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Extreme antipiracy measures....

I have no idea where this topic should go so im putting it here.
Ill start off by saying this: I'm a fifteen year old kid with no money, and sometimes I pirate apps. This isn't about piracy like where should i go for it etc. Because i know that is against the rules. I don't have any way to buy apps or i would, im poor and i don't have a credit or debit card to use. So devs aren't losing money by me pirating. And i know its wrong and i shouldn't do it. Its just the only way to get things sometimes.
If you're still reading and haven't already reported me, here is my story.
Last night i was just messing with my phone, playing games and talking to friends. My phone randomly rebooted and started going into a bootloop of sorts; it would start up and i could get to the homescreen but it was almost unresponsive and i was getting a lot of force closes. I couldn't figure out the issue so i did a backup and a data wipe, planning to restore from TitaniumBackup.
That's when i figured out the problem. My sD card had been completely wiped, all 14 gigs of music, videos, important documents, pictures, apps, everything. It was all gone and replaced with 1037 pictures of a penis with a smiley face drawn on it, captioned "**** you mobilism stop stealing from droidfanz" which i have no idea who mobilism is or what droidfanz is.
I ran recuva on the card hoping to find my files somehow but it only found 3000 more of the pictures along with lots of random pictures of porn and concerts and people jumping off of houses onto mattresses.
I guess im mostly making this thread as 1. A shoutout to mobilism, droidfanz, whoever else caused this to say, you're an ass. Piracy is wrong but there are lots of things you could do that aren't going to destroy my life by deleting all of my personal documents. If i had the ability to buy your apps then i would.
2. A notice to other people... Don't pirate. At least be careful because some developers would rather destroy you than just make it so you can't use their app or something.
That's it. Ban me if you want, i figured i should at least get this out there to warn people. Im going to be trying to restore my life for the next few days anyways.
Sent from my SCH-I500 using XDA App

Good you deserved this. You stole apps from devs which is like taking there life. It only seems fitting that a dev returns the favor. Hope you learned. Also invest in a pre load debt card so you can legitimately purchase apps. Being broke is not an excuse for piracy and sure as hell wouldn't stand in court. Look at it this way .99 cents for an app or thousands in fees cause you got caught pirating.
Sent from my futuristic phone

Wow, that's crazy.
Mobilism and Droidfanz are, to the best of my knowledge, warez sites.
Sounds like maybe Droidfaz people are loading files that look like applications, but really are malicious files over to Mobilism in some sort of a war.
Those malicious files could have been further distributed to wherever you go the file from.

I dont agree with you ironlood.
Firstly, fighting fire with fire is not a solution. If someone is doing something wrong, it does not mean that you should do something worse. Revenge is only allowed if it is equal, not worse than the original offence.
Secondly, the OP does not even know if this happened due to a rogue application by a Dev or some hacker at Droidfanz try to get back at mobilism. Its interesting looks like two underground piracy outfits clashing. (I dont know what these sites are, but thats what it sounds like).
I'm not saying piracy is allowed, but lets just not be too anal not to allow extenuating circumstances (although I am not saying this particular case is).
OP, next time stick to free apps only. There is nothing you cant live without.

Wow. I certainly don't pirate apps because I'm a faithful Android fan and truly appreciate the work of the developers. We give them hardly anything for their work so the spare change you pay now and again is well worth it. Sometimes I donate even more after I buy their apps.
That being said, I don't want any chance of this happening to my phone because I downloaded a rogue app that made it to the market or was shared in the community. If someone does that to me, I'll sue them only because I can't physically beat the f*** out of them.
You shouldn't pirate though, bro. Pirate from big corporations like Microsoft as they inflate their prices and can afford it. Don't pirate from the college student who's starving and worse off than you!

bongd said:
Wow. I certainly don't pirate apps because I'm a faithful Android fan and truly appreciate the work of the developers. We give them hardly anything for their work so the spare change you pay now and again is well worth it. Sometimes I donate even more after I buy their apps.
That being said, I don't want any chance of this happening to my phone because I downloaded a rogue app that made it to the market or was shared in the community. If someone does that to me, I'll sue them only because I can't physically beat the f*** out of them.
You shouldn't pirate though, bro. Pirate from big corporations like Microsoft as they inflate their prices and can afford it. Don't pirate from the college student who's starving and worse off than you!
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lol Its like saying steal from the RICH they won't mind it!
Piracy Is Piracy.
But please don't give me the crap that all of you guys are saints...YOU ARE NOT!
@OP That was a very peculiar "virus". The thing i don't understand that doesn't a virus NOT need superuser permissions(ROOT) to access your system??

Money for an Android mobile and a 16 GB SD card but no 99 Cent to buy an app? That's ridiculous.
And that wasn't done by the developer. You caught a Trojan...
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App

Did you know that if you walked in a store and stole a shirt, you would get arrested? I'm pretty sure that it wouldn't matter if you were rich or poor and whether or not you could afford it. You got what you deserved.

edisso10018 said:
Money for an Android mobile and a 16 GB SD card but no 99 Cent to buy an app? That's ridiculous.
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This is true. You obviously could afford to buy apps if you wanted to, you just don't want to because you can get them for free.

