Piracy is a touchy subject and has been looked down upon by many many different markets, Android included. Obviously we all know how the music industry feels on the matter, and we’ve seen the countless attacks and results from their approach. When it comes to Android or apps in general some might feel different. The creators of Angry Birds, Rovio had a thing or two to say regarding the matter — and don’t really think it’s of much concern.
SlashGear’s Shane McGlaun said it best this morning by saying, “Somewhere, an RIAA supporter is crying right now.” And we’d have to agree with him. After a conference this week Rovio CEO Mikael Hed had a few interesting comments regarding piracy and their Angry Birds brand. Here are a couple of quotes:
We could learn a lot from the music industry, and the rather terrible ways the music industry has tried to combat piracy.”
Piracy may not be a bad thing: it can get us more business at the end of the day,”
Rovio admits they’ve had their share of problems with piracy, but most of which was in regards to their Angry Birds merchandise and not games themselves. There is no doubt in my mind the Rovio owners would rather users buy their games, apps, and merchandise — but they way they make it sound it doesn’t appear like they are the slightest bit concerned. For a hugely successful company such as Rovio I can understand where they are coming from, but for the average Android developer that builds an awesome game and sees lackluster sales thanks to sneaky black market app stores this could be a very different story.
I personally feel that if you like a game, you should buy it. Support developers and game creators so they can continue to impress and develop for Android, or any other platform. That is why free versions and paid versions have been so successful thus far for Android because we can try before we buy. Not everyone has the luxury of Century Fox making movies of their games, or millions of bird pillows to boost sales.
What do you guys think? Obviously piracy hurts Android developers, but can it also be a good thing?
stopping piracy will not increase there sales..
I don’t believe a lot of profit is being lost from people downloading pirated music and such because the only reason people usually download it is because they’re getting it free. If the only way they could get it would be to pay for it they, likely, wouldn’t purchase it. But lets say they download a pirated copy of a song or movie then tell their friend how awesome it is then their friend buys a legit copy they’ve actually profited from someone downloading a pirated copy. So yes, I’d say piracy can be a good thing
What are your thoughts on the app side of things? With Android the same could apply and friends can show others — but then they can also just share the file and give it to their friends for free too. Same applies for music I guess. Just wondering what you thought
I think it’s pretty much the same situation. I mean, I realize it sucks for developers to know an app that took them lots of time to create is being pirated but again… I just don’t believe the people who would scour the web for a pirated version, risking a virus infection, rather than pay a few couple dollars would, likely, never purchase the app anyway! Just my $0.02
As a consumer I hate piracy, and the reason, because it causes the erosion of our freedom as some content producers come up with ways to protect their ‘property’. It means having to have a disc in a drive or be connected to the Internet to play you’re PC games. It means not being able to play you’re dvds bluray apps on any device you want. It means stupid passing or attempting to pass stupid laws like SOPA and PIPA and the DMCA.