Piracy Doubled My App Sales

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.<p>Way back in the day, I co-wrote an early networked multiplayer game on the Mac, <i>Spectre</i>. 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.<p>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".

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.<p>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.

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 - <a href="http://hackulo.us/forums/index.php?s=4a4a9c10b678d8400dee0d56087f4c20&#38;showtopic=12255" rel="nofollow">http://hackulo.us/forums/index.php?s=4a4a9c10b678d8400dee0d5...</a>

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

From the author's text: &#62; My app has a sharing feature: if you like the app, you can email your friends about it.<p>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.

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

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

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?

ITS. ITS. Really, I'm only that angry because seconds ago I saw this caption: <a href="http://somerville.patch.com/articles/photo-gallery-snow-art-flash-mob-creates-wintry-art-and-an-epic-snowball-fight#photo-4475935" rel="nofollow">http://somerville.patch.com/articles/photo-gallery-snow-art-...</a><p>I mean, maybe we should change that rule or something so people stop breaking it.

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.<p>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.)