Just for the sake of conversation.
Why is it ok to violate your TOS as well as abuse your carrier by getting around their bandwidth usage requirements and tethering options but piracy off applications is wrong?
Who decides what is right and wrong in this situation? The danger to android isn't merely fragmentation, it is the wild west nature of open source and whether developers will continue to contribute at such a rate knowing that there is no law or protection in place to keep their work as financially viable.
These are topics that android will have to deal with and sort whether it is by google or by the community coming to some sort of developer support agreement.
Really is neat watching an industry find its way. I just hope it doesn't get lost in the process.

thanks for sharing about your misfortunes and hopefully you learned from it! Best of luck!

edisso10018 said:
Money for an Android mobile and a 16 GB SD card but no 99 Cent to buy an app? That's ridiculous.
And that wasn't done by the developer. You caught a Trojan...
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App
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That isn't ridiculous. More like my parents saved up to my me a phone as a birthday present, it was free with the special Christmas deal from US Cellular and it came with the card. Both the phone and card were actually free for my parents to buy and were a birthday present for me, we're just paying for the plan and I still have no money to buy apps.
backwoods99 said:
Just for the sake of conversation.
Why is it ok to violate your TOS as well as abuse your carrier by getting around their bandwidth usage requirements and tethering options but piracy off applications is wrong?
Who decides what is right and wrong in this situation? The danger to android isn't merely fragmentation, it is the wild west nature of open source and whether developers will continue to contribute at such a rate knowing that there is no law or protection in place to keep their work as financially viable.
These are topics that android will have to deal with and sort whether it is by google or by the community coming to some sort of developer support agreement.
Really is neat watching an industry find its way. I just hope it doesn't get lost in the process.
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I agree. All the people telling me I deserved it.... yeah you are probably right, I shouldn't have done it but you can't say I'm taking money from the dev because no matter what he isn't going to get money from me because I don't have any to give.
And I'm sure you've all stolen music or used a tethering app or something that isn't legal.

sageDieu said:
And I'm sure you've all stolen music or used a tethering app or something that isn't legal.
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Get a job. You had this coming, as far as I'm concerned.

The whole penis thing might be a little extreme but i guess you deserved it.

What comes around goes around, you steal apps and now you lost everything. Being broke is not an excuse for being a douch-bag and stealing apps. I don't think telling a judge I was broke so I stole it would be a good defense. Not to mention you "stole" an item that is not something you need to live like stealing food not that that is ok either. I hope this was a lesson learned.

sageDIEU, fair play to you for openly telling your story.. you've probably learnt your lesson anyway now, although your reasons are more than dubious (still doesn't make it right in my opinion, just because I've not got the money now or ever to buy a ferrari, doesn't mean I can just go and pinch one)
The only issue I have, is that some developers expect you to pay for a product that has no decent demo. There's plenty of people producing crap apps for android and other OS's and expecting money for it. I've already paid for quite a few apps that have turned out to be a complete waste of money. I'd rather try an app (by whatever means) and then I'll gladly pay the developer for his work if it's a good product, if it's not, it doesn't stay on my phone and the developer won't get my dough.

Just about everyone uses a hacked app for whatever reason in their life. I don't judge anyone for doing so, but you should never ever keep important files on just 1 storage location. You can always lose/break it.
Learn from this!
Try searching for undelete/unformat software. Maybe you will be able to recover some of it. Good luck..

adhikarb said:
lol Its like saying steal from the RICH they won't mind it!
Piracy Is Piracy.
But please don't give me the crap that all of you guys are saints...YOU ARE NOT!
@OP That was a very peculiar "virus". The thing i don't understand that doesn't a virus NOT need superuser permissions(ROOT) to access your system??
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Corporations rob consumers, they're the only ones I would not feel bad about when it comes to pirating. I don't need commercial apps from huge corps most of the time though, outside of an OS. There are usually freeware versions which are better and have direct support from the developer. I'd rather have a free app with customizations and bug fixes from direct developer correspondence than a commercial app from a huge corp in most cases. Wouldn't you?
And **** off with the saint comment. I'm not elitist. I just think if a hard working Joe does a good job, I'd rather commend him instead of some money grubbing corporation. This is a tight community. And would you rather give a friend money or a stranger money? I'd rather give a friend money, any day of the week. Especially if they've developed an app that I use EVERY SINGLE DAY and only paid a dollar or two for!!!!
You guys are so ****ing cheap. End of story. I hope your phones get hacked. There's absolutely no reason to ***** about a dollar or two here and there for an app that you'll use day in, day out.

