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Having your app pirated - what do you do?

I skimmed over your article and saw you mention napster. If you've ever downloaded music for free it's the same principle.

Personally I download cracked versions of many apps, especially the ones that don't offer trial or free versions. After testing app though if it's worth it I buy. If app sucks I delete.

Even with photoshop you can try before you buy. I don't believe in wasting money and I'm not going to buy an app I can't test. On that note I'm sure a lot of devs started out with pirated programs.

Sucks about your app but I think most of the people that use cracked apps would've pay anyway so it's revenue you never would've seen either way.
 
OneMike said:
I skimmed over your article and saw you mention napster. If you've ever downloaded music for free it's the same principle.

Personally I download cracked versions of many apps, especially the ones that don't offer trial or free versions. After testing app though if it's worth it I buy. If app sucks I delete.

Even with photoshop you can try before you buy. I don't believe in wasting money and I'm not going to buy an app I can't test. On that note I'm sure a lot of devs started out with pirated programs.

Sucks about your app but I think most of the people that use cracked apps would've pay anyway so it's revenue you never would've seen either way.
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Yup.

Now lets wait for the "you can't eat at a restaurant and then say you want a refund" crowd.
 
bruinsrme said:
Which lead to the question many have discussed in numerous threads, Why does apple not incorporate such common features found in much "lesser" phones?
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Apple launched a totally new phone from scratch just two years ago. It was impossible for it to have all the features from the start. They have been slowly adding the features people want. So what's the problem?
 
CBanga said:
Again, my more important point here is that with the App Store, it's not huge companies with billions in revenues who are seeing these losses. Instead, it's the college kid like me who really misses the $100 if it's stolen by piracy.
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This point seems haphazardly contradictory to your cause. You seem to be alluding to a double standard that condones stealing from other developers but not you — not the downtrodden college boy. You mention stealing from big companies as if it were a victimless crime, but are the consequences really so different? What about the college graduated family man who loses his job to theft induced downsizing? Does piracy hurt him less than it hurts you? Theft is either detrimental to society, or it is not.
 
I'm either extremely old at 31 or just an extremely advanced being.

WTF is up with some of you defending piracy? It's stealing. Yeah, I did it before when I was younger. That doesn't mean I think it's right. I mostly started to actually hear the damn song before iTunes was around. I'm pretty sure that all of those pirated songs are gone.

Still, we're going to defend it as advancing technology? Seriously? If I were to write a book and someone stole 10,000 copies from a warehouse, I could give a crap that they're reading it. I'd be hella pissed because someone STOLE MY WORK. When some of you realize that about pirating music and video, you'll be a better person.

And like some of you said, jailbreaking and piracy are different. I don't like jailbreaking, but it's not stealing. You're just fudging up your phone to put unauthorized stuff on it -- mostly. I don't see that as a big issue. But when it's done to STEAL work, it's a huge deal.

To the OP, I would get as pissed as I still am at the ******* who backed into me and lied to a cop, making ME pay a $500 deductible and an $80 fine. That ******* stole $580 from me, plain and simple. The cop is an SOB for just taking two people's stories and deciding I was lying because I was behind him.

But I digress. Inform Apple about it, then find out what authorities you need to contact to prosecute people or maybe get a site shut down. If you're smart enough, you could always cyberbomb the site by doing something like pinging the hell out of it so it's always busy. I really hope you get some justice because I know you're not the only person affected by this crap.
 
jmann said:
Piracy is the sincerest form of flattery. :)
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So rape is the sincerest form of a pickup line?

I'm sure the developer would much rather have 5 people pay for his app than 10,000 pirate it, making all of his work for nothing. You can read my other post about it just being stealing. I wasn't flattered in the past that someone took the time and effort to break into my cars, and your stupid comment isn't flattering anybody here.
 
anjinhamarota said:
Apple launched a totally new phone from scratch just two years ago. It was impossible for it to have all the features from the start. They have been slowly adding the features people want. So what's the problem?
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No problem, just stating the obvious that Apple seemed to be reluctant in incorporating the features that were common to jalibreakers over a year ago.
 
Michael CM1 said:
I'm either extremely old at 31 or just an extremely advanced being.


And like some of you said, jailbreaking and piracy are different. I don't like jailbreaking, but it's not stealing. You're just fudging up your phone to put unauthorized stuff on it -- mostly. I don't see that as a big issue. But when it's done to STEAL work, it's a huge deal.

Unauthorized? interesting term.
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Michael CM1 said:
So rape is the sincerest form of a pickup line?

I'm sure the developer would much rather have 5 people pay for his app than 10,000 pirate it, making all of his work for nothing. You can read my other post about it just being stealing. I wasn't flattered in the past that someone took the time and effort to break into my cars, and your stupid comment isn't flattering anybody here.
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I was just sayin' ;) I didn't mean to start a big fuss about it. This is a touchy subject anyway.
 
bruinsrme said:
Michael CM1 said:
I'm either extremely old at 31 or just an extremely advanced being.


And like some of you said, jailbreaking and piracy are different. I don't like jailbreaking, but it's not stealing. You're just fudging up your phone to put unauthorized stuff on it -- mostly. I don't see that as a big issue. But when it's done to STEAL work, it's a huge deal.

Unauthorized? interesting term.
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Apple's not authorizing it to be on the phone, hence the term. Not illegal, but unauthorized. It's similar to at work having jack squat for software because the tech guy has to put anything on there. Took forever to get Firefox 2.0 on there (we're on OS X 10.3!). There are also plug-ins galore that would be nice, but once again unauthorized.
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Michael CM1 said:
bruinsrme said:
Michael CM1 said:
I'm either extremely old at 31 or just an extremely advanced being.


