I recently released a new iPhone and iPad application which requires external servers to run, thus making each pirate copy a money loss to me. I decided to build a mechanism for copy protection which can be remotely enabled.<p>The app made it to the top 20 in its category, so pirates didn't take more than a couple of hours to post cracked binaries. I've been checking the server logs and the legit users to pirates ratio is around 20%. I've downloaded the cracked binaries and the copy protection is still there. Basically, the app runs some critical operations using a custom bytecode through an interpreter, which means it's not easy to crack. I'm sure a determined cracker can reverse engineer all of that, but it will take them some time.<p>I haven't enabled the protection yet and I'd really like to hear from someone who has done something like this before, specially:<p>- Did it increase sales?<p>- Percentage of pirates converted to legit users?<p>- Would you immediately prevent the pirates from using the app or let them use it for a couple of days, maybe a week, so they can properly test the app before deciding if they're going to buy it or simply look for an alternative?<p>- Would you disable the app completely or just introduce some painful limitations?
I'm not sure what your app does, but you could make it more reliant on your servers and require an account.<p>The app would be a front-end to your service. So even if someone pirated it, it wouldn't matter because they would need an account on your service.<p>This is how I've started to structure all of my new apps.<p>It's funny how people still pirate the hell out of $1 or less apps. One of the main excuses from many pirates was that software was "too expensive".<p>It seems when app developers meet all of the demands of the pirates, they don't stop. They continue with a new set of excuses. This is a clear example as to why you don't negotiate with criminals. They will just bleed you dry.
I think you should display a message like Panic did before with Transmit when people entered pirated serials.. Don't reprimand but be polite asking them not to pirate your stuff.. The effect you're looking for is for the pirate to feel a bit guilty...<p>You can then either limit the functionality to a free lite version of the app, or put a time limit for them to try or just disable the app...<p>If you plan on putting a time limit, it might make better sense the show that message after maybe 2 or 3 use of the application so that the user has already tested it and likes it.
In the 80's our company (very small) received a letter from an official/whatever in the German Postal service wondering if he could arrange the purchase of around 5,000 manuals for our software. This came as a enormous surprise in that we had never in fact sold any of our software to any one in Germany! Instead of the predictable reaction of revenge and lawyers, we decided to cut the guy one hell of a deal. We sold him photo ready masters for the manual and a great deal on a site-wide license. There after whenever a new version came out we could count on a tidy chunk of change for the upgrade fee from a source we hadn't even know about. While the situation here is obviously different, the conclusion we came to is what I'd recommend. Calculate the cost of fighting piracy and determine if subtracting that from the cost of improving your product is worth it. We decided that it wasn't We did however pretty much make the same deal open to everyone. Most people like the idea of amnesty particularly if it costs less than the original purchase price!
This discussion on HN may help you with your decision: <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=503959" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=503959</a><p>tl;dr <i>Desktop sw companies are about to discover a variant of Wilde's remark: the only thing worse than being pirated is not being pirated</i>
I believe you should absolutely disable pirated copies, and try to make sure the pirate users know they've been caught. Honesty compels me to mention that my motivation for this is not that I believe it will help your business; it is that I believe the major obstacle to widespread conscious adoption of free, open source software by end users is that piracy of proprietary software is widely tolerated. If proprietary software made more effort to prevent unauthorized copying and use, it would really drive adoption of FOSS.
Dunno what kind of application. But it think you should do it like github & 37signals. Make sure your software is usable for free and add some features for which real customers would pay. Dont work against piracy. Its lots of effort for nothing, because there will always ppl who find a way to crack your software - and, IMHO, thats absolutely okay.<p>If your app is good enough, it will be pirated, but that means LOTS of ppl get to know about it and, at least, few of them will pay for.
Try getting paid for ur app using ads instead. Making it free this way for the users would be a win-win situation for all. I don't know if this is possible on iPhone and iPad apps or not, but thats how some jar games on my Nokia phone work, so I'm guessing that should be an option for you too. You could post on your app's website (if u've any) that any interested advertisers can contact you if they wish to advertise using ur app :-)
Can you prorate? I.e. give the pirates the service but on a first-come first served basis, basically allow them to use one server if the capacity allows, if not, display that "free version has limited access". All paid customers are on separate servers, with great service, and your additional costs are minimal.<p>And pirates can use the app and convert to paid customers once the delays/notifications become a showstopper for them.
While I do not know the details of your application such as whether or not ads are displayed.<p>Is it possible that you display ads to pirated users and no ads to legitimate buyers? I do not have experience with iPhone/iPad development so I am not sure if this is even possible.
Since its an ip(o|a)d app, I'd either a) just not release anymore with a message saying "it was cracked. Goodbye" (Much like some comic artists -> porn of their comic) or b) Tell people who pirate the app to just go pay for the damn thing and bail or c) Just ignore it.
If you can reliably determine a pirate, maybe you could add some ads to your app conditionally on that. I've heard CTRs are way better in Cydia apps when the developer asks for support (than in App Store).