Developer considers charges after iPhone app is pirated
The developer of an iPhone app that has been cracked and distributed for free said he is considering pursuing criminal charges against whoever is responsible for the piracy.
The pirated app, Annoy-A-Teen, emits a high pitched noise that teenagers can't stand.
(Credit: Annoy-A-Teen)On the Apple App Store, Annoy-A-Teen sells for 99 cents. But now you can get the amusing app--which plays a high-pitched tone at the press of a button that is inaudible to most adults but highly annoying to teens--for free on a pirate site, said Christopher Kemsley, an electrical engineering student trying to pay his way through college.
"I made, in a month, about the same amount of money as professionals I know in high-tech jobs" from sales of the app, he said on Friday.
Kemsley said he has been in contact with authorities in the state he believes the person responsible resides, has reported the incident to the FBI Internet Crimes unit, and will be contacting authorities in his home state of Arizona to determine if he should pursue the charges.
The app was cracked using a program called Crackulous, which allows someone to obtain an unencrypted version of an encrypted app by copying the code from an iPhone's memory, according to Kemsley. The iPhone decrypts apps and loads them into memory to run the program and then discards the app from memory when the user quits the program, he said. A jailbroken iPhone, in which the operating system has been hacked, is needed to run these cracked apps.
Apple did not respond to repeated calls and e-mails seeking comment.
Kemsley isn't the first to have his iPhone app pirated. James Bossert, the developer of the Whack 'em All iPhone game, told CNET News earlier this week that he will be releasing an ad-supported free version of his game after finding that it had been pirated.
In that case, the alleged pirate told Bossert in an e-mail that apps wouldn't get pirated if people were able to try out trial versions of the programs before having to shell out any money. In response to that comment, Kemsley said he will soon be offering a limited free demo version of Annoy-A-Teen.
"Crackers shouldn't be able to dictate or force us to have a trial version," he said.
Elinor Mills covers Internet security and privacy. She joined CNET News in 2005 after working as a foreign correspondent for Reuters in Portugal and writing for The Industry Standard, the IDG News Service, and the Associated Press. E-mail Elinor. 
And you... You seem to be saying that it's HIS fault and not the hacker's...
You, sir, are a pinhead.
Now, it is down to the developers.
up next "steve jobs has irregular bowel movement"
Crackers? No, just common sense.
With Annoy-A-Teen for example, if someone can get a trial app, I don't think they'll bother buying the full app, because the trial version will do everything they want already!
I'll agree that iPhone apps shouldn't be pirated but on the other hand some of them could use a trial version (I've wasted some money already on stupid applications). I have a jailbroken iphone but have no illegal applications on it.
It is a hard thing to do - something I'm still trying to figure out how to do. Best I can do is have an annoying ill-featured version or none at all :/
@shinji257
I'm not confusing them. Perhaps I'm not being as clear as I should be, but the term still applies.
In addition to your definition, a hacker is someone who's proficient in the subject *and* misuses it - either for personal gain or for malicious intent.
These people have ti *hack* their device to give them access to it so that they can *crack* the application. Granted, most are lazy and use a program to easily hack it then a program to easily crack it, but what they're doing is the same.
The great thing about the app store is that, even if you do buy a crap application, it's still dirt cheap (usually). Even if, say, two thirds of your apps are cracked, without the app store, you'd be paying even more to get only the good apps.
Then, months later, you go back and wonder "what's this application?" and find that the developer finally got around to what he should have done in the first place and made it better. There ya go, even more.
You don't have to 'hack' hardware in order to 'crack' the application: both are badly misused in that sentence.
Let me get this straight. Because the author "should realize he's going to have his app pirated" he's somehow an idiot that shouldn't do anything about it because the criminal's "just going to do it anyway"? WHAT? It's quite clear that he's considering pursuing criminal charges (not a civil suit) against the cracker, himself, who, rather than being able to write such an amazingly simple yet effective app by himself, instead needs to use cracking software written by someone else to steal it. Who's the real idiot?
Listen up. Software theft costs everyone $BILLIONS every year, making YOU pay more for the software YOU buy because the developer has to make up for the losses caused by dishonest dimwits. This makes everyone poorer. In an economy like ours, why would we tolerate such theft?
