The Pinch Media CEO states that "What we've determined is that over 60 percent of iPhone applications have definitively been pirated based on our checks"

Then, he goes on to state that his software is used by only 8% of the apps (or really games) out there. But, they've determined that 60% of the apps in the market place have been pirated?

Is it safe to assume that out of all Pinch Media clients tracked, 60% of them have been prirated? If so, that would be 60% of 8%. Is it also safe to assume that Pinch Media clients are almost exclusively game developers? Then, that would be 60% of 8% of games, not all apps. Now, what exactly is the affect of this stated piracy to a developers back end infrastructure other than pirates not purchasing the game for their jail broken phones?

Without proper context this all seems like an opinion rather than fact. Until Apple states factual findings, or there is a collective and dependable transparency from all developers stats, this type of reporting seems arbitrary and counter productive to the iPhone community in my opinion. In fact, this type of reporting may just help Pinch Media find more clients who think the so called piracy can be tracked by Pinch Media and thus diminished.

This isn't an analysis. This is an editorial in my opinion.

That's how I read it too, Mark. 60% of 8% = "... [4.8%] of the apps out there have definitively been pirated ...", or perhaps, "... [an estimated] 60% of the apps out there ..."

@Mark,

8% of all apps or even just 8% of all games is a really, and I am REALLY, good sample of the iPhone market. Considering most scientific and market research surveys sample the population to the tune of 0.0001% or often less and are still considered a good sampling of the population.

Yes there is going to be some fluctuation of the percentage when all 100,000 apps are considered, but 8,000 apps is still a good measure of the app store as a whole.

I found this very interesting:

"Pinch Media is a company that provides analytic software for iPhone games, tools that give developers a sense of how their application is performing, how many people are using it, and what players are doing within the game.

It also includes a few simple checks to determine whether the game has been pirated."

If developers can see over this too how many people are using an app and developers can check if a game is pirated, I wonder how many privacy is left on an iPhone. Does this mean anybody who wants to can check the Apps stored on your device and how you are using them?

@Christian,

No. The software provided by Pinch is something added to a game that let's the developer of that game track the usage of their game. They cannot see what other apps a person has installed nor what else they are doing outside of the game.

Bit how can the developer see if the App is pirated? Does the game automatically sends stats to the developer?

Appstorehq.com is tracking around 13.5K games in the iTunes store currently (all game genres). Let's double that number for this conversation's sake. We'll speculate that 25% of 100K apps are games, even though we know it's probably less. Furthermore, the Pinch Media measures activity on 8% of the 25K games. 60% of those 8% tracked are tracking as pirated. That's 1,200 tracked games being pirated for use on jailbroken phones. Okay, now we have a guesstimation of games being pirated that Pinch Media are tracking. Can we assume that 60% of all games are being pirated? That's an important question we cannot answer with the above data.

What is happening with those 1,200 tracked games on jailbroken phones that hurt the developer or publisher? Definitely a sale is lost, but is there upside in the fact that a developer can claim more user base or is there perhaps a "pass along" value that affects the games global awareness positively? Pirating is a BAD thing, but is it avoidable?

I think an important takeway question here is how do we further protect from pirating, and can we use or control pirating to our benefit moving forward? If the iPhone were available through multiple carriers and monthly consumer costs were lowered, then we have one solution for the piracy issue. Apple probably is aware of this solution.

I think tools like Pinch Media are extremely useful in the growth of the app world, but again, I think this analysis above is more of an editorial than an actual analysis. What's missing for me is proper context and transparency of data.

@Christian: using a tool like Pinch Media can let a developer match actual users against actual sales. Then, a developer or publisher can analyze possible piracy rates as well as more granular real time user data.

@Mark Morrison: "Definitely a sale is lost...". Er, no? Don't equate a game pirated to a game sale lost. There is absolutely no guarantee that the game would have been purchased by that person if piracy weren't an option.

What I'm more interested in is how Pinch Media determines that a game is pirated? What are these "simple checks" it performs, and is there any possibility for false positives? Because 60% seems like a very high figure. especially given the ease and cheapness of actually buying most games.

Stealing is wrong. You know it and I know it.

Shut up. It's wrong.

It's also illegal.

Probably because it's wrong.


And, if you have low expectations for mobile content, don't play it.

A thief is nothing but a dirty thief.

Probably because stealing is wrong.

@Aaron Knafla: I don't think anyone here is advocating piracy.

I'm also confused by the percentages, I WOULD like to see more concise statistics, though. Specially considering how easy it is to jailbreak your iphone and pirating apps. I had my phone jailbroken for a while, but then I got tired of restoring it every time there was a OS update. I do miss some of the cool apps from cydia, like for instance, the app that can turn your phone into a videocamera. Or changing the SMS sounds.

good clarification tarragon. i was referring more on how the content creator may look at it in this context. i think you're right that a pirate probably won't buy the game. that's why they're a pirate.

@aaron. nice song!

@Christian Keichel : Yes, devs do know if an app is pirated, and they even know the unique iPhone ID of each pirate.

@the article : it's depressing.

"I think an important takeway question here is how do we further protect from pirating, and can we use or control pirating to our benefit moving forward?"

Well i honestly do not think its possible to stop piracy, as piracy has been around since before i was born. In essence, piracy is a means to obtain something that a person could not normally obtain. It is an embodiedment of freedom itself, so even if it is crushed it will return in one way or another. I do not say these things to glorify or justify piracy, as i do believe under most circumstances it is wrong.

The only real viable option is to control, and use pirates to benefit the industry. But to do that the industry must first understand who the pirates are, and why they pirate in the first place. Sure some pirates are cheapskates who just want something for free, but i honestly do not believe that describes the vast majority of pirates.

Furthermore, i believe that the vast majority of pirates are either young, or do not have alot of money to begin with. Moreover, with alot of the "shovel ware" and other forms of overpriced junk alot of consumers have become cautious and seek to find a "demo" or a means to test the waters before they decide to purchase; thus breeding more and more new pirates.

Now personally i believe the solution involves developers intentially leaking out, unsafe and corrupt versions of thier software, for pirates to gobble up, thus destablizing the world of piracy.

THEN, the publisher or developer could create a system, where the consumer could get the item they desired for free. This would involve a long and tedious waiting list, and agreeing to take surverys/ view ads and any other service that could generate revenue for the publisher / developer.

As as result, what would once be pirated generating absoltuly 0 revenue is now generating atleast a moderate amount. Sure it most likely wouldnt be as much as a retail sale, but its better then nothing right.

That number seems low, and can be said about ANY software.

I'm not certain of how Pinch Media determine the pirated statistics but reading around this subject I believe pirates actually just declare that they have pirated the game in an online survey after they have taken part in some sort of online leader board or reward system. That Retarded to me.

Well Piracy is stupid anyway. What also amazes me is all these kids posting videos on youtube about how to jailbreak iphones. They're obviously intelligent kids. Why not put their brain to more constructive uses like developing Apps.

If you're too poor to afford a 99c game then you're a loser by the way.

Owen,
I would imagine usage statistics (with unique iPhone IDs) are compared to purchase logs (also likely containing the unique iPhone IDs). If there isn't a match on both lists, it's a pirated copy.

It's pretty simple, really. We do these kinds of metrics in the payment industry all the time.