I'll pipe in at this point. I can't answer your last question but I can address the first bit.
I had seven apps in the store in total and was lucky enough to have my first app in only a few months after the store opened. That turned out to be the best selling one, btw. I too found the idea of someone pirating my games, $0.99 to $2.99 absurd.
And I'm not a naive newbie ... I'm an Apple user since the late 70s and was around during the days when you could rent software like Quark and Adobe Illustrator. There was never piracy then.
But after finding my second app on the usual pirate app sites within eight hours after it hit the store, I started to really look at my high score logs. The seven apps averaged 87% rate of piracy ... only 13% of the high score loggers were actual purchasers.
Every app pirated? Obviously not. But I looked through those pirate app sites carefully and I found 98 of the top 100 apps available (this was a year ago now though). I have no idea why someone would pirate a $0.99 app. Seriously ... I wish I did but it makes no sense to me at all. It's $1.
My $0.02.
So the numbers for the "popular" apps might be reasonably accurate, but certainly not for the dregs like the fart apps and what not.
The report is skewed in my mind.
Still sad that someone would begrudge a buck for an app.
I have my first gen iPhone jail broken simply because there is a glitch with my account at Att and it is easier to jailbreak then deal with the fools at Att. There is not a single pirated app on my phone and there never will be. Heck, the only non Apple approved program on there is Pda net that I use in case of an emergency.
Using their logic that must mean that since I rip my dvd's to a hard drive then most of them must be pirated (none are).
To quote the famous scholar Bugs Bunny, "What a bunch of Maroons".
I was also young. It seems now to have happened just on that other day.
But I'm sure, sure, I was always asking myself before having done something: why? what for? what are pluses and minuses? Yes, I must have always been doing that. It just could not happen other way around.
I'll throw in a little: There are no "losses" due to piracy. The balance sheet and the profit/loss statement of a company are each identical before and after an act of piracy. The company is in exactly the same financial position before and after an act of piracy.
The estimates rely on an assumption that "if not pirated, the app would have been bought", which is often a defective assumption. Piggybacking on that assumption is the conclusion that if the app had been purchased, we would have grossed $x.xx. So the "loss" is really "foregone revenue", a different concept altogether, and the reality is that the revenue is foregone ONLY if the pirate would have purchased the app if he had not pirated it.
Think of it this way: Do movie theaters "lose money" every time you watch TV? Of course not. Do developers "lose money" every time some kid downloads their app? Of course not.
And when I see young people nowadays... They got no least vague idea in their heads, they are not interested in any creative efforts or somewhat long-time devoting themselves to any ideas or occupations... Yet, they're trying to ask philosophical questions. What a laughing bags.. No we just could not be like that, no, no, no...
But after finding my second app on the usual pirate app sites within [B
eight hours[/B] after it hit the store, I started to really look at my high score logs. The seven apps averaged 87% rate of piracy ... only 13% of the high score loggers were actual purchasers.
Using the "piracy yields losses" method, and using round numbers at $1.00 per app and a thousand apps in the wild, you made $13,000 and "lost" $87,000.00.
Tell me: Were you out of pocket $74,000.00? Of course not.
Piracy does not cause any "losses" to a developer, just a speculative amount of foregone sales.
BTW, I'm not defending piracy. I'm attacking the fraudulant accounting claims of "piracy = losses".
I'll throw in a little: There are no "losses" due to piracy. The balance sheet and the profit/loss statement of a company are each identical before and after an act of piracy. The company is in exactly the same financial position before and after an act of piracy.
The estimates rely on an assumption that "if not pirated, the app would have been bought", which is often a defective assumption. Piggybacking on that assumption is the conclusion that if the app had been purchased, we would have grossed $x.xx. So the "loss" is really "foregone revenue", a different concept altogether, and the reality is that the revenue is foregone ONLY if the pirate would have purchased the app if he had not pirated it.
Think of it this way: Do movie theaters "lose money" every time you watch TV? Of course not. Do developers "lose money" every time some kid downloads their app? Of course not.