All of you people giving analogies of 'pirating' with 'stealing' do not know what an IP is. That analogy is WRONG.
Also, you really think rooting your phone and installing custom roms is not a violation?

hav0c said:
Just about everyone uses a hacked app for whatever reason in their life. I don't judge anyone for doing so, but you should never ever keep important files on just 1 storage location. You can always lose/break it.
Learn from this!
Try searching for undelete/unformat software. Maybe you will be able to recover some of it. Good luck..
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Agreed, and I doubt you were punished by the developper you stole apps from.
You should really be carefull on what you install, especially on those uncontrolled warez sites.

Music beta, I just don't get google sometimes

http://www.neowin.net/news/googles-...ted?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Wow, wtf?!? That's all I can say.
//Tap'd on my TBolt while grounded\\

wow smfh this is not cool Google -___-

Music works just fine.
Sent from my ADR6400L using XDA Premium App

had absolutely nothing to do with the music beta though...

If you are mad at google, you have no idea what is going on.

Totally unsurprising, and not unreasonable.
+1 to g00s3y.

This has NOTHING to do with the music beta...

I find it unreasonable. This was clearly done at the whim of the movie studios in the name of anti piracy measures. The reason I can be sure is the moronic logic. Anyone willing to pay in the first place wouldn't be the pirate type. Who is going to pay to watch it just to pirate it? They are making it so people who root their phones can't pay for the content. That leaves one way to view it, piracy. Also if you are smart enough to root a phone, you can certainly fire up a torrent. Shame on Google for bending over to the mpaa and movie studios. Can't say I care all that much though. The studios are shooting themselves in the foot. People will only take so much bull**** and keep dealing with it. If only they had even half a clue what consumers want.
Sent from my ADR6400L using XDA App

I mean...they're all businesses looking to make money. How would you feel if the product you guys worked hard on was being stolen and you weren't getting hard-earned money for it?

@darkroom. I agree with u. There is always get movies n music for free. Y screw those who may actually possibly want to save themselves the footwork and actually cough up the money to buy it..
That and in time a hack will be made to bypass the check for rooted devices. Google should know that already ... as they said themselves that as long as there is security in place there will be a procedure to bypass it...
Sent from my LG-P999 using XDA App

darkrom said:
I find it unreasonable.
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Then, you have the option of not paying for Google videos. That will show them. Isn't the free market great?
This was clearly done at the whim of the movie studios in the name of anti piracy measures.
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Your point being?
Who is going to pay to watch it just to pirate it?
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Of course you're right, because pirates always create their own content, they never start with something that was paid for (camcorder in a theater, unencrypting a DVD, etc.).
They are making it so people who root their phones can't pay for the content. That leaves one way to view it, piracy.
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Really? The only device you can watch video on is your phone? Almost everyone else has a range of choices - theater, DVD, Blu-ray, Netflix, TV, etc. Phones pretty much suck for watching movies, they have small screens and poor audio. The market continues to move toward large screen home theater systems. You don't know what you're missing.

I fear that Android's time as a fully-open platform is limited... If they want to play nice with the corporate world, doors are going to get shut on our faces. At least that's how I see it...

Yeah, lets say screw the law, google will just pay all the lawsuits that they get, no problem. Some of you are idiots.

whytecountry said:
I fear that Android's time as a fully-open platform is limited...
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Huh? Android was never "a fully open platform." The kernel (only) is licensed under the GPL, but most of the rest is licensed under Apache or similar, which has no requirement to provide source. Google makes everything fully available to hardware manufacturers only. That they've made most of it available to anyone is through their generosity, it's got nothing to do with being "open" in the FOSS sense.
What _is_ "open" is application development and distribution - no need to get the gardener to pot your plant inside the wall.
Don't like Google's terms for their forthcoming movie rental biz? Write your own app, and start your own competing one. Google hasn't done anything to stop you.

At the end of the day 10 dollars is too much for a movie. There are way more professions that should make that kinda money. Teachers and doctor's and people like that should be the paid people not the producer who gave input of a video. I'll pirate till they choose to reduce they product
Sent from my ADR6400L using XDA App

jalen156 said:
At the end of the day 10 dollars is too much for a movie. There are way more professions that should make that kinda money. Teachers and doctor's and people like that should be the paid people not the producer who gave input of a video. I'll pirate till they choose to reduce they product
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So, you rationalize your illegal actions, instead of just avoiding the product altogether. You're the problem, not the solution.

Good to see a few people see how reasonable this is. To Google consumers, developers and the 'big wigs' come first, not the tinkers and hackers. As others stated, Google is in the business of making money.
Sent from my ADR6400L

mike.s said:
So, you rationalize your illegal actions, instead of just avoiding the product altogether. You're the problem, not the solution.
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Probably thinks $2.99 is too much for an app that he uses everyday too.

Berzerker7 said:
I mean...they're all businesses looking to make money. How would you feel if the product you guys worked hard on was being stolen and you weren't getting hard-earned money for it?
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Thanks man, I work in the film industry and never can seem to get the point across that its how i support my family. People seem to have the perspective today that well i don't have the money then they buy a case of beer or something and download a movie and its no big deal. Its just like software developers you need to support the community and I'm sure most do but I can't blame the studios for protecting their lively hood. Pirating moves does effect people. However I am a rooted user and still feel its to bad I can't buy movies on a rooted device as I would on a regular basis.