Crackers shouldn't be able to force us to do anything ? like pay higher prices to support their lazy butts. However, we should be able to make them pay for their crimes. We have to stand up against these morons who think they have the right to YOUR property.
For goodness' sake: Annoy-A-Teen's ONLY 99 CENTS!
Only a moron would steal something that costs less than a bottle of Coke!
I dare say that some here would be singing a different tune if it were THEIR application that'd been stolen.
Ok I kinda wandered off but other than that one sentence I agree with everything else you said. It seems we think more highly of criminals and I guess in this case hackers and such. It's as if we believe they're less of a bad thing simply because they may be more common or something. 1 criminal among 10 is no different from 1 criminal alone, and like you said Joe, the victim shouldn't be blamed for not giving the hackers credit and just EXPECTED that the app would be pirated. Sure, it might happen, but he needed (to some extent) the money, and a trial version might not have been as effective or even enough.
If we started dealing with them directly instead of taking them for granted and trying to work around them, then maybe there'd be less "bad people".
This article actually feeds into this crackers ego.
But I agree with you... it's one thing to crack an app to prove to yourself that you can do it if you wish, it's yet another if you're ruining another person's chances of going to college because of it.
Or maybe this cracker's a teenage kid who was really annoyed by this "toy"?
As for software companies losing money on pirated software... Well, it depends on the situation of the developer... Many software developers actually want their software to be pirated, to give their software exposure to the market and then strengthen the anti-piracy mechanism as the app becomes more popular.
Many times, during the earlier years of Microsoft, you would hear Ballmer say that if anybody would pirate software he wants it to be Microsoft's software. Obviously that strategy worked for them.
"As for software companies losing money on pirated software... Well, it depends on the situation of the developer... Many software developers actually want their software to be pirated, to give their software exposure to the market and then strengthen the anti-piracy mechanism as the app becomes more popular.
Many times, during the earlier years of Microsoft, you would hear Ballmer say that if anybody would pirate software he wants it to be Microsoft's software. Obviously that strategy worked for them."
If they want it to, fine. But most don't and should not be penalized for going after the hackers/crackers.
Err, so you'd prefer to pay $9.99 per app instead, over and over again? Get real. 99c per app is superb.
99 cents? sure, it's not worth cracking. However, it is also not worth crying about. The only thing I find obserd is how crackers are lazy and use programs to crack.
"but the only person being affected is the developer, for making such a rediculous app."
Of course he's the only person being affected by his application being hacked. And, in all reality, he's not the only person as Apple takes 30% of the income from the app store too.
Indirectly, all users are affected when the developers realize that it's not worth their time to write apps and stop doing so.
Excellent point.
"Sharing the wealth", which, let's be honest, is at the heart of these justifications of getting someone else's property for free, just doesn't work.
The entrepreneur, the person who excels will cease to do it if there's no benefit in doing it, if said benefit is forcibly "shared" with others for free.
Do you want people to create something you want?
DON'T STEAL IT.
$0.99 x 1000 is $900, which is a conservative estimate at how many people illegally stole Annoy-A-Teen.
That IS a big deal.
I bet that number is close to 0.
You have absolutely no idea how many would have purchased it and no way to determine that. That's a specious argument.
I bet many would have bought it.
See.
While piracy in any form will never die, there's a large group of people involved in that community who have no problem paying for apps, and just want a way to try them to make sure they're a quality product first. With an app store containing thousands of useless and misrepresented applications, this trial system -- regardless of whether it's "right" or not -- is what many otherwise honest people are turning to after wasting so much money on apps that they ended up deleting 15 minutes after purchase.
It is very easy for these developers to put a youtube video out there of their application working to demonstrate it. it is also equally easy to put up a simple homepage site for their application which is linked to directly from the App Store. For them to say it is 'hard' or complicated, or impossible to demonstrate their software effectively is absurd. They control the text that advertises and explains their software on the App Store page, and they can say videos available to demo this program. The simple truth is many are not even making an effort to put forth a trustworthy image of themselves as Software Developers... as such it is no wonder so many people are frustrated that they cannot trial or preview the applications before buying. The application that spurred this article is so braindead simple it could have taken this guy an afternoon to build it, post it, and start collecting (I'm not trying to insinuate it was not smart for him to do, I wish I did it first, but it was not a significant effort). He could have demonstrated it effectively if he had taken a few hours to think about how.
