Apple has lost more than $450 million from App Store piracy, according to a published report Wednesday. “A conservative estimate of the average piracy rate is that for every paid application developed and sold at the App Store, three more are pirated,” a financial blog claims.
The $7 game Rally Master Pro 3D has a 95 percent piracy rate, according to publishers Fish Labs. The $1.99 game Tap-Fu has a 90 percent piracy rate, says publisher’s Neptune Interactive and Smells Like Donkey. Even developers of applications costing less than $1 suffer piracy. The 99 cent iCombat has a 75 percent piracy rate, publisher Web Scout said.
The key to increased piracy is the ease of “jailbreaking” an iPhone. Once a technical challenge, now even “most Luddites” are joining experienced hackers in freeing the handset from limits, according to 24/7 Wall Street. Although Apple has produced several updates to the iPhone aimed at preventing jailbreaking, the focus has been mostly on preventing iPhones being used on carriers other than AT&T, which has an exclusive contract with the Cupertino, Calif. company.
Although some App Store developers decry piracy, others feel combatting the hacks should be left to larger publishers.
“I think the best solution is to create a version akin to a lite version of the app for pirates. It is no good to shut off access to your app completely, but it also doesn’t get you very far to give away the core value you are offering to the paying user,” said iCombat developer Miguel Sanchez-Grice.
Apple reportedly receives 30 percent of each app sold.
[Via 24/7, Barron’s and Mac Observer]
