I guess you could do this yourself aswell. Let the app send the UDID together with a string containing a variable X for a correct info.plist file, and a variable Y for an incorrect one. You can then put all correct ones in a white list, and all the incorrect ones in a black list. You´re acting like copyright violation isn´t something that´s being punished by law. If you are making profit, iE selling illegally obtained games/software/movies, in civil law jurisdictions like Austria or Germany, you will get caught by law enforcement without any required interaction of the right owner. We are calling this an "Offizialdelikt".
This could be a solution too But I guess it would quickly be hacked to send a "good" vibe from hacked apps. Concerning UUID, it is written from different hardware parts, so shouldn't be cracked that easily (and if it is already, I must be mistaking with another ID type). Yup, but that's for big servers, not individuals, sadly. On a sidenote, I find it very depressing and sad to be forced to put up such solutions to prevent rights enforcement. Wouldn't it be so much better if no dev had to act like this to protect their rights ? Somebody told me that in Canada, people don't use keys to close their house doors ... they just clap it and that's ok. I find it wonderful. Anyway, I think some users might be fed up with such regular threads, so I'll keep my opinions silent for a while about it. But thanks for the interesting discussion, people.
Oh yeah... but to give up and express pessimism like you're doing isn't the solution, either. Or is it optimism?
He isn't expressing optimism, nor is he expressing pessimism. He is simply stating a neutral fact. You shouldn't try to read something into it just to pretend to have an argument.
No. You can't stop it totally, but maybe to a certain degree. Imho - it is Apples task to react. Apple is the distributor for all iDevices software, they should try to come up with a practicable solution. They should protect the software they're making lots of money with. I think, it is their obligation in the first place. Btw. - you've read a "neutral fact". You shouldn't try to read something into it just... ah, forget it. I've read "pessimism". And I don't have the need to "pretend" something. Well said.
Apple only provides the platform, by no means do they have any obligation to do anything at all. You don´t like it, well, then develop for other systems and check out how easy it is to obtain an SDK for it. If Apple would be Nintendo, Sony or Microsoft, 99% of the App Store games wouldnt even be there. Besides, read my previous posts, they have already done enough to ensure every independant developer can exist. I honestly don´t know any system on earth which grants as many advantages to it´s developers as Apple does. It´s funny how no one ever mentions that. No, i´m not trying to imply something, that´s what i do. His statement doesn´t take any sides, it´s perfectly neutral.
wow nice thread. Those numbers on the first post are outstanding..very amazing, there are so many pirating people lurking around...
The OP is wrong in his assertion that posts involving "download" apps = pirate posts. Such a search returns results like "I bought the app update, but it wouldn't download" and "I can't download X app" (from paying customers). Maybe even the "free" update, aka download to them, will be in their posts. Assumptions like this are ridiculous. It is one thing to say that piracy exists and to try to put a number on it. It is another thing entirely to make sweeping claims based on false or misinterpreted evidence.
Piracy DOES equal lost revenue. That's just a fact. How much is a matter of debate. But it's simply a FACT that piracy does lose the dev money.
Yes, to a certain degree, it does cost the developer money. However, stating that one pirated download = one lost sale is a gross overstatement. The vast majority of pirates simply want something for nothing -- they get it because they can and have no moral compunction against doing it, and if they can't get it for free, they just won't get it at all. I would lay good money down on the percentage of those pirates being in the mid to upper 90th percentile. Granted, it's impossible to prove or disprove that, but I'd wager that any study capable of even coming close to being accurate would not fall too far from that mark. The sales truly lost to piracy that developers suffer are from ethically malleable pirates who would buy it if either they had the discretionary funds to do so, or couldn't otherwise obtain it legitimately. (eg. it's banned or simply not available for sale in their country.) "Real" pirates (i.e. those who pirate because they can and it's there) simply don't buy what they can't steal. Note that I am not advocating for piracy here; I am against it just as much as any developer. I simply take the pragmatic view that it happens, it happens a lot, you can't reasonably do anything about it, and you shouldn't waste your energy moping about the high number of pirated downloads because the vast majority of those pirates aren't your potential customers. You can't count sales as lost that never had the potential to be sales in the first place. Focus on serving your paying customers, not lamenting those who aren't.
You're naive if you think companies aren't going to look for methods to at LEAST curtain the rampant piracy that exists.
