Ummm...yes. No one is disputing that it's NOT a crime. The "certain circumstances" relate to scope and intent. Little Jimmy infringing on an app or two for his own personal use is a misdemeanor. Ivan the Smuggler boating in out of the islands with a ton of DVDs - each filled to capacity with illegally-copied software he plans to re-sell - is committing a felony.
I know at least a little of it is self-righteousness.. I'm not proud of it... I do get mad when someone else has all the apps I do when they paid nothing and I've put down hundreds... Saying that pirating doesn't hurt sales is absurd. It's NOT a good marketing tool. When people show other people "hey look at this game I pirated" they're not going to go off and buy it, they're going to pirate it. You can't leave reviews if you pirate (I'm pretty sure), and so it also doesn't help the app THAT way... Music pirating is killing the music industry, and app pirating has potential to kill the app store - though it probably won't. Apple doesn't really mind, because pirating drives device sales, but the developers who need all the money they can get to pay the bills most certainly do lose money. It's not fair to demonize them by saying they just want to get "rich." Pirating is unethical because it is illegal. 100% of the people I know who defend pirating pirate themselves - I don't know what the ratio is here, and I won't judge - but this "It doesn't hurt developers" crap makes me angry - the iphone is my favorite game platform... I'm a computer science major and would've gone into app development if it wasn't for pirating. It adds such an element of uncertainty for the career that I'm not going to risk it. Oh well, I know that pirating will always be here, so it's sort of pointless to argue, but that's my two cents.
The main Problem is, that some stubborn people try to divide between material and immaterial things. It's just the same with mp3s and stuff: "If I can't neither touch, hold or carry it, it isn't existant - therefore it can't be stolen." Copyright infringement actually IS stealing software. Therefore, pirates are thieves.
Ummm....no. Music industry executives != "the music industry" Actually iTunes is doing more to "kill" the current ancient, monolithic music executive than copyright infringement. Artists creating their own labels and distributing their works independently of a major record label is "killing" the music executive. Tell you what, do a little more research into the matter and you'll find that artists make more money doing concerts than they do on CD sales. Why? Because the record company takes just about ALL of the profits from CD sales to support their bloated system and only give a minor portion to the artist. All those songs you hear on TV during commercials? Unless the artist wrote the song, they don't get a dime in royalties. There are two types of people who really make "F-U money" in the music business: 1) songwriters 2) record label executives You think the Rolling Stones are still touring because they "love" to do it? Hell no! It's their J-O-B. Without touring each band member would be "poorer" than they are now. And they've become accustomed to their lifestyle of falling out of coconut trees.
Ack. Missed your comment somehow. But I think the same. Call it copyright infringement, software theft, software piracy, call it whatever you like, it is what it is. Stop being nitpicky about these terms, people always have a slang or standart quotations about that. I am sick of hearing the same stupid arguments for decades now. If it wasn't such a serious matter, I had laughed about it 15 years before, had been laughing 10 years and 5 years ago and would keep laughing today. The statement, that "I only try the app before I buy it" justifies nothing. O.k., let's say that "software" is some kind of service that will entertain you or a service to help you do your work. Software developers - unlike other service agencies - render a service the most time in advance, because they already developed their product. So, you simply have to pay when you use it. Software piracy is, in this case, the occupation of a service without paying for it. It's disrespectful behaviour against any developer, who has put hundreds of hours of work into this service. I wonder how the most "pirates" would feel if they won't get paid at the end of the month, instead their bosses state that they "first wanted to try out how the person is doing their work" before paying them. Nearly everyone of you would take the first opportunity to get a lawyer and sue your boss. And - do you go into a super market and take a bite of an apple to see if it tastes? Do you don't pay the barber or hair dresser because you want to see first if the new hair style fits you? Or taking a free taxi ride to judge about the drivers abilities? I was shocked reading a statement, that the "NICE pirates" provide links to the games site so that 1 out of 5 thieves will actually buy a copy of the game. Yes. May be. But the other 4 thieves are laughing about you and keep playing the game for free, just BECAUSE of this nice, nice app-pirating-site. Without them, you would have sold 3 or 4 copies of the game. Maybe.