[Q] why develop paid games and apps for android?

ok, first of all I'd like to state that I am not in fact trolling. This is a serious question from one dev to another. I have been devving on android for almost 2 years now and have been devving on wp7 for around 3 months. Studies have shown that despite the clear difference in market share that people who are developing the same app for each OS are making quite a bit more for wp7 and even more for ios of course due to app pirating. I understand why all these rooting and rom apps and over locking apps are made but why would anyone spend all the time to develop a game when the security is so minimal that any app could be either just stolen or given a crack without issue. Its sad really to see developers hard work go unrewarded but app pirating is way too easy. You can go download a folder with 10000 apks of all these different games on a torrent site in about a minute and honestly its sad. I really don't see how android devs survive without ad support.

z33dev33l said:
ok, first of all I'd like to state that I am not in fact trolling. This is a serious question from one dev to another. I have been devving on android for almost 2 years now and have been devving on wp7 for around 3 months. Studies have shown that despite the clear difference in market share that people who are developing the same app for each OS are making quite a bit more for wp7 and even more for ios of course due to app pirating. I understand why all these rooting and rom apps and over locking apps are made but why would anyone spend all the time to develop a game when the security is so minimal that any app could be either just stolen or given a crack without issue. Its sad really to see developers hard work go unrewarded but app pirating is way too easy. You can go download a folder with 10000 apks of all these different games on a torrent site in about a minute and honestly its sad. I really don't see how android devs survive without ad support.
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lol... there are bad people in this world.. and everyone can become a bad person.. so everyone desires to be one? so everyone becomes bad.. nope
k do this.. go to your android market.. search for robo-defence..look at its price.. and look at its downlaods, it will say >500,000 and it cost 2.90 dollars
i think ill do the maths
thats around 1450000 dollars ...
obviously developer actually dint make this much .. but u get my idea.. he made a lot of money .. and if for instance he thought like u .. he would have not made all that money. he dint allow negativity to take over him.
and people who look for un-faithfull means.. find it.. and there are many who know about piracy but they have human values , they always pay.
and trust me there are so many who wodnt even know about where to find these pirated apps .. they actually dont care . These people pay

jags_the1 said:
lol... there are bad people in this world.. and everyone can become a bad person.. so everyone desires to be one? so everyone becomes bad.. nope
k do this.. go to your android market.. search for robo-defence..look at its price.. and look at its downlaods, it will say >500,000 and it cost 2.90 dollars
i think ill do the maths
thats around 1450000 dollars ...
obviously developer actually dint make this much .. but u get my idea.. he made a lot of money .. and if for instance he thought like u .. he would have not made all that money. he dint allow negativity to take over him.
and people who look for un-faithfull means.. find it.. and there are many who know about piracy but they have human values , they always pay.
and trust me there are so many who wodnt even know about where to find these pirated apps .. they actually dont care . These people pay
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You are absolutely right my friend.even though I know where I can find those pirated stuff I bought talking tom, fruit ninja, file downloader plus from the market.respect you in this aspect that people pay

jags_the1 said:
lol... there are bad people in this world.. and everyone can become a bad person.. so everyone desires to be one? so everyone becomes bad.. nope
k do this.. go to your android market.. search for robo-defence..look at its price.. and look at its downlaods, it will say >500,000 and it cost 2.90 dollars
i think ill do the maths
thats around 1450000 dollars ...
obviously developer actually dint make this much .. but u get my idea.. he made a lot of money .. and if for instance he thought like u .. he would have not made all that money. he dint allow negativity to take over him.
and people who look for un-faithfull means.. find it.. and there are many who know about piracy but they have human values , they always pay.
and trust me there are so many who wodnt even know about where to find these pirated apps .. they actually dont care . These people pay
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well I'm on wp7 I i understand paying for apps. I've bought 13 Xbox live titles. Robo defense though has been around since my g1 was still a big device, pirating android apps didn't really start til after the Verizon droid came out and android went mainstream, sure it was there but it wasn't so easy. My stepmom could not navigate Facebook on her computer but she knows how to pirate apps, its made too easy. When I paid 9.99 for zenonia the day it came out and my friend pirated it for free 3 days I i was pretty peeved. These things are just far too easy on android and right now I'm considering if it's worth porting my new RPG over to android or not...

Are you trying to say that you cant pirate wp7 apps? Or that wp7 users have better morals than us droids?

Every platform has piracy. Apologies if it's not right to discuss it here, but jailbreak WP7 and you're free to sideload XNA apps at no cost. Not ethically right, but possible. Exploits will always be found.
It has to do with the user base. As a mass market platform, the vast majority of Android users don't know or care about sideloading applications. You overestimate the lengths people will go to to save one or two dollars. If the right app is available for one click downloading, the convenience outweighs digging around for the right apk file. Same reason why iTunes was so successful in combating music piracy. Make piracy the less appealing option.