Agreed. Actually, to be fair, it's not even piracy as nothing has been stolen. It's copyright infringement. Yes, it's nitpicking, but piracy has much darker connotations and I think folks like the RIAA love that sort of connection.
Using the "piracy yields losses" method, and using round numbers at $1.00 per app and a thousand apps in the wild, you made $13,000 and "lost" $87,000.00.
Tell me: Were you out of pocket $74,000.00? Of course not.
Piracy does not cause any "losses" to a developer, just a speculative amount of foregone sales.
BTW, I'm not defending piracy. I'm attacking the fraudulant accounting claims of "piracy = losses".
For easy of maths, let's change those figures to 10% bought, and 90% pirated. With the £ per purchase argument $10k was earned, and $90k was foregone sales.
It's easy to use your argument and say he didn't lose any, he just failed to earn it, but look where the result is - he no no longer develops. If just 10% of the people who pirated the game, then payed up after enjoying it, he would have almost doubled his income, and maybe continued to develop more software.
So you see, there is a huge loss, not only in income to the developer, but in output for future consumers.
Quote:
Originally Posted by iGenius
Think of it this way: Do movie theaters "lose money" every time you watch TV? Of course not. Do developers "lose money" every time some kid downloads their app? Of course not.
Movie theaters certainly lose potential revenue when people watch a pirate DVD, which is the better analogy. Do developers lose money on an illegal download? On average, no if you take a single case in isolation. But as above, when 90% of downloads are illegal, it's ridiculous to suggest that the developer has not lost at least a small percentage of sales. And when something as small as 1 in 10 can double your income, it's a big big deal.
For easy of maths, let's change those figures to 10% bought, and 90% pirated. With the £ per purchase argument $10k was earned, and $90k was foregone sales.
It's easy to use your argument and say he didn't lose any, he just failed to earn it, but look where the result is - he no no longer develops. If just 10% of the people who pirated the game, then payed up after enjoying it, he would have almost doubled his income, and maybe continued to develop more software.
So you see, there is a huge loss, not only in income to the developer, but in output for future consumers.
I'm not sure I agree with that. If he wouldn't have gotten those sales to begin with, then it doesn't affect his bottom line in the slightest. The only difference in the equation is whether or not he actually knew the infringement numbers.
If he wouldn't have gotten those sales to begin with, then it doesn't affect his bottom line in the slightest.
I don't see how this conclusion can be made. Are you saying that if there was no piracy, then his sales would be identical? If you are are, then it can be taken in the opposite direction - if software isn't available to be pirated, then those who pirate would own no software? Of course they would, only they'd have to buy it.
Three days before the launch of the tablet, Steve Jobs should go to Valleywag with a tablet. Let them play with it for an hour, receive the 100k and send it to Haïti.
Because of the heavy traffic to their website after they publish about their hour of 'foreplay', Valleywag will be down for three days. So Apple can still introduce the tablet on their event.
Would seem like a great publicity stunt to me! And the money gets a good destination.
Who has Steves' email so I can tell him about my great plan?!
I don't see how this conclusion can be made. Are you saying that if there was no piracy, then his sales would be identical? If you are are, then it can be taken in the opposite direction - if software isn't available to be pirated, then those who pirate would own no software? Of course they would, only they'd have to buy it.
Your blending two different things.
1) Eliminating piracy
2) User purchases
Eliminating #1 doesn't automatically assume you get #2 as a result. People do these things because it's relatively easy. If I could just walk into an electronics store and take whatever I wanted without risk, I would go crazy. Knowing that I can't, and that I don't have that kind of money, I certainly won't go out and buy those things as it's unrealistic to do so.
If the software in question was a necessity, then you might be on to something, but these are simply entertainment/games for the most part.
The $450 million result was reached by a long series of estimates and assumptions. By taking into account the number of total app downloads (3 billion) and an estimate of the portion of these that are paid (17 percent or 510 million) along with an assumed piracy rate of 75 percent and an average paid application price of $3.00, the result is $4.59 billion potentially lost.
