I didn’t give much thought to software piracy until I saw one of our iPhone apps, iPizzeria, cracked and being distributed for free on the Internet. The numbers are staggering and a heavy blow to small software shops trying to survive by selling apps for only a few dollars or sometimes just 99 cents each.
Within days of its release iPizzeria was cracked and uploaded to at least two file sharing sites. One of those sites had over 300 downloads within hours of being uploaded. Within the course of days likely thousands of copies were illegally downloaded and installed on jailbroken iPhones without payment.
By comparison, legitimate downloads on the iTunes App Store during those days were far less than the thousands of bootlegged downloads. In a quote from Pinch Media analytics posted on this blog, “…typically we see paid applications receiving around 5x more users from piracy then from legitimate downloads.” That’s 5 times more bootlegged downloads than legitimate. From our experience with iPizzeria that’s a reasonable observation.
It’s an ongoing problem and seems to be getting worse. With do-it-yourself bootlegging tools like Craculous, a hackers tool for cracking iPhone apps to run on jailbroken phones, just about anyone can become a thief with impunity. It’s so easy to do that youngsters could get involved just for the thrill of the free-for-all without realizing that they’re starting down a path of moral corruption.
For now most developers are relying on Apple to protect their IP. However, the problem is that Apple can only do so much. Bootleggers only need to crack the iPhone OS to open up the free-for-all. From there it’s a simple matter of cracking any individual app to make it available to bootleggers.
Some developers are fighting back to defend themselves individually. One thing to do is contact the file sharing sites to have the copyrighted material taken down. And some do seem to respond to these requests. This will not eliminate the problem but it’s a first step. Others are taking the matter further by implementing counter measures within their apps to detect if it’s a cracked version, and then close or show an unkind message to the user. While many developers are concerned that this could alienate legitimate users if a false positive were detected, it seems they’re warming up to the idea. This iPhone developer’s blog discusses a technique which seems to be catching on.
If a new app hits it big soon after release then they’re more immune to bootlegging. But the other 98% of apps will slowly see their sales getting bled away as if by leaches.
To do nothing is like inviting graffiti artists into the neighborhood. Experts say the best way to combat graffiti is to clean it up as soon as it appears, to due something. Look what has happened to the music industry. By one estimate 95% of music downloads are illegal. We could be heading in the same direction with iPhone apps unless something is done.