When I was a young poor student I was going to the torrent sites for all the software i use. Today i use linux at home( i'd buy a legal os otherwise) and buy all my apps from the market.
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA Premium App

aFo3262 said:
Every platform has piracy. Apologies if it's not right to discuss it here, but jailbreak WP7 and you're free to sideload XNA apps at no cost. Not ethically right, but possible. Exploits will always be found.
It has to do with the user base. As a mass market platform, the vast majority of Android users don't know or care about sideloading applications. You overestimate the lengths people will go to to save one or two dollars. If the right app is available for one click downloading, the convenience outweighs digging around for the right apk file. Same reason why iTunes was so successful in combating music piracy. Make piracy the less appealing option.
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Exactly, why bother going to the effort of hunting around the net, finding an old version of the apk, risking warez sites throwing malware etc at you, just to save $1.99
Yes there is piracy of WP7 apps too, and with such a small market share, there's the potential for it to hit developers' incomes far greater. So perhaps the question should be "Why develope for WP7 when piracy can have a greater impact?"
Think about it, if you've got a large enough market share that 10% piracy still leaves you with a large income from legitimate sales, then although it's a pain, it's still making you lots of money, where as if your sales are low due to the few users who own the device you're developing for, you need that 10% to make a reasonable amount as you can't have the same number of sales as the more popular operating systems.
If I sell $100,000 worth of bananas and it turns out $10,000 was actually stolen, then that still leaves $90,000 in my pocket.
But if I sell only $1000 worth of bananas and $100 were actually stolen, then I've only got $900 in my pocket.

I guess because the majority of users will stay pay for a game or app that they want.
It's the same with PC software and games...many people crack and download them for free, but the majority will still pay for them.

You have to jailbreak iOS and WP7 to sideload apps. That means that >90% of iOS/WP7 users will have to pay.
You can sideload apps on Android straight out of the box without rooting, which makes piracy just as easy as on desktop operating systems.

rogier666 said:
You have to jailbreak iOS and WP7 to sideload apps. That means that >90% of iOS/WP7 users will have to pay.
You can sideload apps on Android straight out of the box without rooting, which makes piracy just as easy as on desktop operating systems.
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And yet people are still making computer programs.
To some developers the trade off is worth it even when you factor in piracy. Look at how many indie games don't have drm making an app is pretty much the same. There are enough people who will buy the app to make a living off of
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App

ok, that is very interesting

dardragon said:
And yet people are still making computer programs.
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Of course.
Piracy is just a bit of background noise. Most pirates wouldn't have bought the app anyway.

What I get from the people around me, is that if the app is good enough or do fit their needs, they're willing to pay for it.
I like to see it this way:
When I get hungry I go to a vending machine a buy let say a Mars or something for 1 euro.
When I'm bored and I have to wait for a few minutes, I look on the android market and buy a funny game for about that same amount of money.
I hope that other users see it the same way. The amount that an app or game will cost is so small, that most probably will spend more in the weekend on a beer.

An app is not a Mars bar.
Candy bars are not free. If you want a Nuts or a Bounty instead of a Mars you'll still have to pay.
For every paid app there's a free alternative. Usually there are many free alternatives, and the market has a built-in feature to find the free beer.
The Android Market has a "related apps" link. What other markets force their merchants to provide free advertising for their competitors in their very own market stall?

Tricky-Design said:
I hope that other users see it the same way. The amount that an app or game will cost is so small, that most probably will spend more in the weekend on a beer.
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Spot on.
Ive paid for damn near every app on my phone. I appreciate the work and am more than willing to contribute. And still, all in all, ive spent maybe 15bucks total in the past 4months. Seriously, apps are one of the more affordable ( and not to mention hella convenient) luxuries in this day and age(and in this economy).
Try and go see a movie these days? How much?
Go buy a board game at wal- mart? How much?
Go to the arcade? (if you can find one anymore) how much?
Go buy a book at books a million? How much?

xaccers said:
Exactly, why bother going to the effort of hunting around the net, finding an old version of the apk, risking warez sites throwing malware etc at you, just to save $1.99
Yes there is piracy of WP7 apps too, and with such a small market share, there's the potential for it to hit developers' incomes far greater. So perhaps the question should be "Why develope for WP7 when piracy can have a greater impact?"
Think about it, if you've got a large enough market share that 10% piracy still leaves you with a large income from legitimate sales, then although it's a pain, it's still making you lots of money, where as if your sales are low due to the few users who own the device you're developing for, you need that 10% to make a reasonable amount as you can't have the same number of sales as the more popular operating systems.
If I sell $100,000 worth of bananas and it turns out $10,000 was actually stolen, then that still leaves $90,000 in my pocket.
But if I sell only $1000 worth of bananas and $100 were actually stolen, then I've only got $900 in my pocket.
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you should really look at the general profit margins from OS to OS, even your average developer makes more on wp7 than android because as someone already stated, there's a free version of pretty much everything on android and what's not can be pirated. Then there's the fragmentation for every app that was made for 2.1 plus. Sure, you CAN pirate on wp7, its a long, complex process that doesn't work fully on Xbl games and actually requires some knowledge, its not androids out-of-box pirating or iOSes one click jailbreak with everything done for you. Its the only OS that adds some level of complexity to doing such things and that little bit is more than enough for your average user.

