Pirates make away with $450 million in App Store booty?

There's an excellent breakdown of the 247WallSt figures here by a British games writer:

http://wosblog.wordpress.com/2010/01/15/the-most-spurious-piracy-figures-ever/

I think why Apple isn't doing much about the lost revenue is because they're thinking about it this way: If they shut down pirated software or try to do something about it, iPod sales would go down. Some people buy iPods JUST to pirate software. Here's there way of looking at it. The average iPod touch has about 20 apps on it maybe. The average app is around $5 let's say. 5x20 is $100 in apps wasted if they were all pirated. An iPod starts at $199. So they actually MAKE MONEY if more people are buying iPods to pirate software. This is because since apps like Installous and Cydia are becoming popular and they only run on those devices. People are buying iPods because it is considered "cool" to have a jailbroken iPod Touch. If they try and make jailbreaking illegal, iPod Touch sales would plummet and Apple would lose even more money than what is already being lost.So they're making a good move by not saying anything about it.

Why do people keep bringing up this magical land where duplicating data always means funds flowing into authors' wallets? Shall we also calculate how much money developers would make if unicorns existed and fairies ruled the world?

Wake up. The reality is that if you put a file out into the wild, people are going to copy it and use it for their own purposes. If you can't handle that fact, don't put files on the internet.

Let's see what Apple's SEC 10K filings say; if they do not list this then I say "shenanigans"!

I did run some "copyright-infringed" apps on my original iPhone, but since upgrading to the 3GS (jailbroken and unlocked), I've gone the route of AppStore for all my apps.

The things is, even on the 1st-gen iPhone, I never had more than three screens of apps (52 apps) -- what do people do with 500 apps? Do they have a life?

@Jordan...

Yes. I really do buy music, and iPhone apps instead of finding ways to steal them. I even by the paid versions of a lot of free apps. None of these things will exist unless the content providers can make a profit from producing them.

I love how the piracy conversation glosses over the fact that most of the pirates were never going to buy the thing any way.

To Howie Isaacks.... Have you ever developed an app for the app store? If so name it. Do you know how long it takes to develope an app? Do you know the amount of time it takes to write the scripting for apps? Do you honestly believe that one developer sits at his computer and writes all these codes single handedly? For example, do you think one guy, all by himself, created (lets say) the TOM TOM app? A lot of these apps are made from a group of developers not just one. However there are few apps with just a single developer such as trism. Ive paid for apps from the app store and ive pirated at the same time. Majority of the apps to me are over priced and aren't worth the price consumers spend on them in the long haul. There are very few intuitve apps in the app store. There are many crappy ones that asks for the same price. JimGramze said that people who pirate apps would not have paid for them in the first place. So those figures you see there would have always existed. These developers would have to lower prices regardless in order to make profit if their apps end up not selling. But I dont think developers should complain. 700 million is a major accomplishment for apple. Im sure no ones complaining. And Apple has already taken measures to stop jailbreaking. And they may succeed. However it will not stop people from breaking free of apples tight grip over the iphone. This is no different than the film industry. You advertise a good film on televison enought that people would pay to go and see. Once its out in theatres, the box office numbers kicks in and you've made a killing. But if the movie sucks, its going to stop selling. And when you try to push it out on dvd, it just sits on the shelf. Even before it hits dvd, its been pirated a million times over the web. If Apple or vendors were at a loss they would've already spent more time on security. Such as one developer of beejive. They've actually secured their app so good that if you've cracked it then it will not work on another iphone. But the bottom line is, if it was pirated then it was never intended to be paid for in the first place. This is why advertising is in place. if you want your shit to sell, market the hell out of it so that once it drops, you'll make a killing, who cares what happens after you've made half a million in one week. Yeah it would be good to make another half the next but why set your expectations too high.

At the risk of spitting into the wind, I will make the following statement:

Piracy is theft on the high seas. It involves men with guns, threatening ships crews, and sometimes killing them. Ransoms in the millions of dollars. Kidnapped crews kept from family and friends for months at a time.

The illegal copying of software, on the other hand, is COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT.

Piracy is a criminal offense that can result in years in prison.
Copyright infringement is a civil violation punishable by a fine.

Piracy is prosecuted by the State.
Copyright infringement must be pursued by the injured private party.

Are you beginning to get the picture? The term piracy is used by the big copyright holders to jack up peoples' impression of how bad infringement is, as if it some huge felony or something.

Don't go along. It isn't piracy, it's copyright infringement.

It's always the same old song and dance with the big whigs crying about the inevitable peons who steal their shit. And the numbers are always ridiculous. NOBODY who pirates stuff for any other reason than testing it out before buying (a huge problem not yet fully remedied by the App Store), is EVER going to buy it. In other words, the amount lost to piracy is not only unknowable (or even un-estimatible); it's downright negligible. And any measures to stop it will be hacked and just cost more money than is (theoretically) lost. They should just factor it into the books like Walmart and Target do with shoplifting.

I can't believe stories like this get posted. A percentage of a guess of an estimate of a theory.