This is one of the stupidest things I have ever read online.
I assumed your girlfriend was mine. That's why I made love to her till the wee hours of the morning.
I'm just not getting why pirates need so badly to argue the point about their being thieves? They have products, which they want, for free, they're not yet jailed...
And they always come to perform the same bellyaching about their innocence before our eyes.
Eliminating #1 doesn't automatically assume you get #2 as a result. People do these things because it's relatively easy. If I could just walk into an electronics store and take whatever I wanted without risk, I would go crazy. Knowing that I can't, and that I don't have that kind of money, I certainly won't go out and buy those things as it's unrealistic to do so.
If the software in question was a necessity, then you might be on to something, but these are simply entertainment/games for the most part.
I'm in agreement with your statements, just not the extrapolated conclusion you draw from them. I know that sales won't go through the roof if a way was found to eliminate piracy, but I am absolutely sure that for a product that on has 10% legitimate sales, *some* extra sales will ensue - and a 5% increase (not beyond the realms of possibility) would result in a 50% larger income to the developer.
I know that in the context of the developer who spoke out above we are talking about games here, but just because it's entertainment software make no difference to the guy who wrote it. a) it's not just games that get pirated, and b) if it was, in what way does that justify it?
As I said in my first post in the comments section, I've pirated games before whilst sharing the viewpoint you are now espousing, and I do not believe in it any more. Anyone who says that pirating does not harm sales, is (in my humble opinion) either naive, a fool, or a liar, and a thief whichever way.
I'm in agreement with your statements, just not the extrapolated conclusion you draw from them. I know that sales won't go through the roof if a way was found to eliminate piracy, but I am absolutely sure that for a product that on has 10% legitimate sales, *some* extra sales will ensue - and a 5% increase (not beyond the realms of possibility) would result in a 50% larger income to the developer.
I know that in the context of the developer who spoke out above we are talking about games here, but just because it's entertainment software make no difference to the guy who wrote it. a) it's not just games that get pirated, and b) if it was, in what way does that justify it?
As I said in my first post in the comments section, I've pirated games before whilst sharing the viewpoint you are now espousing, and I do not believe in it any more. Anyone who says that pirating does not harm sales, is (in my humble opinion) either naive, a fool, or a liar, and a thief whichever way.
I agree. I think there might be some folks who might purchase it, but certainly not at a 1:1 ratio which the article implies.
I'm just not getting why pirates need so badly to argue the point about their being thieves? They have products, which they want, for free, they're not yet jailed...
And they always come to perform the same bellyaching about their innocence before our eyes.
How is it important anyway
Because they haven't stolen anything. It's called copyright infringement, not stealing. They basically made an unauthorized copy of something. The original is still sitting nice and tidy in some computer on the owners servers.
The harm is in perceived sales revenue.
I don't think any self proclaimed 'pirate' would be bellyaching about their innocence. Quite the contrary, as they are typically pretty bold about their actions.
I agree. I think there might be some folks who might purchase it, but certainly not at a 1:1 ratio which the article implies.
5% sounds more sane.
To be fair, whilst not as clear as it could be, the article doesn't imply 1:1:
"...an assumed piracy rate of 75 percent and ... Finally, the legitimate app purchase rate if the app could not be pirated was pegged at 10 percent"
So estimating (guessing, really) that (ignoring their figures and dropping to the $1 ratio) sales that were as follows with piracy:
25% of apps were legitimate purchases, or $250 of sales total for every 1000 apps in circulation including pirated apps, resulting in an average price of $0.25 per app in use.
And that they might change as follows if piracy was eliminated:
32.5% of apps were legitimate purchases (+10% of the 75% who would previously have pirated the app), or $325 of sales total.
This would provide the developer an increase in revenue of 75$, or 30% - less money than my own example (which assumes that more people pirate, and less people convert to legitimate purchases).
