In a recent interview, Rovio CEO Mikael Hed said that app piracy isn’t a huge threat to their signature title, Angry Birds. In fact, it may help increase their popularity. Hed draws a lot of parallels to the music industry, and sees suing your fanbase as fundamentally “futile”.

“We took something from the music industry, which was to stop treating the customers as users, and start treating them as fans. We do that today: we talk about how many fans we have. If we lose that fanbase, our business is done, but if we can grow that fanbase, our business will grow. … Piracy may not be a bad thing: it can get us more business at the end of the day.”

This is pretty smart on Rovio’s part, since they don’t just have a little slingshot game now — they have a brand. That brand is proving to be way more valuable for cartoons, merchandise, and cross-licensing (like the case with Rio) than as an iPhone app. It’s on these fronts that Rovio is staying agressive.

“We have some issues with piracy, not only in apps, but also especially in the consumer products. There is tons and tons of merchandise out there, especially in Asia, which is not officially licensed products.”

While Angry Birds might be the exception rather than the rule when it comes to app store success stories, Hed’s mindset here should show that publishers should always be thinking beyond the app. There’s a big world outside of mobile apps, and the more of it developers can latch hooks into, the more relevant their software becomes.

Of course, smaller developers might think that’s easy for Hed and his massive pork-and-poultry-fed bank account to say. With thinner margins for their apps, and nowhere near the same popularity with which they could viably sell shirts, plushies, or other branded goods, no doubt they’re hit much harder by app piracy than Rovio.

Source: The Guardian

iPhone Dev-Team member MuscleNerd has gone on the record stating a port of Siri to other iOS devices outside of the new iPhone 4S will require piracy, and likely won’t ever see the light of day as a consequence.

Anyone hoping for a “port” of Siri from iPhone4S: pending a very low-level A5 exploit, it likely can’t be done without piracy

(only way to extract Siri files from iPhone4S filesystem without pirating is to have the main FS keys, requiring low-level exploit)

Essentially, the only way to get Siri working on other iOS devices would be to take the required files from an iPhone 4S and transfer them onto the other device manually. It’s also possible that Apple may flag such devices since Siri talks to Apple’s servers to complete certain tasks.

On the other hand, piracy in the jailbreak community has been running rampant lately, so it’s also possible we could see this come from other, less ethical jailbreak developers.

Source: MuscleNerd

Piracy exists in many different media platforms – movies, music, books, video games and yes, even iPhone applications. Exactly how big is iPhone application piracy to date? According to 24/7 Wall Street, the App Store has lost over $450 million since it’s inception.

It is estimated that for every application sold in the App Store, 3 more are then pirated. Who’s to blame for this? Of course, all of the blame is being put upon the iPhone jailbreakers. While none of us here at TiPb are against the jailbreak process as it’s intended purpose was not related to piracy, we all knew it was simply a matter of time before someone found a way to exploit it for the sole purpose of stealing iPhone applications. This hurts the developers the most as some have reported piracy rates has high as 95%.

To this very day, Apple simply toys with the process or they turn their head the other way. It should be interesting to see if, in the future, Apple helps developers battle jailbreaking similar to how Microsoft helped game developers when they started banning Xbox 360 owners from their Xbox Live service (Online Gaming Community) for playing pirated games while online. The developers cried out to Microsoft for help and they came through the only way that is currently possible. Again, we are not against jailbreaking but something does need to be put in place to help developers fight piracy.

In-app purchases could be part of the solution for some developers, but the model won’t work for everyone. What else can they do? What else should Apple do?

[Via Barrons.com via 24/7 Wall Street]

Did Apple close the 24kpwn exploit in the latest shipments of the iPhone 3GS due to app piracy? MobileCrunch thinks it’s certainly a factor:

While jailbreaking allows for countless wonderful (but otherwise disallowed) apps to run on the iPhone, it also allows cracked versions of paid applications to be installed. As a result, piracy is mind-blowingly, soul-crushingly rampant on the iPhone. Many iPhone developers – such as those behind the popular IM client, Beejive – are reporting that 80 percent of their users are pirates. Yep. For every 10 users on Beejive, 8 of them didn’t pay for it. I’m no saint myself, and all of us here fully understand that a download does not equal a lost sale – but when 80% of the people using your app (and in Beejive’s case, your servers) aren’t paying to keep the lights on, it’s likely seen as a big issue.

As Jeremy posted yesterday, Apple has begun shipping iPhone 3GS with new boot ROMs patched against the longstanding 24kpwn exploit commonly used to Jailbreak the devices. We also saw some reports on the state of app piracy from Pinch Media.

What do you think? Would Apple turn a blinder eye towards Jailbreaking if app piracy wasn’t a factor? Or is Apple duty bound to patch known security exploits no matter what?

Back in February we brought to you the story about Apple saying that Jailbreaking your iPhone is illegal. Granted that was in response the (Electronic Frontier Foundation), and their filing an exemption request for Jailbreaking iPhones. (See the AIPLA Quarterly Journal’s article on this from last week). Well this past Friday Apple’s head of marketing, Greg Joswiak, faced off against Fred von Lohmann, the EFF’s copyright guru and a plethora of Copyright Office officials. The topic? Jailbreaking…

The following is a little taste of what Apple had to say:

Apple is opposed to the proposed Class #1 exemption because it will destroy the technological protection of Apple’s key copyrighted computer programs in the iPhone™ device itself and of copyrighted content owned by Apple that plays on the iPhone, resulting in copyright infringement, potential damage to the device and other potential harmful physical effects, adverse effects on the functioning of the device, and breach of contract. The proponents of the exemption have also not satisfied their burden of proof of showing harm to non-infringing uses of the copyrighted works protected by the technological protection measures on the iPhone. In addition, because Congress has already explicitly addressed circumvention for interoperability in Section 1201(f) of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA),4 the Copyright Office should not create interoperability exemptions outside that statutory structure, at least without a clear showing of specific and significant harm, which has not been put forth here.