First of all, Annoy-A-Teen DOES have a web site with demonstration videos - despite the difficulty inherent in demoing sounds that most CAN'T HEAR! Yet, they are there. Check it out - directly from iTunes.
Second, the desire for a missing demo does not in any way justify cracking an app. EVER.
Third. The cracker wasn't as altruistic as you portray, simply wanting to try it out so he could buy it. HE BOUGHT IT - that's how he had it and he then put it on 2 file sharing sites (it should be easy for you to find out which). He therefore most definitely did not do it just to try it out.
This is the big lie of crackers.
Stop defending the indefensible.
Stop using weak minded rationalizations that everyone knows are ridiculous.
You can't justify it. Period.
Can you provide undeniable facts that prove your thesis that cracked software given away for free actually results in higher sales figures? This needs to show that this generated more sales than the sales would have been had the free version not been illegally distributed. It
I don't believe you can do that without a lot of hand waiving.
This just sounds like rationalization in defense of the indefensible.
Just my two cents.
You will never see hard data on how much piracy contributes to the bottom line, but we do know the net cost (for example) of 1,000 pilfered apps is $0 since there is essentially no cost to duplicate an app... so it's not like 1,000 loaves of bread are being taken from a baker at a cost of $240, because with software there is no physical item to produce...
A pirated app is not lost income because that app wouldn't have sold if it weren't pirated... in sum, piracy is another form of getting the word out about your great apps... then let karma take over from there.
As the music industry has finally learned, DRM doesn't work, let data flow freely, then may the best band or (software developer) win.
There is most definitely a tangible, net loss associated with it: lost income - unless you presume that NONE of those who use stolen software would never have wanted it enough to actually purchase it had there not been a free version. That's a claim that can't be proven, just as it can't be proven that some who steal it end up buying in the long run.
There is always a net loss because some of those who stole it because they wanted and continue to use it but never pay for it in the end.
However, just because theft won't stop doesn't mean you shouldn't fight it while continuing to make the best product you can for those who WILL pay for it.
"'Pirates are underserved customers. When you think about it that way, you think, "Oh my gosh, I can do some interesting things and make some interesting money off of it."
'Piracy' has a number of facets that if content producers and content distributors took a step back and adjusted their business model, maybe they wouldn't be in the situation they are now. It's too easy to shake a self-righteous fist and say the immoral pirates are to blame. Maybe developers should take a step back and rethink if the iPhone is the right platform for them to develop on.
That article is short on specifics beyond "Russians want to get their hands on it NOW rather than waiting for the official distribution channels" and "giving some things away for free spike sales on other products". However, they don't say how many Russians eventually buy it when it does arrive on their shelves and it doesn't say
So, you can't derive anything more than "think outside of the box", which is always a good idea. If a company sees an advantage, then that's their decision.
However, let's be honest here. All of the "crackers are good" posters are conflating two issues: (1) the specific CHEAP CHEAP CHEAP $0.99 Annoy-A-Teen app, and (2) a general thesis about crackers, market approaches, etc, of which you are using Annoy-A-Teen as a mascot.
In the case of the general issue, we can discuss and brainstorm.
However, in the case of Annoy-A-Teen, this argument is ridiculous.
It's ONLY $0.99 for god's sake.
It has a web site demoing and proving its functionality.
It has user comments proving its functionality and utility.
There's no excuse.
cnet News: Piracy prompts iPhone developer to put ads in game
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10142318-83.html?tag=mncol
Press release: Whack 'em all to offer free version of game
http://fairladymedia.com/node/17
We continue to welcome comments on this important issue!
Thanks!
- by MattjDrake February 4, 2009 6:10 AM PST
- As a developer myself it is a frustrating experience to see people's work get stolen from them. It seems that a solution is that we need to make buying the software a better experience than stealing it. This means good support, automatic updates, etc. I think a lot of customers will find that a smooth experience with a product over time is worth the investment when stealing is too annoying. Really, how much is your time worth? Do you really want to waste your time on trying to use shady websites, "hacking" your phone? Maybe not we have a better solution.
- Like this Reply to this comment
-
(44 Comments)