People running pirated CC asking for help

[Difflugia]

Originally Posted by EowynCarter

Totally agree.

There is an app I stooped using because of that. It insisted on calling home every now and then for licence check. Annoying when you have a network at hand, big problem when in the metro without data.

One thing you might want to do is a free demo / ad supported version.
Some people not wanting to pay might be ok with ads, and personally, i like being able to test out a bit before buying.

Along these lines, chaley, how amenable would you be to removing the license check? The Amazon App Store requires me to allow the Amazon Store app to reconnect to Amazon's server every few weeks or CC quits working and I'd prefer to not do this (and really prefer to remove the Amazon Store and Google Play apps altogether).

I'm curious if you have a feel for how much the rate of piracy might change if the license check were removed.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by Difflugia

Along these lines, chaley, how amenable would you be to removing the license check? The Amazon App Store requires me to allow the Amazon Store app to reconnect to Amazon's server every few weeks or CC quits working and I'd prefer to not do this (and really prefer to remove the Amazon Store and Google Play apps altogether).

I'm curious if you have a feel for how much the rate of piracy might change if the license check were removed.

I was wondering when someone would bring this up.

We (the three of us involved with CC) have discussed idea this several times, and we keep ending up at the same place. There are two reasons that argue against removing the licensing checks.

First, and by far the most important, is that there are a lot of "services" out there that scoop up unmodified (not pirated) application installation files and offer them to the public. It is sometimes hard to know that these services are not "official" in any way. In particular, there is no mention of money and no attempt to charge for the app. People could honestly think getting an app from one of them is totally acceptable, which in fact it is if the app is free. However, because these services exist we need something to prevent what would be casual and unknowing piracy when people use them. The Google and Amazon licensing schemes are the easiest for us to use. They are supported well enough to be reliable world-wide and offer server answer caching (which you refer to), both of which contribute to minimum impact on our users. It isn't zero impact as witnessed by your situation and a few others we have run into, but it really does seem to be minimal. If someone installs our app from one of these sites, they will eventually be told that the app needs to be licensed. At that point the person must make a choice: buy it or obtain a pirated copy of it. Our hope is that most people will choose the first, but we have no data at all about what really happens.

The second comes from conversations with an IP lawyer friend of mine. He says that the notion of "protect it or lose it" that one finds in English-based common law applies to IP as much as it applies to the walking path across your field. If we do nothing at all to protect the property then we run the risk of losing the right to protect it. I remember seeing this principle in play when I was growing up. Once a year a store next to my school would close one of the entrances to its parking lot, thereby preventing people (cars) from using the parking lot to get from one public road to another. The gate was festooned with a large "Private Property" sign. One day I asked the manager why this was done and that is where I first heard of the problem and one solution to it. It isn't clear what "losing it" would mean in our situation, but it does seem that doing the minimum makes sense. However, if it weren't for the first reason we would ignore this one.

Final note: we have considered changing to ad-supported, but decided that we would rather deal with the piracy than subject our users to ads.

[Kirtai]

Not that it excuses them, but there are still countries where Google Play doesn't support paying for apps, China being the most obvious one. There are likely people out there who want to buy your app (or indeed, any app) but can't.

[Difflugia]

Thanks for the answer. I can't think of a solution to either problem that doesn't end up creating significantly more work.

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by chaley

Final note: we have considered changing to ad-supported, but decided that we would rather deal with the piracy than subject our users to ads.

Maybe to much work, but what about an ad supported version and also a pay version that gets rid of the ads and maybe offers more shelf styles or something.


On another note, any chance we'll ever see the Amazon version (currently 3.2.6) getting updated around the same time as the Play version (currently 3.3.1)?

[chaley]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

Maybe to much work, but what about an ad supported version and also a pay version that gets rid of the ads and maybe offers more shelf styles or something.

Another thing we have discussed.

This is a very tough one. The non-ad-supported version would certainly continue to be pirated, and it isn't clear if a) the ads would actually make us any money, and b) whether people would upgrade. In addition, there is a real cost in maintaining an ad-supported version, and there are VAT/tax issues. We keep going in circles on this.

Putting aside that some people will not pay for an app under almost any circumstance, it seems that the problem to solve is to get past the "If I pay for it and don't like it, then I am out the money" barrier. We have an extremely liberal refund policy (basically ask for it and you get it), but people don't seem to notice it, or perhaps to believe us. Both are understandable. In the end, having the policy doesn't seem to solve the problem.

We have considered making a free "trial version" that permits a very limited number of books on the device, perhaps 5 or 10. Other than that it would be fully functional. It would permit people to see if the app works (connects, etc) and whether it is useful to them. For some number of people it would even satisfy their needs. It would have no effect on piracy, because the pirates can already steal the complete version. Maintenance costs are reduced because the apps are really 99.9% the same. The only downsides we can see are the additional uncompensated support costs and the inevitable 1-star reviews that will come from the small book limit. We are still thinking about this.

On another note, any chance we'll ever see the Amazon version (currently 3.2.6) getting updated around the same time as the Play version (currently 3.3.1)?

V3.3.1 was released to Amazon yesterday. I don't know how long their process takes, but it shouldn't be more than a few days.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

Maybe to much work, but what about an ad supported version and also a pay version that gets rid of the ads and maybe offers more shelf styles or something.

Make the shelves (backs) the add space.
Books could be in front. Setting shelves back colour is only availble on the paid mode (Greyed out)


Ads as a Book cover random placed on every shelf
Those Ad covers (marked with currency symbol) are actually 'Buy buttons' from Google Play or Amazon (the PI source)

[EowynCarter]

The second comes from conversations with an IP lawyer friend of mine. He says that the notion of "protect it or lose it" that one finds in English-based common law applies to IP as much as it applies to the walking path across your field.

