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Cost of App Store Piracy Pegged at $450 Million

illy123 said:
Actually the article is correct. Accountants only care about the explicit cost (which is useful when calculating taxes) however Economists consider both the explicit and the implicit costs (the opportunity cost). E.g. you have a plot of land; the economic cost is how much you could be renting it out for (the opportunity cost).
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Well then, like I said, I would love to see them try to calculate the unknowable potential of how many people who would not pay for the apps they pirated, would have paid if they had not pirated the app, (which they did). Aside from arbitrarily picking a percentage to multiply by several billion to yield an astronomical number that sounds good in a headline, that is.

If developers are upset about pirated apps, let me calculate how many more apps they'd sell if Apple and their suppliers would get off their lazy butts and make 100x as many iPhones every year. Apple is costing Developers billions! Not to mention how many people are donating money to charities which they'd otherwise spend on precious apps! Not to mention, global warming! Not to mention chevrolet not producing electric cars! God, think of the developers! All the unknown impacts on sales that never were! The whole world is conspiring against them.

You make a product, you put it out there. It's gonna get copied, knocked off in china, pirated, imitated, and eventually you're gonna fall off the back. You make the sales you can, work to provide a service that keeps your paid customers happy, and you work on your next big thing. Welcome to business, Developers. You're in the same boat the rest of us.

But the app store needs a trial process.


...and again, I personally do not pirate apps.
 
WHERE and HOW are the apps being pirated??? I don't know of anyone doing this, or even knowing how to, myself included! :confused:
 
And what we are saying is that that is the definition of theft.

Vidd said:
Is this a strawman argument yet? :) It certainly seems you're trying to misrepresent what I've said.
I said downloading an application, when you had no intention of paying for it, hurts no one.
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That is like saying walking out of a store without paying for your Snickers bar hurts no one because you didn't intend to pay for it. You can construct what every type of argument you want but you can't beat the fact that you have take revenue from the developer. Revenue that the developer needs to pay for his business, his lifestyle, and Apples cut to run the servers and maintain the store.


Dave
 
wizard said:
What an idiot. Each and every pirated app is a loss of income to the developer. You can't rationally argue otherwise. Beside it is legally stealing, people do get prosecuted for it.

Dave
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You can get sued over it, not prosecuted over it (unless you're reselling it, or you have a congressman in your pocket to make videotaping in a movie theater a Federal crime, but I digress...).

Copyright infringement is a civil matter, not a criminal one.
 
wizard said:
I hope you have the good fortune to run into a bitter developer some time soon. Maybe he can explain to you over a beer or two just what it is like to have your efforts stolen by the sleaze in the community. I'm sure if the beer doesn't work he will likely try other avenues to clear your mind or put it to rest.
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Oooooooh! Look out for the bitter developer!

He's going to hit you with his pocket protector!
 
wizard said:
I hope you have the good fortune to run into a bitter developer some time soon. Maybe he can explain to you over a beer or two just what it is like to have your efforts stolen by the sleaze in the community. I'm sure if the beer doesn't work he will likely try other avenues to clear your mind or put it to rest.


Dave
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r.e. your "Be afraid little boy" post quoted above, I have reported you to the mods for threatening behaviour.
 
wizard said:
That is like saying walking out of a store without paying for your Snickers bar hurts no one because you didn't intend to pay for it. You can construct what every type of argument you want but you can't beat the fact that you have take revenue from the developer. Revenue that the developer needs to pay for his business, his lifestyle, and Apples cut to run the servers and maintain the store.
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How about, if I walk into a shop, and CLONE the chocolate bar. If I put the original back, he didn't lose a sale...
 
wizard said:
That is like saying walking out of a store without paying for your Snickers bar hurts no one because you didn't intend to pay for it. You can construct what every type of argument you want but you can't beat the fact that you have take revenue from the developer. Revenue that the developer needs to pay for his business, his lifestyle, and Apples cut to run the servers and maintain the store.


Dave
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Again, once that Snicker's bar is consumed, there is one less in the world. Not so with software.

It's kind of like saying Jesus was stealing from the baker and fishermen because he took the single loaf and single fish and turned them into a lot of loaves and fishes (at no cost to anyone).

What a bastard, he should have paid the baker and fisherman for all those duplicate loaves and fishes! Thief!
 
AAPLaday said:
So then if everyone who upgraded to Leopard from Tiger had downloaded it illegally because they had no intention to pay for it , would it hurt Apple?
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Downloading something without ever intending to pay for it has the same net result for the developer. $0 made or lost.
Your hypothetical situation didn't exist because people were willing to pay for Leopard and they did purchase it. Your question is irrelevant.

Every person that downloaded it (and never would have paid for it) didn't take money from Apple.
 