Next OS ; WHY CANT I MAKE AS MUCH ON WP7 APPS random_os001 makes more WAHHHH
(YEAR OR TWO LATER~!) RANDOM_os002 WAS RELEASED (os001 sorry ur gonna lose money now unless u try to stick with the pack.)

Extremely disappointed with the android community

I just need to vent. I'm a fairly active developer for the android platform. I've created a number of kernel patches and applications that I have released at no charge to the community for about 10 or so devices.
All this I do in my "spare time", which I have very little of because I am a full time professional student who takes on 32 credit hour semesters.
Recently, since my 1994 geo prizm is literally falling apart and I was hoping to scrounge together a little bit of money to get a new car so I don't end up stranded on my way to class, I decided to release a paid application. Fastcharge / Force AC toggle which allows you to toggle on and off the force AC feature. A feature which I have personally implemented and released source patches for on a number of devices.
Not only in every thread where I released the patch on a device did I write up how to toggle the feature through the command line, but I also stated that I also implemented a toggle into my completely free application that you can also download from the market, IncrediControl.
In good faith and knowing how annoying licensing is, I elected to not include licensing in my application. This is a huge regret.
Within a couple days of releasing the application to the market I googled it to see if anyone was talking about it. One of the first links was to a piracy site where a user was requesting the widget, to which another user obliged and posted the apk to a filesharing site. Doing something I never though I would have to do, I filed a DMCA takedown request, which was answered quickly and the app was taken down. Monitoring the thread, every single time a link gets taken down, another user requests the app and the original user reuploads it, most recently to 11 different sites.
So now, after filing dozens of takedown requests. This user has decided to unzip my apk, change out the artwork, and now is going around releasing it as his own work.
Really, all this to avoid paying $1.50 (only ~$1 of it actually going to me) to an individual whose yearly income is low enough that he doesn't have to file taxes?
This disgusts me.
This is even worse than the 50% "order cancellation rate" that the widget has. I'm not stupid, I know exactly what users are doing, but yet initially I was willing to ignore it. But this has gone too far.
What is even the point of pissing off a developer so much that he is considering saying screw the platform all together? It doesn't even make sense. We, the developers improve your devices, generally at little or no cost, and this is how we're repaid. With ~50% of current users of the application having pirated it. To avoid paying just over $1.
Now before someone even counters with the "my area doesn't support paid applications" argument I've actually gladly GIVEN the widget away to a number of users who casually mentioned in the release threads that they couldn't download it for this reason. Not to mention, everyone knows there are apps that unlock the market in these areas to be able to purchase apps.
How much more generous can a developer be than to provide source code patches for a feature, provide information on how to toggle the feature, provide a COMPLETELY FREE way to toggle the feature, and then charge a measly $1.50 for a secondary, slightly more convenient way to toggle.
Yet he's repaid like this .

Of course, this must suck for a developer like you. Unfortunately, it seems to happen more and more often, and all I can really say is:
I would gladly pay a few bucks for an application like IC or BootManager. That BootManager seemed really interesting, but we can't buy apps from the Play Store without CC (and as a 16-year old, I don't have one). I asked the developer if he accepted Paypal, but he didn't.
Don't get me wrong, and this is not an attack to you personally: developers, if you made something really nice, and people will like it, 70% of the people will gladly pay for it, just make sure you allow them to.

Chaosz-X said:
70% of the people will gladly pay for it, just make sure you allow them to.
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I honestly thought this was the case. It's really not. The problem is much worse than that. If 70% of users in the root community paid for apps it would be astonishing. Its made pretty clear by the number of users who download the app, back it up and then cancel the order.
If a 16 year old kid had made me that offer, the e-mail reply I sent would have the apk attached.

Well, that is a real flaw of Android: tweakability is really impressing, but these things make it really difficult to earn some money as a developer.
We have been thinking about anti-piracy measures as well, with stuff such as authentication with a server, and locking down the code and verifying integrity of APKs and stuff to make sure it's really hard to mess with the code, but it's just sad that there's a need for these measures..