Because they haven't stolen anything. It's called copyright infringement, not stealing. They basically made an unauthorized copy of something. The original is still sitting nice and tidy in some computer on the owners servers.
The harm is in perceived sales revenue.
I don't think any self proclaimed 'pirate' would be bellyaching about their innocence. Quite the contrary, as they are typically pretty bold about their actions.
Take it right. I'm not gonna enter in the discussion. Will you stop advocating the piracy?
Comments
I'll pipe in at this point. I can't answer your last question but I can address the first bit.
I had seven apps in the store in total and was lucky enough to have my first app in only a few months after the store opened. That turned out to be the best selling one, btw. I too found the idea of someone pirating my games, $0.99 to $2.99 absurd.
And I'm not a naive newbie ... I'm an Apple user since the late 70s and was around during the days when you could rent software like Quark and Adobe Illustrator. There was never piracy then.
But after finding my second app on the usual pirate app sites within eight hours after it hit the store, I started to really look at my high score logs. The seven apps averaged 87% rate of piracy ... only 13% of the high score loggers were actual purchasers.
Every app pirated? Obviously not. But I looked through those pirate app sites carefully and I found 98 of the top 100 apps available (this was a year ago now though). I have no idea why someone would pirate a $0.99 app. Seriously ... I wish I did but it makes no sense to me at all. It's $1.
My $0.02.
So the numbers for the "popular" apps might be reasonably accurate, but certainly not for the dregs like the fart apps and what not.
The report is skewed in my mind.
Still sad that someone would begrudge a buck for an app.
Using their logic that must mean that since I rip my dvd's to a hard drive then most of them must be pirated (none are).
To quote the famous scholar Bugs Bunny, "What a bunch of Maroons".
I was also young. It seems now to have happened just on that other day.
But I'm sure, sure, I was always asking myself before having done something: why? what for? what are pluses and minuses? Yes, I must have always been doing that. It just could not happen other way around.
Could you expand on that please?
I'll throw in a little: There are no "losses" due to piracy. The balance sheet and the profit/loss statement of a company are each identical before and after an act of piracy. The company is in exactly the same financial position before and after an act of piracy.
The estimates rely on an assumption that "if not pirated, the app would have been bought", which is often a defective assumption. Piggybacking on that assumption is the conclusion that if the app had been purchased, we would have grossed $x.xx. So the "loss" is really "foregone revenue", a different concept altogether, and the reality is that the revenue is foregone ONLY if the pirate would have purchased the app if he had not pirated it.
Think of it this way: Do movie theaters "lose money" every time you watch TV? Of course not. Do developers "lose money" every time some kid downloads their app? Of course not.
But after finding my second app on the usual pirate app sites within [B
eight hours[/B] after it hit the store, I started to really look at my high score logs. The seven apps averaged 87% rate of piracy ... only 13% of the high score loggers were actual purchasers.
Using the "piracy yields losses" method, and using round numbers at $1.00 per app and a thousand apps in the wild, you made $13,000 and "lost" $87,000.00.
Tell me: Were you out of pocket $74,000.00? Of course not.
Piracy does not cause any "losses" to a developer, just a speculative amount of foregone sales.
BTW, I'm not defending piracy. I'm attacking the fraudulant accounting claims of "piracy = losses".
I'll throw in a little: There are no "losses" due to piracy. The balance sheet and the profit/loss statement of a company are each identical before and after an act of piracy. The company is in exactly the same financial position before and after an act of piracy.
The estimates rely on an assumption that "if not pirated, the app would have been bought", which is often a defective assumption. Piggybacking on that assumption is the conclusion that if the app had been purchased, we would have grossed $x.xx. So the "loss" is really "foregone revenue", a different concept altogether, and the reality is that the revenue is foregone ONLY if the pirate would have purchased the app if he had not pirated it.
Think of it this way: Do movie theaters "lose money" every time you watch TV? Of course not. Do developers "lose money" every time some kid downloads their app? Of course not.
Agreed. Actually, to be fair, it's not even piracy as nothing has been stolen. It's copyright infringement. Yes, it's nitpicking, but piracy has much darker connotations and I think folks like the RIAA love that sort of connection.
