Appreneur: Secrets to Success in the App Store

Chapter     11

Keeping Piracy to a Minimum

Over the last few years, piracy has become a major problem in the App Store. In 2011, for instance, I had twice as many apps pirated as sold. You will hear a lot of naive appreneurs say, “Piracy is not a big deal; people who pirate would not have bought your app anyway.” This is just flat-out wrong. Consider the following illustration. A user pirates the paid version of your app. You are making nothing from the user. Following the logic that this person would never have paid for the app allows him or her to download your free, ad-backed, version. You will now generate revenue from the user by serving him or her ads. Users who pirate apps are much less likely to buy them; however, there are plenty of ...