The trouble is everything has piracy right from movies to game consoles through to mobiles and music.
I mean the iPhones appstore would be a hell of a lot bigger if there was no jailbreaking and installous.
Every platform has been cracked so you'll get it regardless of what you develop for.
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA

I think you know you just needed to vent but can I change your picture.
There are some people in this world who just don't buy the idea of an idea as property. That's not compatible with this business model. That's the first problem.
The next problem is that
there's a million and one apps out there and which one are we going to choose? Where does it start, where does it end? We all have our limits. What's yours?
For me, the app has to be something very unique and possible generate me cash. For example something I use every day at work. If it's something that the phone should do anyway I tend to skip it and save the $1 for the next phone that does it out of the box. Your app is a great thing, but there's many utility apps out there. It just doesn't fall into the kind of thing I'd cave my strict budgeting for. There are people here with a 1000 apps installed and you expect them to pay $1000 in this sense.
Another way would be having utility in the cloud and then the app is free. Another one of course, advertising.
The difference with both of these is we don't need to risk a credit card with the market. That's the main reason I personally haven't bought many apps and I'd imagine it's a problem for minors too.
The very community that allowed us to create the app fails to pay for it's products is like life itself.
I'd say make something for the iphone instead because there's more profit there but that would never have been possible, see what I'm saying? That's the 3rd problem.
So you've got 3 problems there all converging into one big push towards piracy. But remember, can your app assure security that the pirated version cannot for example? This is how one has to think.
In short,
you can't do something and hope to make a bit from it on the side. You got to go out from the start and get the money aspect central from the start. I mean, that's business and of course that's exactly what the android community works hard to free us from.
Still, summarising those 3 points for suggestion:
- offer something free things can't (i.e. security, brand etc) For example, I never run pirated stuff for fear of insecurity on my data whereas I'll try out software that way on an old PC
- can always put a service in the cloud aka the javascript trap
- iphone is there if you want...
- needs to "the one app" a certain person would pay for, not something everyone likes
Also just to make that point again, if one does not believe in property then inconveniently there is no moral crime here. I suggest learn to live with this and go with the flow

I hope google sells PlayStore cards (like itunes cards) that allows user to buy apps, music, movies, books without a credit card. I really want to buy some amazing apps but i dont have a credit card so i just use free apps. I think that if u cant buy an app that cant be a reason to piracy or sidedownload that app.

jago25_98 said:
For me, the app has to be something very unique and possible generate me cash. For example something I use every day at work. If it's something that the phone should do anyway I tend to skip it and save the $1 for the next phone that does it out of the box. Your app is a great thing, but there's many utility apps out there. It just doesn't fall into the kind of thing I'd cave my strict budgeting for. There are people here with a 1000 apps installed and you expect them to pay $1000 in this sense.
Another way would be having utility in the cloud and then the app is free. Another one of course, advertising.
The difference with both of these is we don't need to risk a credit card with the market. That's the main reason I personally haven't bought many apps and I'd imagine it's a problem for minors too.
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The feature is 100% unique and so is the widget. Not to mention, if you didn't want to pay the $1, I provided a free way to toggle the feature in the utility app. The point is, that there is nothing forcing people to pay for the widget to use the feature. But instead of using the free option provided, they not only pirate the paid app, but edit the artwork and release it for free as their own. It defies logic.
Also, ad based apps don't work with the rooted community. I learned that early on. Myfree utility app is ad supported. With over 40,000 installs you would think it would make even a dollar a day. Nope, makes nearly nothing. That's when I realized that the same niche I was marketing to are the same people who block ads. Even if someone didn't want to block ads, they can't install a single ROM that doesn't include an ad blocking hosts file out of the box.

chad0989 said:
[...] How much more generous can a developer be than to provide source code patches for a feature, provide information on how to toggle the feature, provide a COMPLETELY FREE way to toggle the feature, and then charge a measly $1.50 for a secondary, slightly more convenient way to toggle.
Yet he's repaid like this .
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Click to collapse
Be sure you're looking at all sides. Yes, you're in a losing war with guys intent on pirating your app. You can't stop them, and well, you goofed on the licensing, so someone will no doubt release the clone.
First of all, don't do the Big Media thing and assume that everybody that pirates your app would have paid for it if it hadn't been available. A lot of folks collect, or just try something once. You'll only work yourself into a funk thinking about all that money you "would" have if only they hadn't been able to pirate it. They wouldn't have. At least not all of them.
More importantly, be aware that placing something out there with value does reach folks that otherwise would have no idea of you or your plight. More than once, I've purchased an app that I don't really need, but found clever and cheap enough I can buy it without thinking about the investment. I've spent more on Android software at $1-15 over the last year than I did over the last 25+ at $30-100 a pop. I've only refunded an app once, by accident.
Finally, be up front about your situation. A guy trying to make do does influence my impulse buying. So does his reputation. If you're doing a lot, be sure that's clear on your app page, and let us know clearly you're the guy that also brought us whatever.
I am curious, though: How much did you actually bring in?

Chad- thanks for telling your story, I agree that you have every right to be disappointed. Especially the buying and refunding, that to me send almost worse because you can't stop dedicated pirating, but I would have hoped the rest would have bought the app.
It's easy to forget the human side of development, so thanks for sharing your side.