I was trying to point out a couple of things, but to many of the posters here just jump board to quickly. I am both a developer and software user (I have a boatload of devices here). - Blaming piracy as the failure of one developer who developed one small iPhone game is purely ABSURD. Expecting to write a game in 2 weeks and then live a middle class life from it's earnings for years is even MORE ABSURD. Explanation: Why do the other tens of thousands of iPhone developers being happy with what they make? - Pulling figures from our arses and claiming that we lose billions is again ABSURD. Even given the current economical situation, the software industry is in one hell of a good shape. There is an old saying, "If something ain't broken, don't try to fix it". As long as things just get better and better, what is there to worry about? Do you think brick and mortar industries don't have to put up with various losses? Do they complain? NO. You can't run a business and expect to have NO LOSSES.
Update : The news, as expected when a serious site puts numbers and dollar signs in an article, is starting to echo here and there, making other serious sites to react : http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/01/450-million-iphone-piracy-figure-not-grounded-in-reality.ars I feel this won't be "just another news about piracy", and that if the buzz is still pumping up, Apple will break its long term silence about the subject. This is all we should want, after all : Apple to take serious positions about it, for once.
Of course the record industry is filled with scumbags. Here's the thing though...it ALWAYS WAS. Are you seriously trying to say that it's a coincidence that the rampant theft of music on the web is not the reason why there are no more music stores? That ridiculously low margins on royalties is new? Talk to Little Richard. That's been going on as long as there has been recorded music. Your argument is almost laughably feeble. The real money has always been made with touring and merchandising. Before rampant web piracy though, you still had a vital recording industry. Now you have almost nothing left. I used to really enjoy going to music stores and poring through the releases. They are an endangered species now because of the opinions of people like you who want to rationalize and justify theft.
And if professional studios and major publishers lose the majority sales revenue due to pirates, is this somehow absurd as well? Here is one example of how things are getting worse, in simplified terms: - A year ago, pirates were a minority of the active core gamers who followed the sites. A developer was able to market the game on TA and similar sites, and the core gamers were aware of the game. The core audience purchased the game on launch week which pushed the game to the Top Apps list where the casual audience would find it. All is well. - Now, consider what happens when the majority of the core audience has converted to piracy (which has happened to a measurable extent): Game comes out, core audience pirates it, game doesn't get launch week downloads, never gets to Top Apps list and therefore never makes money. See, this is why it doesn't take millions of pirates to kill a game studio, only ~5000 people who would have bought the game on launch week but now decide to steal it instead can cause a game to lose all of its revenue.
Well I can tell you this. He lost the support of at least one of his customers. I bought his game, now I've deleted it, and I will not buy another one he is associated with. Why should I? Obviously he doesn't value his work if he gets thrilled when he sees his creation show up on torrent sites. I'm only one person, and I know that in the grand scheme I don't matter much, but this attitude from a dev is truly amazing to me.
I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to point out EXACTLY where I rationalized and justified theft. I did neither such thing, instead pointing out - just like several web sites have this week - the fallacy of the "losses due to copyright infringement" theory. You can't lose what you never had in the first place. We can agree on the music industry being filled with scumbags though, with Lars from Metallica being one of the biggest D-bags to ever walk the earth.
