terrible ads and I'll quote the title) another article:
Android Skins, "Crapware" Protected by Open Source Principles, Says Schmidt
Please note, I could not find where Schmidt said these exact words but there was some sentiment of this in his interview. And there's some truth to it.
... it's the other apps I've unwittingly installed willy nilly on my phone while bored or drunk on the metro. You'll probably be able to assure me that there's no way another app could access the disk or memory space of the Kindle app but it just seems unsafe. I would not find iOS all that much more reassuring but I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in the paranoia of storing account information inside my phone -- or even repeatedly typing it in.
Truth be told, I'm a little wary of applications on my Android based Motorola DROID. I have seen the skins apps and am curious how one maker gets licenses for Zelda, Minnesota Vikings, Justin Beiber and all other kinds of imagery when they sell these skins. This sort of questionable content makes me wonder what other questionable things are being engaged. Likewise, I'm also a little wary of a lot of the free games I play. One in particular is the Solitaire Free Pack which, as it so turns out, I am a big fan of the ~40 variants of solitaire they offer. I also would like to use the Kindle application on my phone. There's just one problem: it wants my Amazon account login and password.
You know, it's not that I don't trust Android, Google or Amazon
I don't have any proof that it's a real security issue and I hope apps somehow get very restricted memory and disk spaces but I think Google has a little further to go on security as well as offering developers a way to recoup losses. Since it'll undoubtedly be DRM like their early attempts, I hope it's stressed to be opt-in and not advised.
My work here is dung.
If you release a binary, it will be copied. The very act of releasing it is tacit acknowledgement that you have given up absolute control over it. Companies that develop software should accept this and consider alternative income methods like support contracts and priority upgrade access.
As long as software companies think that their software has any monetary worth, they will continue to fight a losing battle to technology itself.
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?
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I bought a few android apps and every now and then one fails claims to be unlicensed to I have to install it again.
If I had a pirated apps they wouldn't do that.
Having to be online to use what I paid for when I could use for FREE and while offline what someone else stole annoys me. It makes me feel I'm getting poor value for money.
Google along with the developers need to make incentives for purchasing "legitimate" copies of Android software. For one, it doesn't have a great "gift card" mechanism, yes, you can register a gift card as a Google Checkout card and it does work, but it isn't as seamless as buying an iTunes giftcard, typing in the number and seeing your balance at all times. Secondly, there are a crapload of Android apps that are overpriced, you can't expect someone to pay for essentially a tech demo or utility. Markets like the Android market give people a large ego into thinking that people -should- pay $.99 for a few images and sounds it took you a few hours to find on Google then make a quick program to organize them. And number three, a lot of apps simply don't work. Unless there is a free version equivalent to all the features of the paid version, no one wants to spend even $.99 on something that doesn't work then deal with the hassle of returning the application.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Android Market apps are mostly super cheap. Who can't afford $1 on a game they'll play for a few days non-stop? Or a few bucks on a ROM management app? Prices for most paid apps are so low that I imagine that the largest barrier to entry is not price, but the effort required to set up one or more credit cards. My hypothesis, for that reason, is that a large portion of the piracy comes from the age 15-20 crowd who have fancy phones and lots of free time to figure out piracy options, but no credit card(s).
Google can greatly reduce this kind of piracy by working out pricing deals with the carriers to allow charges to appear on phone bills. How else would the ringtone industry thrive as it has? Verizon certainly doesn't offer a direct-bill Android Market option. Maybe this is already the case on other carriers? How does piracy compare in those cases?
Another annoyance of the Market is currency conversion. I've bought apps for sale in both Yen and Euros, and for those purchases I had to set up a Visa card since my AMEX didn't support foreign purchases (on the Market, at least). Most users don't want to deal with that kind of crap ... again, piracy is easier. Can't Google Checkout handle currency conversion on the developer's end without hassling end-users?
Otherwise, expect us to live our lives by any means necessary.
In what way is pirating an app necessary to living your life?
It seems to come down to the inescapable fact that if you sell your code, it will be stolen and/or passed along to others. On the other hand, if you simpy put a paywall in front of your code and charge people for a subscription, you can avoid getting financially ass-raped by all of the cheap bastards out there.
When I was a kid heavily involved in the warez scene, I didn't really understand what the big deal was when people complained about piracy. Now that I work for a living and earn money using computers, I get it. Life is too short to go to work every day and crank out code, only to have it ripped off by some cheap bastard.
People seem to miss the fact that it takes time and effort to write code. If a person feels it isn't that difficult, they should do it themselves rather than steal from someone else. All of the defenses along the lines of, "It doesn't cost anything to reproduce, therefore it should be free for me." are a big fat load of crap. It amazes me how morally corrupt a good sized segment of our society is.
If someone steals a jewel from a jewelry store, the physical item is no longer in the store's hands. Likewise, if someone buys a jewel from a jewelry store, the property transfers to the customer.
But software is infinitely reproducible for next to no cost. A copy "stolen" has no value, and a copy sold does not reduce the ability of the software producer to continue making copies.
Your analogy isn't bad. It's completely incorrect.
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)".
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That is an excellent point.
However if an app depends on a server, authentication can pretty much remove that concern.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
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.
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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.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
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?
You can advertise in this sig from as little as £99.99 a month!
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.
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.
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.
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.
Original post in question:
In the context of this discussion, it's very clear that he's saying that "if we don't have the money, we will pirate apps." Since the option to NOT pirate and NOT use the software always exists, he is clearly stating that he considers "living our lives" to only be possible through the use of these apps, be they pirated or purchased.
Thus the apps are the "means" by which he intends us to "live our lives". You and I both know that the apps aren't necessary, but he has specifically stated that these apps are fundamental to living our lives, and so the only option is to either buy them (if we have jobs), or pirate them (if we don't).
Some apps are quite expensive. The sling player on android is $30, not *that* bad, and a garmin app for over $100. But, if you're unlucky enough to have an iProduct, there's a $1000 bar exam study guide. You also have to consider the return on investment. A $50 stick of ram will last you years. A $20 android game? A few days, maybe.
Your comparison of TPB to a library overlooks the fact that the library (each individual library system, actually) purchases/liscenses/contracts the content they lend. TPB finds someone else who has purchased/liscensed/contracted content and takes it without having contributed anything to the authors/owners who created it. They do this at a scale that dwarfs the content cycle of a single library system.
The assets of a library also come with limitations (return dates, access limitations, DRM, content expiration dates) which would require a user to purchase the content if they want unfettered, indefinite access to the content. A pirated version of software and other pirated content has no such limitations and there is significantly less incentive for a pirate to convert to a legitimate copy.
You can certainly rationalize and encourage theft by playing the "poor people should have expensive stuff too" card, but most librarians would cringe at your argument. I'm all for helping people out and for free access to information, but if you want to own something (and I'm sorry, but unless you are getting firmware for a pacemaker, software is a want) you buy it. If you can't afford it you don't buy it or you find an alternative you can afford. Amazing how that works, ain't it?
What laughable bullshit. Software is not necessary unless you're talking medical, car safety, etc... There is literally no software that you need on your phone to survive.
You're drawing some non-existent parallel between jobs in software and optional, "fun" software.
Like people "need" to download some shitty movie off TPB, or they "need" to download a game.
Utterly ridiculous, and what makes it more ridiculous is in how earnest you are in shoveling that absolute horse shit.
What a fucking entitlement society we have turned into.
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.
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?
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.)
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.