Jesus christ Chad. This is f$%&*#@ ridiculous. Probably the best and most generous kernel dev I have ever come into contact with, and people are cheating you out of 1.50. Please don't abandon Android. I need kernels when I get my rezound! but in all seriousness, warez needs to stop.
Sent from my ADR6400L

Yep. Sucks. After getting serious about android , which wasn't too far in, joining with a nexus one and seeing all the free HARD work we get, I definitely try buying stuff I use. If I can't pay sometimes I will see if dev does something else I can donate to. Its an issue I've thought about and part of it really boils down to how sorry people are in general. They want free and cheap. $1 is laughable even when it can be easily had for free. You really should market yourself a bit even though you don't want to. And people should really put a complimentary $5 or so budget a month or more and try to support devs. Maybe if you have something he gave free but has an app you won't use for a buck, buy the dollar app and uninstall after the 15 minute period. Or throw him a 5 through PayPal or something. Its simple really. If these devs don't have to resort to ramen and water they keep dev'ing especially for the community supporting him or her. And if they're eating vegetables and have plenty of red bull money it gives them wings. Otoh, the devs that make us pay to reinstall an app after we bought it on another or lost our phone suck. Balls. Won't buys theirs anymore.
teach a man to fish, you feed him for life. teach a man to fastboot, and you create competency. and less threads on xda.

Maybe you should implement a system like some developers do where you download the app for free with a time limited trail, then they would go to another website to pay for the app to unlock it, and the unlock codes would be unique for every user which would minimize piracy.
Sent from my GT-N7000 Samsung Galaxy Note "Go big or go home" using XDA app

rafa6571 said:
I hope google sells PlayStore cards (like itunes cards) that allows user to buy apps, music, movies, books without a credit card. I really want to buy some amazing apps but i dont have a credit card so i just use free apps. I think that if u cant buy an app that cant be a reason to piracy or sidedownload that app.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In the Netherlands we have prepaid Visa card.
Works well.
Maybe you google something similar in your own country.
(3V prepaid Visa cards)

That does suck but if someone wants to pirate an app even licencing doesn't stop them as there is an app that apparently patches licence checks.
It is so easy for even a non root and new user to find cracked apps, I have seen links on here and even on peoples facebook sites, it's got to the point where people can just browse a webpage and click a link to get the cracked version of an app.
Unfortunately if someone wants to crack it they can. Unless you could implement your own security check somehow, something obfuscated in the code, licencing is the only alternative as it would stop people using backed up cancelled versions at least.
Unfortunately it seems a lot of people just don't want to pay for apps.
Dave
Sent from my LG P920 using Tapatalk

also have to look at both sides. some people just refuse to pay for **** whatever it is, or get it as cheaply as they can. being android apps, the free route is how they're going to go. but the other side, you hsould be grateful for all the people that do pay. they're the ones helping keeping google, open source, android and everything in between chugging along. open source is the future and you can tell every corporation i said that. and thanks for you your work even though i've never used it.

jago25_98 said:
...
Also just to make that point again, if one does not believe in property then inconveniently there is no moral crime here. I suggest learn to live with this and go with the flow
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Click to collapse
There is plenty to disagree with in your post as it all seems like an attempt at rationalizing ways to get around the system. This last statement is a ridiculous attempt at summarizing why stealing is OK. Your morals don't define the crime, the law does. Stealing property, physical or intellectual, is not legal and not right regardless of your morals or lack of.
Chad,
I am sorry to hear of your products' abuse. I used your kernels all the time on my Incredible devices and bought IncrediControl to support development. I have purchased many applications just to support development and believe that is the way to get high quality applications.

Piracy is just so damn easy on Android. I know ppl that are doing it who I wouldn't even expect to be doing such a thing. This guy I know love android only because he can get everything free by just googling the apk.

awww thats sad i feel really bad for you!

I've used pre paid visa debit cards to buy apps. You can find them in Any money shop like Cheque cashing places for example. You can even just stick a dicky diver (£5) on them. Perfect for situations like this
Sent from my GT-I9100 using xda premium

Video ads you cannot skip

I am getting sick of this. Its embarassing in public, eats battery, and uses data. I'm talking about the video ads you cannot skip for at least 5 seconds. Not all of us want to root our phones bc we might use them at work with email and sensitive data. I found a great petition I hope all of us at the XDA community will sign and get friends to sign. Pure greed, which doesn't even work in this case, and is counterproductive.
I can't even play Angry Birds anymore because of this. And NO I'm not gonna buy anything they try to sell. Heck, I might not even buy the toys for kids as gifts. Same with Zedge too...now THEY have video ads. This is ridiculous.

I agree, they are pretty annoying. Thankfully they only show up like once every 10 ads or so.

champlification said:
I agree, they are pretty annoying. Thankfully they only show up like once every 10 ads or so.
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Click to collapse
not in my experience. With Angry Birds Seasons, I can't skip 2 levels without seeing them, and their sound is on even when the app's sound is off.

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