Vulpinemac said:
Maybe you should look up the definition of Piracy, you obviously don't know what it means. Historically, pirates were seafaring people who boarded other ships at sea and stole anything and everything of any value from that ship, quite often right off the living or dead bodies of their victims. It's not only theft, but in historical terms, it included murder, vandalism and destruction of private property. That form of piracy is even now being used off the coast of Africa and nearly every major seafaring power in the world is working to stop the pirates themselves. The problem is, the only way you can prove someone is a pirate is to catch them in the act or with the stolen goods on their persons. Once these guys get to shore (or within their home country's sea boundary) they can't be arrested without going through that country's legal system, which may or may not be actively supporting them through payoffs or other reasons.

One official definition of a pirate is: • a person who appropriates or reproduces the work of another for profit without permission, usually in contravention of patent or copyright : [with adj. ] software pirates. (©Apple Dictionary.)

By this definition, piracy is not merely the stealing of software/IP, but includes the intent if not the actuality of selling the stolen IP for profit, thus effectively stealing twice from the creator as well as from their customers.

Again, Piracy is theft. It is nothing less than theft on a grand scale. This alone negates every one of your arguments.
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Do you even know how a paid application, is turned into a free application? Does anyone here know?
 
lannister80 said:
Again, once that Snicker's bar is consumed, there is one less in the world. Not so with software.

It's kind of like saying Jesus was stealing from the baker and fishermen because he took the single loaf and single fish and turned them into a lot of loaves and fishes (at no cost to anyone).

What a bastard, he should have paid the baker and fisherman for all those duplicate loaves and fishes! Thief!
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Ugh this thread is getting heated enough without bringing religion into it :p;)
 
Vidd said:
Downloading something without ever intending to pay for it has the same net result for the developer. $0 made or lost.
Your hypothetical situation didn't exist because people were willing to pay for Leopard and they did purchase it. Your question is irrelevant.

Every person that downloaded it (and never would have paid for it) didn't take money from Apple.
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And many are willing to pay for apps, just not all. Plus i don't know how someone would prove that they weren't willing to pay for it anyway.
 
wizard said:
That is like saying walking out of a store without paying for your Snickers bar hurts no one because you didn't intend to pay for it. You can construct what every type of argument you want but you can't beat the fact that you have take revenue from the developer. Revenue that the developer needs to pay for his business, his lifestyle, and Apples cut to run the servers and maintain the store.


Dave
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That snickers bar could have been bought and paid for by someone else though. Once you take it out of the store, that opportunity doesn't exist. So that argument wouldn't work.
 
koobcamuk said:
If I steal a car... it's gone. That's it. Someone else lost a car.

If I duplicate an app - everyone else still has their original app.

Thus, I sleep soundly at night knowing that I didn't hurt anyone and I wouldn't have taken the app from someone's computer if it was their only copy and I couldn't duplicate it.
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But you did hurt someone - the developer. Even assuming you personally had no intention of buying, you have no idea how the developer's price point factors in the value of exclusivity, the value of establishing a price point to support lower-cost/lower-functionality alternatives now or in the future, etc.

Interfering with someone's intellectual property rights by piracy is no different that if someone sneaks into your house naked and starts rummaging through your refrigerator. He didn't take anything from you. He didn't "hurt" you.
 
Bullcrap. There are two things that happen. People download a pirated app to play that they NEVER would have paid for anyway, so no money lost no matter how you try to twist it. OR they download it pirated then just buy it because they like it so much. I know I have. That goes for everything else too. Windows 7. Computer games. and every other software.
 
That is totally irrational.

koobcamuk said:
I'd like to see someone try, Dave. I am bigger than your average geek. :p

I am also dev by the way. The income I get is greatly received - lots of people might pirate my app but that's up to them - I figure they wouldn't have bought it anyway.
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That is stupid and supports the morally bankrupt side of society. Would you be so accepting of anti social behavior if it impacted you more directly. Lets say some of these creeps you are so accepting of decide to spray paint koobcamuks car in the middle of the night. Would you role over spineless and and just say they will do it anyway, no sense in objecting.


If you can't see what is wrong with your attitude then I can't fathom what would disturb you.


Dave
 
cmaier said:
True, but it IS worth that much if people will pay for it. And the fact that it isn't worth that much to you is not justification for plain old thievery.
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Exactly. That's the point of prices for non-essential items: what the market will bear, or more directly, the point at which more profit is made from limited sales of a higher price than multiple sales of a lower. By the same standard, the potential for a higher volume of sales at a lower price will cause a company/retailer/etc. to lower their prices.
 
hoits2000 said:
Bullcrap. There are two things that happen. People download a pirated app to play that they NEVER would have paid for anyway, so no money lost no matter how you try to twist it. OR they download it pirated then just buy it because they like it so much. I know I have. That goes for everything else too. Windows 7. Computer games. and every other software.
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That isn't true either. There are people that pirate things they would pay for if they couldn't get it otherwise.
 
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