How do pirates get away with being so blatant. I am not for sure if rules will let me post the name of the site doing this, but I have a site that is blatantly posting cracked and illegal copies of my newest apps, along with many others. They literally have a sticky in the forum saying, "Post your cracked apps here". How can they be so blunt and tell people they're breaking the law, and still keep their sites up and running?
How do pirates get away with being so blatant. I am not for sure if rules will let me post the name of the site doing this, but I have a site that is blatantly posting cracked and illegal copies of my newest apps, along with many others. They literally have a sticky in the forum saying, "Post your cracked apps here". How can they be so blunt and tell people they're breaking the law, and still keep their sites up and running?
1. Never post links to pirate sites
2. I have tried to police my apps being cracked...honestly it's not worth the time.
3. If you are concerned report the hosting links. The only issue is when you get it off one hosting site the original cracker will post it again.
4. Add the cracked app code to your app. That will teach them
__________________
Haters gonna Hate
Likers gonna Like
1: create an update to your app
2: create a "special" non codesigned version of your app
3: when the update hits the app store, anonymously post your own "cracked" version to the pirate's website before anyone else
Of course, your "cracked version" has a few extra bits of code to
- stop working after 3 days
- use a private api to switch off the phone randomly
- switch the phone to airplane mode randomly
- play nasty sounds at random times
- call 1900 numbers at 2am
- any nasty thing you like
how evil do you want to be?
* disclaimer: I do not necessarily condone the acts presented in this post. I never specifically said you should perform such acts. Such acts are petty and vile, but pretty funny too
1: create an update to your app
2: create a "special" non codesigned version of your app
3: when the update hits the app store, anonymously post your own "cracked" version to the pirate's website before anyone else
Of course, your "cracked version" has a few extra bits of code to
- stop working after 3 days
- use a private api to switch off the phone randomly
- switch the phone to airplane mode randomly
- play nasty sounds at random times
- call 1900 numbers at 2am
- any nasty thing you like
how evil do you want to be?
* disclaimer: I do not necessarily condone the acts presented in this post. I never specifically said you should perform such acts. Such acts are petty and vile, but pretty funny too
Hahaha! The disclaimer is awesome! I dunno if submitting a non codesigned app is possible
__________________
Haters gonna Hate
Likers gonna Like
1. Never post links to pirate sites
2. I have tried to police my apps being cracked...honestly it's not worth the time.
3. If you are concerned report the hosting links. The only issue is when you get it off one hosting site the original cracker will post it again.
4. Add the cracked app code to your app. That will teach them
+1 what Bertrand21 said. You can't fight piracy. Even big giants like Microsoft can't fight it 100%.
1: create an update to your app
2: create a "special" non codesigned version of your app
3: when the update hits the app store, anonymously post your own "cracked" version to the pirate's website before anyone else
Of course, your "cracked version" has a few extra bits of code to
- stop working after 3 days
- use a private api to switch off the phone randomly
- switch the phone to airplane mode randomly
- play nasty sounds at random times
- call 1900 numbers at 2am
- any nasty thing you like
how evil do you want to be?
* disclaimer: I do not necessarily condone the acts presented in this post. I never specifically said you should perform such acts. Such acts are petty and vile, but pretty funny too
Interesting idea. But though, can a pirate go and rate/review on your app in the AppStore? If they can, you are bound to get kagillions 1stars.
Piracy will happen, just get used to it. I can understand companies that sell $500 desktop applications taking measures to stop piracy. But for a 99c app? Complete waste of time.
I, for one, treat piracy as a backdoor marketing channel. I know for a fact people have bought my apps because they saw a pirated version but they themselves don't have a jailbroken phone so they just buy it.
Some pirates have even emailed me saying they actively promote my app. I even convinced one to buy the app legitimately.
The main "anti-piracy" technique I employ is just to update often, and force users to upgrade. So pirated versions only work for a few weeks or a month max.
Let it go guys, seems like every other week I see some thread about piracy. iOS developers have it REALLY good trust me. My piracy rates are < 10%. I know android devs that have 95% piracy rates.
Piracy will happen, just get used to it. I can understand companies that sell $500 desktop applications taking measures to stop piracy. But for a 99c app? Complete waste of time.
I, for one, treat piracy as a backdoor marketing channel. I know for a fact people have bought my apps because they saw a pirated version but they themselves don't have a jailbroken phone so they just buy it.
Some pirates have even emailed me saying they actively promote my app. I even convinced one to buy the app legitimately.
The main "anti-piracy" technique I employ is just to update often, and force users to upgrade. So pirated versions only work for a few weeks or a month max.
Let it go guys, seems like every other week I see some thread about piracy. iOS developers have it REALLY good trust me. My piracy rates are < 10%. I know android devs that have 95% piracy rates.