Using the "piracy yields losses" method, and using round numbers at $1.00 per app and a thousand apps in the wild, you made $13,000 and "lost" $87,000.00.
Tell me: Were you out of pocket $74,000.00? Of course not.
Piracy does not cause any "losses" to a developer, just a speculative amount of foregone sales.
BTW, I'm not defending piracy. I'm attacking the fraudulant accounting claims of "piracy = losses".
For easy of maths, let's change those figures to 10% bought, and 90% pirated. With the £ per purchase argument $10k was earned, and $90k was foregone sales.
It's easy to use your argument and say he didn't lose any, he just failed to earn it, but look where the result is - he no no longer develops. If just 10% of the people who pirated the game, then payed up after enjoying it, he would have almost doubled his income, and maybe continued to develop more software.
So you see, there is a huge loss, not only in income to the developer, but in output for future consumers.
Think of it this way: Do movie theaters "lose money" every time you watch TV? Of course not. Do developers "lose money" every time some kid downloads their app? Of course not.
Movie theaters certainly lose potential revenue when people watch a pirate DVD, which is the better analogy. Do developers lose money on an illegal download? On average, no if you take a single case in isolation. But as above, when 90% of downloads are illegal, it's ridiculous to suggest that the developer has not lost at least a small percentage of sales. And when something as small as 1 in 10 can double your income, it's a big big deal.
For easy of maths, let's change those figures to 10% bought, and 90% pirated. With the £ per purchase argument $10k was earned, and $90k was foregone sales.
It's easy to use your argument and say he didn't lose any, he just failed to earn it, but look where the result is - he no no longer develops. If just 10% of the people who pirated the game, then payed up after enjoying it, he would have almost doubled his income, and maybe continued to develop more software.
So you see, there is a huge loss, not only in income to the developer, but in output for future consumers.
I'm not sure I agree with that. If he wouldn't have gotten those sales to begin with, then it doesn't affect his bottom line in the slightest. The only difference in the equation is whether or not he actually knew the infringement numbers.
If he wouldn't have gotten those sales to begin with, then it doesn't affect his bottom line in the slightest.
I don't see how this conclusion can be made. Are you saying that if there was no piracy, then his sales would be identical? If you are are, then it can be taken in the opposite direction - if software isn't available to be pirated, then those who pirate would own no software? Of course they would, only they'd have to buy it.
Because of the heavy traffic to their website after they publish about their hour of 'foreplay', Valleywag will be down for three days. So Apple can still introduce the tablet on their event.
Would seem like a great publicity stunt to me! And the money gets a good destination.
Who has Steves' email so I can tell him about my great plan?!
I don't see how this conclusion can be made. Are you saying that if there was no piracy, then his sales would be identical? If you are are, then it can be taken in the opposite direction - if software isn't available to be pirated, then those who pirate would own no software? Of course they would, only they'd have to buy it.
Your blending two different things.
1) Eliminating piracy
2) User purchases
Eliminating #1 doesn't automatically assume you get #2 as a result. People do these things because it's relatively easy. If I could just walk into an electronics store and take whatever I wanted without risk, I would go crazy. Knowing that I can't, and that I don't have that kind of money, I certainly won't go out and buy those things as it's unrealistic to do so.
If the software in question was a necessity, then you might be on to something, but these are simply entertainment/games for the most part.
The $450 million result was reached by a long series of estimates and assumptions. By taking into account the number of total app downloads (3 billion) and an estimate of the portion of these that are paid (17 percent or 510 million) along with an assumed piracy rate of 75 percent and an average paid application price of $3.00, the result is $4.59 billion potentially lost.
This is one of the stupidest things I have ever read online.
I assumed your girlfriend was mine. That's why I made love to her till the wee hours of the morning.
And they always come to perform the same bellyaching about their innocence before our eyes.
How is it important anyway
Your blending two different things.