I've never seen things that way.

Or the other hand, isn't that the point of licencing ?

This is a very tough one. The non-ad-supported version would certainly continue to be pirated

True. But, it might people to test out the app and buy. Every now and then, I give up buying an app because I can't test it.

Putting aside that some people will not pay for an app under almost any circumstance, it seems that the problem to solve is to get past the "If I pay for it and don't like it, then I am out the money" barrier. We have an extremely liberal refund policy (basically ask for it and you get it), but people don't seem to notice it, or perhaps to believe us. Both are understandable. In the end, having the policy doesn't seem to solve the problem.

I was actually unaware app sellers could have this kind of polices on google play.

[booklover6]

Originally Posted by chaley

given that almost 50% of CC users are running pirated versions

How reliable is that info? How about someone that does what I did...I bought my copy from the Play store, then when I got a Kindle Fire, I backed up the apk and installed it on the Fire. So I got the notification pop up that it's not licensed, but I didn't pirate it. (FYI last weekend I bought the Amazon version anyway, as I was having router issues and wanted to see if that would help. It installed seamlessly over the side-loaded copy).

So maybe some of the info that indicates the software was pirated, are just copies that were legitimately copied like mine was.

I agree, though, it is CRAZY to pirate this. It is SO worth $3! (Not saying anything should be pirated).

[Rizla]

Include an occasional online license check when a connection is available. Then the only way for pirates to use it is to use a firewall. You can't stop them, but it's a deterrent. I do think you have to include some kind of online check if you want to defeat piracy. Sadly, it's part of the software landscape these days.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by booklover6

How reliable is that info? How about someone that does what I did...I bought my copy from the Play store, then when I got a Kindle Fire, I backed up the apk and installed it on the Fire. So I got the notification pop up that it's not licensed, but I didn't pirate it. (FYI last weekend I bought the Amazon version anyway, as I was having router issues and wanted to see if that would help. It installed seamlessly over the side-loaded copy).

So maybe some of the info that indicates the software was pirated, are just copies that were legitimately copied like mine was.

The numbers we have would count you as a pirate, because it is an install that appears nowhere in count of the "legal" installations. To directly answer your question, the numbers we have are quite approximate. To avoid privacy concerns we don't collect any information that could connect an installation with a license or allow us to know anything about the user, so there are certainly situations where we under- or over-count.

Have you solved your router issues?

[chaley]

Originally Posted by Rizla

Include an occasional online license check when a connection is available. Then the only way for pirates to use it is to use a firewall. You can't stop them, but it's a deterrent. I do think you have to include some kind of online check if you want to defeat piracy. Sadly, it's part of the software landscape these days.

Unfortunately the pirates would just remove such a check. These people are very good at what they do. They have tools that scan the app installation package looking for certain triggers such as network activity, use of cryptographic tools, certain Android functions that give the app access to the raw install package, and of course any use of licensing. They then decompile (convert to human readable) anything in the app that the tools find, and inspect it by hand. If there is something that does a check, it will be removed or changed to always return OK. We can make finding the checks harder, but we can't stop them from finding them.

I think that the only way to stop piracy is to store nothing on the device. If the app can directly access the desired info then the pirate can too. If all the storage and processing is remote and protected with some access credentials then the only choice the pirate has is to hack the credentials, a much more difficult problem. Unfortunately, putting something like CC in the cloud behind servers isn't practical. There are too many situations where the user does not have a connection or the connection is too slow to be useful.

[chaley]

@Everyone: thank you all for putting up with my initial rant, for turing it into an interesting discussion, and most importantly for your moral support.

[booklover6]

Originally Posted by chaley

The numbers we have would count you as a pirate, because it is an install that appears nowhere in count of the "legal" installations. To directly answer your question, the numbers we have are quite approximate. To avoid privacy concerns we don't collect any information that could connect an installation with a license or allow us to know anything about the user, so there are certainly situations where we under- or over-count.

Have you solved your router issues?

Yes, the router issue was affecting CC but it wasn't anything to do with CC. Just had to reset the router. I could have continued using the side loaded copy, but I had been considering buying a 2nd copy anyway.

So the people that side-load legally purchased copies show as illegal in your stats. Maybe they were all legally purchased. (I wouldn't begin to know where to get an illegal copy, but I guess they are somewhere). I get an error message with my side loaded copy of Moon + Pro on my Kindle Fire, too. But def. not going to buy a 2nd copy of that! Just another reason not to like the Kindle Fire.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by booklover6

So the people that side-load legally purchased copies show as illegal in your stats. Maybe they were all legally purchased. (I wouldn't begin to know where to get an illegal copy, but I guess they are somewhere). I get an error message with my side loaded copy of Moon + Pro on my Kindle Fire, too. But def. not going to buy a 2nd copy of that! Just another reason not to like the Kindle Fire.

No, in most cases side-loaded copies are OK. At least I hope so.

On Google Play, buying CC gives you the right to install it on any number of devices, side-loaded or loaded from GP. The only requirements are that a) the device have access to the GP licensing system (amazon devices normally don't, which is your problem), and b) the device have credentials for the GP account that was used to purchase CC.

I think the same thing is true if you buy from Amazon, but as my son deals Amazon I don't know for sure.

The problem arises when someone buys an app from one appstore then tries to use it on a device that supports only the other appstore. These will appear as unlicensed copies. Given that you can easily put the Amazon appstore on almost any Android device, it seems that the problem is truly vexing only when running GP apps on Amazon devices, which is exactly the case you are in. It is possible to install GP on Amazon devices, but it isn't easy.

From our moral point of view, in this case the app is definitely not pirated, but other than removing the license checks there isn't much we can do.