
Piracy Doubled My App Sales - danielamitay
http://amitay.us/Blog/Entries/2011/1/17_piracy_doubled_my_app_sales.html
======
snewman
If you can arrange things so that some (but not all) of the functionality in
your app is unavailable in a pirated copy, then piracy becomes a form of
trialware, and can be a huge marketing channel.

Way back in the day, I co-wrote an early networked multiplayer game on the
Mac, _Spectre_. We didn't use copy protection, as it was too much hassle for
legitimate users. However, there was a nontrivial-to-hack requirement that you
have N serial numbers for an N-player game. This led to people pirating the
game for the single-player mode, enjoying it, and buying a second or third
copy for multiplayer. I don't have hard data, but we believe a lot of our
sales originated this way.

There's probably some psychology at work here: if you let someone download a
"trial version" for free, they may not value it as much as an app they had to
"pirate".

~~~
hedgehog
Thanks for Spectre! I have fond memories of playing over AppleTalk with
friends.

~~~
snewman
Glad to hear it! I have not-quite-so-fond memories of debugging all that
AppleTalk code. :) Still, writing Spectre was one of the most fun things I've
done. It amazes me, after all these years, how often I still run into people
who remember the game.

~~~
alanfalcon
Count me in as one of those who loved the game. Also, I was one who only
played a pirated copy, unfortunately. Not a good excuse, but at the time I was
just a kid with no access to any kind of payment method. I'm happy to see
Spectre has been released on iOS, and at last I can pay for a legit copy of
the game! In fact, I just bought two licenses, one for myself and one for my
friend who originally "shared" the game with me. Are you at all involved in
the iOS port?

~~~
snewman
No worries. :)

My only involvement in the iOS port was to give it my blessing, after the
fact. The author got in touch with us (the original Spectre authors) at some
point when he was pretty far along in development, asking us about a license,
which we gave him for free -- we were happy to see Spectre live on.

------
dave1619
This article is misinformed. We've been in the AppStore for the past 3
Christmas's and have noticed a significant spike each Christmas (30-50%+
increase sales) that doesn't really taper off. Sure the week between Christmas
and New Years has the greatest spike (70%+ spike) but after that it returns to
much higher numbers than before Christmas (ie., about 30-50% higher sales).
Surprisingly, these numbers seem to carry on throughout the year until the
next Christmas season and then you experience the same spike in sales.
Throughout the year there are some ups and downs but it's pretty steady. Sure,
piracy might have helped his app sales a bit, but he's wrong to discount the
fact that the holiday season changes everything in the AppStore and it's
effect continues on throughout the year.

~~~
d0mine
Could you explain why it happens? (iPhone as a Christmas present?)

~~~
rbritton
I can corroborate this with iPad app sales. I believe a large number of iPads
were Christmas gifts this year and am in my highest grossing 30-day stretch to
date.

------
danielh
I think the piracy marketing effect works especially well for iOS because not
all devices are jailbroken. If Alice jailbreaks her phone, and Bob doesn't,
Alice can show Bob her pirated apps, but can't easily share them with him. If
Bob sees somethings he likes, he must buy it.

The same might be true for game consoles, but probably not for PCs.

------
fizz972
"Obscurity is a far greater threat to authors and creative artists than
piracy" - Tim O'Reilly.

------
kolektiv
iPhone app "piracy" is perhaps a little different from run of the mill
software copyright infringement. It's one of the only places around where even
for consumers, there's no way of trying before you buy. I can imagine that
there is a significant (I have no idea how large, and not a majority
certainly, but significant) number of people who will pirate an iPhone app and
then later buy it if they find themselves using it. I'm honest enough to admit
that I do this, and I very much doubt I'm alone.

~~~
rmc
With Apple's DRM and control of the App Store they could probably create a
'refund within 7 days' thing.

~~~
xenophanes
A lot of apps, especially games, you can finish using within 7 days (or even 1
day, plenty of iPhone games do not have over, say, 12 hours of gameplay).

~~~
waqf
A lot of books, especially fiction, you can finish reading within 14 days.

I was never made to feel guilty about borrowing those books from the city
library, returning them two weeks later and never buying them. When did the
standard change?

~~~
alanfalcon
An App Store is not a library any more than your local Borders is. At least
the copy of the book that's in the library was bought and paid for somewhere
along the way.

~~~
jawee
Since a software download isn´t tangible, it seems to make the library
illustration make more sense.

~~~
seabee
The library has limited lending ability; you can't lend one book to two people
at the same time.

It will be very interesting to see how they handle ebooks. I'd be surprised if
the publishers didn't enforce scarcity.

~~~
alanfalcon
Libraries already do lend eBooks, and they do enforce scarcity. You can go
today to check out an eBook only to be told that it's not due back for another
two weeks.

------
rwl
This illustrates perfectly why sharing software shouldn't be called "piracy"
or "stealing." These terms are simply inappropriate for software, movies,
music, and other works that can be copied for almost zero cost.

When real pirates steal real goods, their owner doesn't have them anymore, and
can't benefit from them anymore. They don't double their sales, because
there's fewer things left to sell. Software isn't like that: you just make
another copy for the next paying user. This is true whether your software is
proprietary or free.

Comparing people who share your software with others to pirates means you are
criminalizing the folks who are doing your marketing for you.

