App Developer Happy That Piracy Doubled His Sales http://tinyurl.com/4udbx5h
The developer of “Punch ‘Em – Fight People” noticed his sales doubled around the holiday period. It turns out that this wasn’t from a holiday sales bonus, but because his app had suddenly become the subject of quite massive unauthorized distribution – about 40x the legitimate sales. The developer says:
“It’s pretty obvious why developers get upset about piracy: uh, it’s stealing. Aside from that, I’m pretty straightforward about the fact that decisions should be profit-driven. Throughout Punch ‘Em!’s paid lifetime, I couldn’t raise its sales count in the long term. So if thousands of users end up pirating my app, but hundreds buy it as a result of hearing about it from their pirate buddies, why should I cry?”
That’s been my attitude. I know my pdf books have been used in unauthorized circumstances, but I’ve made good profit from the project anyway, so I’m relatively happy to take the publicity benefit instead of sales I would never (in reality) have a hope of getting.
I should also point out that his sales went up after he removed DRM from the application, because of the massive unauthorized distribution.