App Licensing

For all those people telling me that Google's App Licensing would put a definitive stop to piracy on Android and that Apple should implement something similar, all I can say is: I told you you were wrong and here's proof, and it didn't take even as long as I said it would.

I understand Google has to address piracy because it's a bit of a black eye for the platform. They need third party developers, and a lot of third party developers are gun-shy about developing for a platform with a reputation for rampant piracy. Although the iPhone has its own problems with piracy, it's on a completely different scale. The closed nature of the platform is actually an advantage for third party developers, much the way gaming consoles are. Sure, Apple's protection scheme has been compromised and any App posted to the app store can be pirated easily. But, because only people who Jailbreak their phones can actually install the hacked software, and Jailbreaking a phone can cause problems with future updates from Apple, there's built-in damage control.

It also helps that you can buy App Store apps in every country where you can legally buy an iPhone. On Android, you can only buy apps in 13 countries, meaning people in other countries either have to do without paid apps, or have to pirate. There's built-in incentive in that system for people who might be perfectly willing to pay for an app to go pirate it. Google would get more for their piracy-battling dollar by expanding the paid markets than by implementing more hare-brained licensing schemes that won't ever make a dent in piracy.

I don't envy Tim Bray's task of having to try and reassure Android developers that this crack isn't a problem. Of course it's a problem. It's a problem the media industries have been fighting with since the dawn of digital content. The RIAA, MPAA, and media companies have invested millions, maybe even billions of dollars into various schemes that have failed to make much of a dent in piracy.

For those who think this App Licensing can ever work, you (much like the media industry) fail to grasp the inherent technical flaw with any kind of DRM. With DRM, you have to provide the legal purchaser with the content and with the key to unlock that content. No matter how sophisticated the stuff in-between, no matter how complex the lock, a sufficiently technically knowledgeable person who has the content and the key to unlocking it can find a way to free the content from its protection. On Android, once you've freed the content from its DRM, you can distribute it to anybody because of the ability to sideload applications. So on most Android phones right now, once a single copy of a program has been hacked, it's just as easy to pirate as it was without App Licensing.

With software, finding the balance between making it inconvenient to pirate (because you can't make it impossible) without overly inconveniencing your customers is hard. It's easier on a closed platform. That's not to say there aren't downsides to a closed platform — of course there are — but this is one of the clear advantages for third party developers. Truth be told, you simply can not stop the dedicated pirate, but a closed platform does deter the bulk of the pirates who can be diverted into paying customers by making it inconvenient. Best of all, it does it without affecting the legal purchasers, unlike most DRM.

When it comes down to it, the most effective way to stop piracy is to make it easy and convenient for as many people to buy content legally as is possible and to price it fairly. This is something Google clearly doesn't get, or else you'd be able to buy paid apps everywhere you can buy an Android phone.