1) Eliminating piracy
2) User purchases
Eliminating #1 doesn't automatically assume you get #2 as a result. People do these things because it's relatively easy. If I could just walk into an electronics store and take whatever I wanted without risk, I would go crazy. Knowing that I can't, and that I don't have that kind of money, I certainly won't go out and buy those things as it's unrealistic to do so.
If the software in question was a necessity, then you might be on to something, but these are simply entertainment/games for the most part.
I'm in agreement with your statements, just not the extrapolated conclusion you draw from them. I know that sales won't go through the roof if a way was found to eliminate piracy, but I am absolutely sure that for a product that on has 10% legitimate sales, *some* extra sales will ensue - and a 5% increase (not beyond the realms of possibility) would result in a 50% larger income to the developer.
I know that in the context of the developer who spoke out above we are talking about games here, but just because it's entertainment software make no difference to the guy who wrote it. a) it's not just games that get pirated, and b) if it was, in what way does that justify it?
As I said in my first post in the comments section, I've pirated games before whilst sharing the viewpoint you are now espousing, and I do not believe in it any more. Anyone who says that pirating does not harm sales, is (in my humble opinion) either naive, a fool, or a liar, and a thief whichever way.
I'm in agreement with your statements, just not the extrapolated conclusion you draw from them. I know that sales won't go through the roof if a way was found to eliminate piracy, but I am absolutely sure that for a product that on has 10% legitimate sales, *some* extra sales will ensue - and a 5% increase (not beyond the realms of possibility) would result in a 50% larger income to the developer.
I know that in the context of the developer who spoke out above we are talking about games here, but just because it's entertainment software make no difference to the guy who wrote it. a) it's not just games that get pirated, and b) if it was, in what way does that justify it?
As I said in my first post in the comments section, I've pirated games before whilst sharing the viewpoint you are now espousing, and I do not believe in it any more. Anyone who says that pirating does not harm sales, is (in my humble opinion) either naive, a fool, or a liar, and a thief whichever way.
I agree. I think there might be some folks who might purchase it, but certainly not at a 1:1 ratio which the article implies.
5% sounds more sane.
I'm just not getting why pirates need so badly to argue the point about their being thieves? They have products, which they want, for free, they're not yet jailed...
And they always come to perform the same bellyaching about their innocence before our eyes.
How is it important anyway
Because they haven't stolen anything. It's called copyright infringement, not stealing. They basically made an unauthorized copy of something. The original is still sitting nice and tidy in some computer on the owners servers.
The harm is in perceived sales revenue.
I don't think any self proclaimed 'pirate' would be bellyaching about their innocence. Quite the contrary, as they are typically pretty bold about their actions.
I agree. I think there might be some folks who might purchase it, but certainly not at a 1:1 ratio which the article implies.
5% sounds more sane.
To be fair, whilst not as clear as it could be, the article doesn't imply 1:1:
"...an assumed piracy rate of 75 percent and ... Finally, the legitimate app purchase rate if the app could not be pirated was pegged at 10 percent"
So estimating (guessing, really) that (ignoring their figures and dropping to the $1 ratio) sales that were as follows with piracy:
25% of apps were legitimate purchases, or $250 of sales total for every 1000 apps in circulation including pirated apps, resulting in an average price of $0.25 per app in use.
And that they might change as follows if piracy was eliminated:
32.5% of apps were legitimate purchases (+10% of the 75% who would previously have pirated the app), or $325 of sales total.
This would provide the developer an increase in revenue of 75$, or 30% - less money than my own example (which assumes that more people pirate, and less people convert to legitimate purchases).
Because they haven't stolen anything. It's called copyright infringement, not stealing. They basically made an unauthorized copy of something. The original is still sitting nice and tidy in some computer on the owners servers.
The harm is in perceived sales revenue.
I don't think any self proclaimed 'pirate' would be bellyaching about their innocence. Quite the contrary, as they are typically pretty bold about their actions.
Take it right. I'm not gonna enter in the discussion. Will you stop advocating the piracy?