I love piracy threads because...... I think its important to point out that the entire concept of Intellectual Property is used WAY more as an abusive tool for power and control then as an ethical line of defense against so called "pirates". The ramifications of such a concept are not limited to just technology or media either; google -- monsanto seed monopoly For those of you who agree so adamantly without a shadow of a doubt that "piracy" is "stealing" know that by doing so YOU ARE promoting anti piracy propaganda in the process. The same propaganda that is driven by the same interests that want to destroy net neutrality and end the internets as we know it; piracy just happens to be one of their main excuses. And we all "know" what the 6 media empires would do if they gain control of the internet; either directly or indirectly thru ISP's which they also own to some extent, or at least have a nice cozy business relationship with.... I assure you I do sympathize for indie devs affected by piracy even pirates who download iphone apps "illegally" the "thieves" sympathize for indie devs as well. im sure both pro and anti piracy advocates feel this way, yet here we are arguing. why is that? its either piracy is right or wrong, end of discussion, no further critical thinking required; thats the end of it. im either trying to justify theft or im an honest law abiding citizen who never would ever consider pirating an app EVER yet im quick to persecute pirates even threaten them with bodily harm as if the pirates are the ones to blame...why is that? but when you think about it...... doesn't it kinda feel like the whole concept of intellectual property especially the way it has been implemented, wasn't really intended to "protect" even though thats kinda the whole point of the concept to begin with huh?
That's crap. The real shame here will be when developers just quit. Why go to all that effort. This isn't charity. You are not somekind of digital Robinhood. Just pay for what you use. Why is that so hard? Honestly, I started reading this thread thinking maybe the problem with piracy may be exaggerated. I was wrong. This medium is doomed and that's a shame. If anything will undermine the internet it will be theft of IP.
The BIGGEST issue with the App Store are the tons of crap and shovelware that gets approved. I have personally contacted the guys at Chillingo when I wanted to download a copy of iDracula, ran a search and an app named exactly "iDracula" poped up, except it wasn't the game. It was a POS application made by a dude. It simply displayed a vampire photo an played a sound. I wonder how many people bought that, thinking it's the much acclaimed game they are getting, and finding out it's not. And I can give you countless examples. At this rate, in 6 months piracy rates will become irelevant and devs will quit. The App Store is profitable for a developer because it generates enough sales at $0.99 to keep it going. Ask any developer with some experience, what is the profitability in making a $0.99 game and trying to advertise it yourself to generate sales. It works for $19.99 games. $0.99 games need to be driven by the traffic that is in the App Store. But that will be gone soon, thanks to all those "developers" with 800 titles approved in the App Store. Soon enough, the sales volume generated by the App Store will be equal with that generated by any popular mobile sales chanel. And devs will quit making $0.99 software. But let's look at the bright side. Apple will have the largest collection of crap mankind has ever seen. Over 100.000 of them.
How bad is piracy in AppStore compared to in other mobile platforms like Symbian, DS and PSP? I thought it's more or less the same yet those platforms are still doing alright? The only problem is all quality devs must do themselves a favour. Use DLC. It's the anti-piracy method Apple has offered. Only a few use this wisely while the most can just whine endlessly, why?
PSP hasn't really seen much software developed for it, has it? Symbian on the other hand isn't a market worth developing games for, too fragmented both technically and on the business side to be of any interest. DLC isn't piracy-proof by any means: If the content is included but needs to be unlocked, pirating it is trivial. If DLC needs to be downloaded separately, setting up a secure server and implementing the features for downloading additional content and supporting it in the game is a hassle for the developer, and so what - now the first pirate only needs to download those as well before cracking the whole package.
Not all pirates are totally bad, or are trying to "Stick it to the man" or whatever, My friend pirates apps, he buys them too! Let me explain; If he wants an app, but wants to try it first, he will look for a lite or 'Free' version of it on the app store, if it doesn't exist, he will download a cracked copy of the app to see if he likes it or not. If he likes it, he will buy the full version, if he doesn't want to buy it, he'll delete it. It's is still illegal, still wrong, but he doesn't "Steal shit because he wants it for free" My view, there will probably be less piracy for devs who make lite versions. Please don't tell me I'm "A massive whale turd" because I'm trying to justify piracy, I'm not, I don't condone piracy at all, my point is that not all pirates have the intention to get things for free just because they can.
