16 replies to this topic

[TheManicGibbon]

As some of you may know, I run JGM Software and I've recently started selling Android apps on the Android Market. However, today I made a grim discovery - my most popular app has been made available free on "bazaarandroid.com" by a man I believe to be going by the name of fredek7. The download statistics on this app show that I have lost out on a potential £30 earnings (a lot of money for me and a large chunk of monthly sales) thanks to the criminal actions of this man.

Is there anything I can do with my APKs on the Market to stop this from happening again? I know about the copy-protection feature but I have never used it because it says it is deprecated. Also, has anyone had any experience with bazaarandroid.com before? I have contacted them via their "Report Abuse" form and sent them a "cease and desist" style message in the hope of having it removed from the site ASAP, but I  assume I have little hope of recovering lost earnings?

I believe bazaarandroid.com operates from Portugal and are used as the main App Store for Android by Iran. All very global I know

Any advice or comments on this matter would be much appreciated.

[lazyliam]

hiya interesting.post and good luck getting it sorted just 1 more thing u never mentioned the name off your most popular app because ill try anything for free lol :-) joke pal and merry Christmas all

[Magnets]

You want LVL, which is what replaced the old copy protection.
http://developer.and.../licensing.html

You need to find out where the APKs are being hosted, then contact the webhost/provider and let them know (although I would imagine they don't care).

[oxyg3n89]

In my opinion piracy will live forever. Imagine the amount microsoft and other soft developers loses every year from piracy, music record companies ! That is about billions of $!

Edited by oxyg3n89, 21 December 2011 - 07:41 PM.

[TheManicGibbon]

Magnets, on 21 December 2011 - 07:40 PM, said:

You want LVL, which is what replaced the old copy protection.
http://developer.and.../licensing.html

You need to find out where the APKs are being hosted, then contact the webhost/provider and let them know (although I would imagine they don't care).

I've looked at that stuff before but the apps I make are icon packs for Launcher Pro, using the templates available on the LP site. Can I still implement this in a LP icon pack? Thanks, I'll try contracting the host.

oxyg3n89, on 21 December 2011 - 07:41 PM, said:

In my opinion piracy will live forever. Imagine the amount microsoft and other soft developers loses every year from piracy, music record companies ! That is about billions of $!

Microsoft is a lot better placed to survive software piracy than I am. Currently, almost 70 people have downloaded copies of my app immediately and I want to put a stop to it NOW.

[JudasLucifer]

TheManicGibbon, on 21 December 2011 - 08:07 PM, said:

I've looked at that stuff before but the apps I make are icon packs for Launcher Pro, using the templates available on the LP site. Can I still implement this in a LP icon pack? Thanks, I'll try contracting the host.



Microsoft is a lot better placed to survive software piracy than I am. Currently, almost 70 people have downloaded copies of my app immediately and I want to put a stop to it NOW.

It's still an apk, I'd imagine there is absolutely no reason why it wouldn't work.
On a second note, don't put too much faith in this protection.
I'd imagine various Gameloft games etc all have it (daft of Gameloft for them not too) - and they are all floating around the net free.
"Copy-protected" DVD's, etc, if people want something, they will get it.
Might stutter them a bit too.
Chances are that if people are getting warez, they aren't likely to pay for your product anyway D: (the ******)

[TheManicGibbon]

JudasLucifer, on 21 December 2011 - 08:32 PM, said:

It's still an apk, I'd imagine there is absolutely no reason why it wouldn't work.
On a second note, don't put too much faith in this protection.
I'd imagine various Gameloft games etc all have it (daft of Gameloft for them not too) - and they are all floating around the net free.
"Copy-protected" DVD's, etc, if people want something, they will get it.
Might stutter them a bit too.
Chances are that if people are getting warez, they aren't likely to pay for your product anyway D: (the ******)

Yes I suppose...it's 50p for gods sake, why not just buy it...first time I've experienced piracy as the developer, really infuriating and annoying.

[jurrasstoil]

You shouldn't look at the download statistics and say "wow, 100 people downloaded it, i lost 50 quid". It's more like you lost maybe 5 sales tops, because not everyone who pirates a software would buy it if it wasn't possible to pirate it.

You can't really stop it either without making it a huge pain for the legit customers to jump through DRM and licensing hoops and even then some people will find a way to pirate it if they deem it to be worth the hassle.

Try to find a licensing system that works rather decently and isn't too simple to crack, but that still provides ease-of-use for your legit customers. A lot of bigger companies tried stopping piracy and are still doing  so (and failing). So, either stop worrying about pirates if you have implemented a decent licensing system or stop making software. It's like that unfortunately :/

[TheManicGibbon]

jurrasstoil, on 21 December 2011 - 08:46 PM, said:

You shouldn't look at the download statistics and say "wow, 100 people downloaded it, i lost 50 quid". It's more like you lost maybe 5 sales tops, because not everyone who pirates a software would buy it if it wasn't possible to pirate it.