The way we see this is that Apple is against Jailbreaking for the simple fact that it can and will cost them money. Common sense will tell you that Apple does not get any money from iPhone users if they do not use the App Store for installing applications and they also run the risk of legit App Store apps being pirated, which we have already seen. So TiPb can see where Apple is coming from but at the end of the day, if you purchase an iPhone or any other device for that matter, it is yours to do with what ever you’d like.

For a complete rundown of all the shenanagins that took place this past Friday be sure to check out Wired.com’s Jailbreaking Showdown.

[Via Wired.com]

First we had Crackulous, and now as is the case with any sort of media today, piracy is running rampant. It is something that is bound to happen no matter how many ways are created to prevent it. DVD’s, CD’s, Satellite TV, Video Games, and now iPhone applications. According to Wired.com nearly 20% of all the App Store apps have been pirated and are now available. One torrent file of 5.4 gigabytes worth of apps, 808 cracked apps to be exact, was recently floating around on the web. It’s all out there to grab… but it doesn’t make it right and no we won’t tell you where.

Wired.com interviewed a creator of one of these pirated app web sites:

“We want people to think of these as trial apps since Apple doesn’t allow trials of apps before purchase,” said “Omar,” one of the creators of the site, who refused to disclose his real name to Wired.com. “It’s Apple’s fault for not putting up a trials system.”

Has “Omar” ever really been on the App Store lately? There are lite versions all over the App Store and that rests in the developers hands whether or not they want to make that available, but certainly that is not Apple’s fault. Right? Either way, this is getting out of control just a bit, I mean you have pirates pirating other pirates now!

So who really is to blame for this piracy gone crazy in the App Store? Apple? Developers? Let us know where you stand on this one!

[Via Wired.com]

Ok, well Apple is really not selling $200 iTunes gift cards for only $2.60 so keep dreaming. But according to Music Ally Chinese “pirates” have hacked the algorithm that generates the iTunes gift cards and so now fake cards are flooding the market for as low as $2.60 in China. When we say flooding we literally mean flooding the Chinese market:

Apparently six months ago, a $200 card went for around 320 RMB (roughly $47), but the price has since plummeted to around 18 RMB ($2.60) as more sellers pile in.

With the iPhone 3G getting ready to make an appearance in China it should be interesting to see just how Apple responds to this. Apple will more than likely make a quick change to nullify the pirates ability to create these cards but it’s not like you can do away with the ones already in circulation as there is no easy way to decipher a bogus card from one that is legit (unless they have some super secret Apple wonder-ETL and ad-hoc query/number-crunching monster we don’t know about).

[Via Music Ally]

Crackulous, while surrounded by some initial humor, wasn’t funny for developers who work night and day to feed their families only to see their work ripped off. (Come on, how many of us would like it if developers walked off without paying for their ultra-sized combo meals at our work!). Well, now it looks like some of them are fighting back.

Christina Warren over at TUAW talked to the folks behind the new Kali Anti-Piracy service and liked what she saw:

Essentially, Ripdev has figured out how to put an extra wrapper around iPhone apps, which not only prevents the app from launching or functioning properly if it has been cracked, but also prevents the current cracking tools from working on the app at all. Even better, this process only uses documented and allowed calls, making it SDK compliant. Oh — and if the app is legitimately purchased, it can run on a jailbroken iPhone without a problem.

Daring Fireball, for their part, argues that the best anti-piracy doesn’t make itself immediately known, but also doesn’t simply kill a pirated app from running: that might just spread rumors that the app is unstable instead of protected. He references one of my favorite anti-piracy stories of the recent age, involving developer Panic.

In general, however, the iPhone has a unique ID, knows who you are, and where you are, so we have to wonder if even the idea of “corroding the soul” isn’t enough to stop piracy, the threat of angry developers pwning the pirates might constrain it slightly?

Ridiculously funny exchange between Adam from Gizmodo and the developer of Crackulous — the jailbreak app meant to pirate legitimate apps, see Jeremy’s post this morning — who’s complaining that someone is illegitimately pirating his hard work.

Adam, you are linking to a pirated version of the app. Please link to REMOVED (the official Crackulous site) instead of supporting the pirates in the crackulous article. Thanks.

Are you serious? This isn’t a joke? You’re seriously trying to stop an app designed to pirate apps from being pirated?

No but I need people to support my work… I deserve appreciation.

But the people who have legit apps that Craculous will help pirate don’t? You honestly don’t see the irony here?

Would you say it’s ironic or… poetic?

[Thanks to Jamesus for the tip!]

[UPDATE: Erica Sadun of Ars Technica weighs in on Crackulous, and the humor of pirating pirate software... - Rene]

Let me start out by saying none of us here at TiPb condone any type of piracy. You think you deserve to get paid at the end of the day for your work? So do developers and their hungry children.

That being said, Apple must be saying Uh-Oh right about now. Crackulous, which is now available via Cydia, enables you to strip the protection off most apps from the App Store. What this simply means is if a single person purchases an app, he or she can put the app out there — for free — for anyone who has a Jailbroken iPhone to grab.

Of course, it was simply a matter of time before someone in the Jailbreak community came up with an app such as Crackulous, and we can just imagine how many new Jailbreak artists there will be because of this new app.

You can pretty much count on the fact that Apple is already addressing this issue with a FairPlay (their DRM that wraps all iTunes App Store apps) fix that will turn up in the next software update. Another cat and mouse game has just been born.

[Via Engadget Mobile, thanks to themurdock for the tip]