+1
Those who remember early 90-ies would notice that the successful companies like Microsoft, Borland, Novell not only didn't implement any technological measure to fight piracy, but made pirating very easy.
__________________ Game Pack - All-in-1 Game Pack Shinro - A combination of Minesweeper and Sudoku Nibbles - Remake of a classic snake game Hooptie Browser - Humorous web filter
The main "anti-piracy" technique I employ is just to update often, and force users to upgrade. So pirated versions only work for a few weeks or a month max.
I agree with your philosophy that taking measures to combat piracy is a waste of time, and that people with a pirated copy can actually generate sales when other non-jailbroken users see your app and buy it.
But I'm not seeing how updating often helps combat it. How does a new update cause the older version to stop working?
I agree with your philosophy that taking measures to combat piracy is a waste of time, and that people with a pirated copy can actually generate sales when other non-jailbroken users see your app and buy it.
But I'm not seeing how updating often helps combat it. How does a new update cause the older version to stop working?
I think he puts code in there that checks his web server and forces the user to upgrade to the latest version of the app. Probably because his app is multi-player (sports fantasy) so all users must be on the same version for things to work well.
Not trying to answer for someone else, that's just what I've gathered from being a frequent lurker on these forums
I think he puts code in there that checks his web server and forces the user to upgrade to the latest version of the app. Probably because his app is multi-player (sports fantasy) so all users must be on the same version for things to work well.
Not trying to answer for someone else, that's just what I've gathered from being a frequent lurker on these forums
Yes, being evil can cause a backlash, and if you get a bad name for doing nasty things in your app that can lead to legitimate users keeping away fom your apps too. It was more an exercise in geek angst/internet tough guy "lets stick it to the pirates".
Many people who pirate apps wouldn't buy them if the couldn't pirate them (annoying that they'll happily buy an overpriced coffee but wont spend $.99 on an app that gives them more enjoyment). So you're not really losing out on them.
Then there are those people that might buy the app, but why bother if they can get it for free? To get them we need to make pirating apps difficult enough to make them reconsider. It's not worth jumping through too many hoops just to save yourself $.99. But on the other hand how many hoops to we want to go through to get a few more users?
If your app requires a connection to your server then mightybao's technique of updating and cutting off old versions would annoy pirates enough to buy if they want to keep using the app. The trouble is a lot of apps don't use servers, but it's a good inventive solution to the issue.
If someone did start putting bogus, troublesome apps onto pirate boards it may scare off a lot of the more casual pirates from all cracked apps. I wonder how many people were scared off jailbreaking when the iphone worm came out?
The main "anti-piracy" technique I employ is just to update often, and force users to upgrade. So pirated versions only work for a few weeks or a month max.
How do you force users to upgrade? I would like to make pirates work harder.
My app current version talks to the server for data but does not check the version. I think I release an update that checks the version and disable the current "call home" in 1-2 month.
How do you force users to upgrade? I would like to make pirates work harder.
You can scrape the appstore for the latest version of your app and if versions don't match annoy the user to update it. You can even refuse to work if versions don't match.
__________________ Game Pack - All-in-1 Game Pack Shinro - A combination of Minesweeper and Sudoku Nibbles - Remake of a classic snake game Hooptie Browser - Humorous web filter
You can scrape the appstore for the latest version of your app and if versions don't match annoy the user to update it. You can even refuse to work if versions don't match.
What I am thinking about is simply adding adverts when I detect piracy, I have to double check the rules of the ad mediation I am going to use, I am making an ad supported version anyway, so basically I will activate that mode when I believe it is a pirated version.
I will only do this when I am fairly sure that I am not going to get false positives, because obviously I don't want to annoy my paying users in order to make a few bucks off the pirates.
__________________ Whisky Biscuit
Independent Games Developer from Highlands of Scotland
WarPath the Tactical, Turn-Based Tank Game for iPad OUT NOW
__________________ Game Pack - All-in-1 Game Pack Shinro - A combination of Minesweeper and Sudoku Nibbles - Remake of a classic snake game Hooptie Browser - Humorous web filter
They do allow reading from approved RSS feeds, but I'm not aware of an RSS feed that gets current app version.
Would they prohibit scraping web-sites what scrape appstore? You can do the similar requests to tons of other sites with apps (like appannie).
__________________ Game Pack - All-in-1 Game Pack Shinro - A combination of Minesweeper and Sudoku Nibbles - Remake of a classic snake game Hooptie Browser - Humorous web filter
Would they prohibit scraping web-sites what scrape appstore? You can do the similar requests to tons of other sites with apps (like appannie).
Well, they approved appTrends, which reads from AppFigures. So apparently they are OK with it. But I'd hate to gamble my own app on it, as I could see them deciding to close this loophole at some point in the future.
Pirates Get Off Clean
Linear Mode