You can't really stop it either without making it a huge pain for the legit customers to jump through DRM and licensing hoops and even then some people will find a way to pirate it if they deem it to be worth the hassle.

Try to find a licensing system that works rather decently and isn't too simple to crack, but that still provides ease-of-use for your legit customers. A lot of bigger companies tried stopping piracy and are still doing  so (and failing). So, either stop worrying about pirates if you have implemented a decent licensing system or stop making software. It's like that unfortunately :/

Harsh yet true, I suppose I haven't lost that much and at the end of the day I have done all I can at the moment to try and get my app removed :/

Thanks!

[t0mm13b]

Am sorry to hear your frustration.

The most I can say is this - this is a contradiction by way of this, do not rely on any protection scheme whatsoever nor try come up with an in-genius way of protection scheme - chances are they are already cracked and any weakness in your own protection scheme that you dreamt up will be cracked in no time.

No matter what company out there that has advertised along the lines of "ULTIMATE PROTECTION" for couple hundred of euros or el cheapo - they do not work and you've fallen foul of the scam! No matter how "secure" it is ...

This is a frustrating thing that developers will encounter, no matter what. The bottom line is release early and often in that way, the newer versions pop up, the pirates will say something like "oh f..k, here goes another new release..." eventually, if you can persevere, they will give up and perhaps the money will start rolling in once they realize (but do they ever care - more likely not!) Or there's another approach - open source the code in that way, piracy is deterred to an extent but not eliminated I must add, as the code is there publicly available and can be tracked down (I know I know, it sounds... grey area especially in the commercial world of software development with patents and what-nots surrounding their crown jewels etc)

Unfortunately, that's the reality of the world as it stands today, all with a "gimme gimme" attitude and no appreciation nor value of the energy and time invested.. it sucks...

Edited by t0mm13b, 22 December 2011 - 12:46 AM.

[hedgepigdaniel]

t0mm13b, on 22 December 2011 - 12:42 AM, said:

Unfortunately, that's the reality of the world as it stands today, all with a "gimme gimme" attitude and no appreciation nor value of the energy and time invested.. it sucks...

The world has always stood that way .

Copy protection is ultimately doomed to fail, but as a seller you can limit the effect of piracy by taking advantage of the fact that you are in a better position to serve the user than any pirate. Issue updates that add new features and address problems - people who have paid for your app will receive these updates automatically and promptly. Make your app polite and friendly so that it makes customers happy and and more likely to buy/recommend it. Make the price reasonable to maximise the number of people willing to pay for it. I read somewhere on android dev reference a recommendation to perform some automated obfuscation of paid apps to make it more difficult to reverse engineer them - not a solution but I'm sure it would help. I'd be surprised if making your own copy protection or integrating some 3rd party solution is worth the effort. It can all be cracked by someone who is determined.

All this is easy for the rest of us to say I guess, but having watched the music industry collapse and repeatedly shoot itself in the foot over the last decade, I think its clear that the people who concentrate on pleasing paid customers and providing the best product at the best price rather than chasing around those who steal their work will be more successful at the end of the day. Fight the fights you can win.

[TheManicGibbon]

Thanks for the feedback and suggestions everyone..although I don't understand why people are rating this topic so low, I'm only asking for some comments or advice. How would you feel if an app you had worked hard to make was being given out for free illegally?

[hecatae]

The thread is being rated low because it has no reason to be in the blade forum. And the topic title is not clear. You would get a better discussion in the software forum

[hedgepigdaniel]

TheManicGibbon, on 22 December 2011 - 12:47 PM, said:

Thanks for the feedback and suggestions everyone..although I don't understand why people are rating this topic so low, I'm only asking for some comments or advice. How would you feel if an app you had worked hard to make was being given out for free illegally?

I gave you 5 stars

[TheManicGibbon]

hecatae, on 22 December 2011 - 02:18 PM, said:

The thread is being rated low because it has no reason to be in the blade forum. And the topic title is not clear. You would get a better discussion in the software forum

Sorry, it's in the Blade Section because I'm a Blade developer and I know a lot of people here are knowledgeable and helpful.

hedgepigdaniel, on 22 December 2011 - 02:22 PM, said:

I gave you 5 stars

Cheers mate haha

[flibblesan]

It is OT so I'll move it to the Software forum. But I'll also be nice and leave a shadow in the Blade forum. Please guys, no more bad votes because it was in the Blade forum

[TheManicGibbon]

flibblesan, on 23 December 2011 - 05:26 AM, said:

It is OT so I'll move it to the Software forum. But I'll also be nice and leave a shadow in the Blade forum. Please guys, no more bad votes because it was in the Blade forum

Cheers, it didn't even occur to me to post it in another forum. I've also had an email telling me my copyright infringement notice has been recognised and my app has been removed from the website.