~~~
epo
Calling it marketing doesn't make it so. Depriving the owner of their revenue
is theft just as much as deciding to occupy a seat on a train without paying
is depriving the train operator of revenue and is theft, claiming that the
seat is unused or that you doing marketing is bogus. You are depriving them of
revenue and are committing theft. If the term of usage is pay to use then not
paying is stealing, if you don't like it then don't use it.

~~~
hxa7241
Oh please! Copying something is not theft or stealing, either legally,
ethically, or physically.

You can argue about the economic effects, but at least stop using misleading
terms -- it does not help anyone understand anything.

~~~
statictype
Unless the creator has explictly granted you the right to copy, copying is
certainly theft in the legal sense and often in the ethical sense.

Whether or not you agree with the legality of it is irrelevant, the fact is
that it's illegal for you to make copies of software that you are not
authorized to copy.

Ethically, it's not fair to the people who build these apps to be deprived of
the revenue they would earn from your usage of it.

They don't have a _right_ to your money, but then, you don't have a _right_ to
their software either.

~~~
blahedo
Your second, third, and fourth sentences do not support your first. Copying
software without paying for it (when the author has not licensed you to do so)
is arguably immoral, often unethical, and nearly always illegal...

...but the claim of the gp was that it is not "theft" as such. Copying
something from someone and taking something _away_ from someone are _not the
same_.

Drawing a definitional distinction there helps us to have a meaningful debate
about the moral, ethical, and legal dimensions; the only benefit to muddying
the distinction is as a rhetorical tactic to confuse the issues.

~~~
statictype
The law recognizes unauthorized copying as stealing of intellectual property.
This is not difficult to understand.

------
solipsist
Could it not be the other way around: perhaps your doubled app sales provoked
a huge increase in piracy?

~~~
bajsejohannes
Or even that piracy and sales do not affect each other: Piracy could simply
always be a constant X% of users.

I am just speculating, but I don't see any evidence of causation one way or
the other.

~~~
grogers
Well the number of pirates rose disproportionately more than the number of
paid users, so it definitely isn't _just_ a constant percentage.

------
InnocentB
Basically, this article is saying that through piracy, you get more exposure
for your app, and if your app has any social features in it, the network
effects can outweigh any potential lost sales through piracy.

I think a more effective way to do this would be to make the app free for
limited periods. You'll reach a much broader audience, with the same effects.

------
rradu
For those like me that were wondering how it's even possible to pirate an
iPhone app: you need a jailbroken phone and a program like Crackulous -
[http://hackulo.us/forums/index.php?s=4a4a9c10b678d8400dee0d5...](http://hackulo.us/forums/index.php?s=4a4a9c10b678d8400dee0d56087f4c20&showtopic=12255)

------
thalur
How did you get the figures for the number of pirates? Is it the anti-piracy
code you added reporting back to you?

~~~
danielamitay
Ah I should include that info, thanks.

Flurry tells me the number of [new jailbreak users], which lines up almost
perfectly with: [new users] - [new sales].

~~~
gte910h
Um huh?

Jailbreak user != pirate.

Jailbreaking occurs for dozens of non-pirate reasons, most commonly to allow
tethering, or the installation of apps that apple does not like, or to allow
the user to use a non-approved network (such as T-Mo in the US).

Also, does flurry now disambiguate multiple devices on the same account? I
know I have 6 or 7 devices on my account [I too write apps for a living]
alone...but I'm sure I only count as one sale. Seems like those people would
also show up as pirates by your metrics.

------
powertower
From the author's text: > My app has a sharing feature: if you like the app,
you can email your friends about it.

Unless your software product has something similar (and is also priced low,
and is also installed via something like an app store: and hence is one-click
away), I don't think piracy will help you much. At least it does not to the
s/w authors who claim a persistent 30-80% drop in sales the day the crack
comes out.

~~~
jawee
When I first got my iPod Touch and was looking for applications, I started
asking around to friends who had Touches and iPhones to find applications. I
found the people who could recommend me the best selection of applications
were those who had pirated a lot of applications, as they had tried the most.
I based my applications I bought mostly on 3 friends with jailbroken phones
with a plethora of applications.

------
thecape
As you mention, this effect probably works since you don't have Top 100
exposure.

~~~
sjs
I don't have any data on this but I'd wager that piracy increases exposure
even for a top 100 app; it would just pale in comparison to the existing
exposure of being a top 100 app.

People using an app are people using an app no matter how they acquired it.

~~~
leon_
> People using an app are ...

potential support costs. So it matters if they paid for the app or not.

~~~
sjs
Oh, yes I agree there 100%. I didn't mean to imply that it's not a problem in
any way, just that pirating users provide some exposure too.

You could argue that they also decrease exposure by not counting as a download
& dollar earned in the app store, but first you'd have to prove that all
pirates would buy have purchased the app if not available for free, which I
think many people agree is patently false.

------
dholowiski
The author who was complaining that his book was being pirated (on HN
yesterday) should read this article.

------
geekfactor
Does the author present any empirical evidence of piracy, or is this solely an
assumption based on the the sales pattern not meeting his expectations?

------
araneae
ITS. ITS. Really, I'm only that angry because seconds ago I saw this caption:
[http://somerville.patch.com/articles/photo-gallery-snow-
art-...](http://somerville.patch.com/articles/photo-gallery-snow-art-flash-
mob-creates-wintry-art-and-an-epic-snowball-fight#photo-4475935)

I mean, maybe we should change that rule or something so people stop breaking
it.

------
leon_
I suspected this for low quantity apps already but couldn't prove it as it
might have been (or might still be) a statistical anomaly.

I had a non-appstore Mac app pirated and after a known "scene group" released
a keygen and the app started to appear on known sites the sales actually
increased. (Though it was nowhere near a 200% increase.)