And like some of you said, jailbreaking and piracy are different. I don't like jailbreaking, but it's not stealing. You're just fudging up your phone to put unauthorized stuff on it -- mostly. I don't see that as a big issue. But when it's done to STEAL work, it's a huge deal.



Apple's not authorizing it to be on the phone, hence the term. Not illegal, but unauthorized. It's similar to at work having jack squat for software because the tech guy has to put anything on there. Took forever to get Firefox 2.0 on there (we're on OS X 10.3!). There are also plug-ins galore that would be nice, but once again unauthorized.
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The difference is that you bought your phone and not the computer. As the owner of the phone, you determine what is authorized and not.

I'd stick with, "Apple Software" "jail-broken software" and "app store software" or something along those lines.
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Michael CM1 said:
bruinsrme said:
Michael CM1 said:
Apple's not authorizing it to be on the phone, hence the term. Not illegal, but unauthorized. It's similar to at work having jack squat for software because the tech guy has to put anything on there. Took forever to get Firefox 2.0 on there (we're on OS X 10.3!). There are also plug-ins galore that would be nice, but once again unauthorized.
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But the issue I have is I don't own the computer at work but I own my iPhone.
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We are witnessing progress imo.

While some company will take harsh measures to curb pirates by putting in codes or measures that in the end does nothing but hinder the end user. And the app gets crack anyways

Or you can think outside of the box. Think of business models that can operate even after factoring the pirates. Like free app that require different lv of membership.

Part of a great process. There has been thief for as long as there is business and looking back wouldn't you say these thiefs have push fourth changes in how ppl operate their business and new innovative business models? Claiming that pirates will bring down the app store or something like that is ridiculous. imo it will just push for developers to innovate and step up their game. Look at OP, he realize his app has been pirated, came to this forum and i'm sure from the response he has gotten lot of input and ideas to play around with next on his next app update or his next app.

the ones that fail are the ones that make a or a few app, and the apps keep getting pirated. Instead of thinking up new idea he/she blames the systems blames the pirates and quit. Those ppl imo deserve to be phrase out.

Without the original napster, there would have never been an iTunes music store.
 
This is what it boils down to: double standards. Stealing from big companies (software piracy of games, downloading of movies, music, or even an OSx86 DVD (which is stealing unless you go out and BUY ANOTHER copy of Leopard)) is alright, because they have money to burn, right? Wrong. I would be surprised, VERY surprised (note I didn't read your article) if the OP, and his dev team had never downloaded software, music, movies, etc illegally before. I can almost guarantee he or someone on his team has. Sadly, that seems to go around with technology skill to some degree.

So if the OP has ever downloaded anything illegally, lets call this karma. Sure, it sucks, but now you are finally in the position of any legitimate software creator out there. I have college to pay for also my man, and I do a LOT of programming too, however my coding is open source so I never expect a profit anyway.

I coded an open-source project that was unfinished and stored privately (or so I thought) once, and someone ripped it off, completely, code base and all. Just removed my name from the files and replaced it with their own, shared it on warez sites, and it had over 5,000 downloads from 1 file sharing site alone. Lovely. Was I losing money? Sort of. I asked for donations on my page, and without the URL nobody could see my page to go there and donate if they desired. Was I angry? Briefly. Why only briefly? Because I used to download quite a bit of illegally obtained content myself. Movies, TV Shows, etc. So I thought I had this coming when I released my own project, and guess what, I was right.

The point is that while piracy sucks, especially when someone is doing it with your stuff you need to deal with the current hazards of developing on said platform. Work to code better protection. Or just know that those who pirate it were never customers to begin with, and while what they are doing is wrong they aren't reaching into your pocket and taking any money you have, they are just making it seem like you *should* have more money coming in.
 
If you, as an app developer, has a way to be 100% sure that the application is pirated, then you can do more creative things to combat piracy instead of putting up warnings, and / or preventing the app from running.

First, put several bits of code in different places, that run at different times to determine if it is pirated. Then at critical junctions, disable features.

If you wrote an application to manage to-do lists, detect when someone has entered more then 2 "to-do"'s, or some other "time consuming" act, and then disable the save button so that when they hit it, it says, "Piracy is bad, so is wasting your time entering all that information to not have it saved."

If you've written a game, making the boss at the end of the first level have infinite heath. After several minutes of fighting the boss popping up a message that says, "It is futile to fight a boss with infinite health; it is also futile to fight piracy. By the way, your game can't be saved."

Be creative, make the pirate waste HIS time before finding out that you've detected the theft. This way it hurts him, but no one else. If you spatter your detection code at different points in your app; maybe on key events, or after x minutes, it makes it much more difficult to crack.

Maybe I'm just evil, but I find it fun to screw with people who want to break the rules.
 
I am a dummy when it comes to programming and all that... but I was just curious, how do you know that there are 4000 pirated copies out there?
 
medicrx said:
I am a dummy when it comes to programming and all that... but I was just curious, how do you know that there are 4000 pirated copies out there?
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A popular analytics package provides this info. One could also detect and record this information on their own.
 
return7 said:
A popular analytics package provides this info. One could also detect and record this information on their own.
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Phone Poll... Press #1 if you're a pirate, press #2 if you would like to be a pirate but don't know how, press #3 if you have no clue what I'm talking about .. . .

Sorry, couldn't resist.
 
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