Piracy rampant in smartphone apps
By Kim Tong-hyung
Technology geeks will talk about how the iPhone is really a Mac and the Android smartphone increasingly resembles the conventional PC (personal computer). In terms of piracy at least, the comparisons appear to be dead on.
There are serious concerns about the flood of illegally-copied apps that some observers believe are threatening to overwhelm Android’s content platform, and Google’s anti-piracy measures have proven to be largely ineffective.
Software developers, including games firms, find it extremely difficult to get smartphone users to spend money on their products when it seems that there is a free unauthorized version of virtually every paid app on the Android Market.
And the music industry is worried about the dozens of third-party apps, like Music Junk, which allow users to bypass copyright controls and download songs directly to their handsets for free.
The core of the problem is, developers say, that the openness of the Android platform makes it too easy for pirates, and even the average user, to steal their work rather than paying for it.
“I think it’s obvious that developers have higher hopes of gaining sustainable revenue from iPhone users than from Android users, as the motivation just isn’t there. We did get our feet wet with the Android, just because we had to, but with piracy being so rampant, there is no need for us to commit seriously to the Android platform as of now,” said the head of a Seoul-based mobile games developer, who didn’t want to be named.
“The developers’ community here has seen some commercial success stories from the iPhone ecosystem, but you have to wonder whether the Android platform will ever be as reliable. Many developers are bypassing Android and providing their products to content platforms operated by mobile-phone carriers, like SK Telecom’s T-Store, which provides digital rights management (DRM).”
Android, a mobile operating system developed by Google, represents the mobile industry’s strongest challenge against Apple’s iPhone-based supremacy in consumer smartphones. Major vendors like Samsung Electronics, Motorola, Sony Ericsson and HTC have been introducing a wave of Android-powered devices in the past year.
More than 2 million Koreans are using smartphones that run on Android, compared to the 1.7 million users of iPhones, according to industry figures.
Android’s distinctiveness is based on its open development environment, with Google allowing developers to publish apps without its prior approval and minimizing the restrictions on what parts of the phone an app can access. This, Google insists, will open the door to a much richer set of apps over time and put Android in a position to edge Apple in the competition for content wealth.
But even critics who have denounced Apple for its closed and tightly-controlled iTunes App Store would have to admit that at least for now, the iPhone is providing a smoother and more sustainable experience for both users and developers.
And as the PC experience can attest to, the other side of the coin to rampant piracy could likely be security vulnerability. This is a particularly grave concern, experts say, as an increasing number of mobile users are using their handsets for online banking, electronic commerce and other forms of encrypted communications.
“Users of the iPhone would be less vulnerable, as Apple strictly monitors and controls the programs available on its App Store. However, smartphones powered by more open mobile platforms, such as Android, might be exposed to tech theft,” said Kim Kee-chang, Korean University law professor and a well-known advocate of consumer rights in technology services.
Com2us, a mobile games developer that enjoyed significant success marketing its “Homerun Battle 3D” game to iPhone users, introduced the Android version of the game earlier this year. The company saw its market effectively killed just weeks later when Android users began downloading the illegal version of the game from their desktop computers.
The music industry seems to be considering the piracy on Android smartphones as its biggest threat since Soribada, a Napster-like peer-to-peer service, emerged and decimated its market a decade ago.
Soribada, much like Napster, was eventually shut down and forcibly converted into a licensed music reseller. Apps may present a more difficult challenge as the songs are downloaded from anonymous locations or servers, instead of being shared among users, and stored directly to the handset’s memory card.
The Korean Association of Phonogram Producers (KAPP), a recording industry lobby, is working with major websites like Naver (www.naver.com) and Daum (www.daum.net) to weed out the online destinations that are providing the illegal music apps.
Google appears to be entangled in a tiring “whack-a-mole” game over piracy on the Android platform, frantically searching and deleting copycat apps, only to see others pop up.
Developers here are quickly losing their patience, as Google Korea has also been slammed for its lax support on payment methods other than Google Check-Out, which makes it harder to move paid apps.
An official from Google Korea said it is working with mobile carriers to develop a payment system that allows users to tack the cost of the apps to their monthly phone bills, but declined to reveal when the new system will be introduced.
스마트폰 불법 애플리케이션 기승
스마트폰 애호가들이 흔히 말하길 아이폰은 사실상 또 다른 형태의 매킨토시 컴퓨터이며 반면 안드로이드 스마트폰은 그 동안 흔히 쓰이던 PC와 닮아가고 있다고 한다. 적어도 불법저작물 문제에 관해서 만큼은 이러한 비교가 타당해 보인다.
안드로이드 스마트폰용 앱시장인 안드로이드 마켓에서 불법 복제 컨텐츠의 증가로 몸살을 앓고 있다. 구글의 저작권 조치도 크게 효과를 보지 못하고 있는 듯하다.
게임 등 모바일 소프트웨어 개발자들은 안드로이드 유저에게 자신들의 상품을 파는 것이 매우 어렵다고 하소연한다. 거의 모든 안드로이드 유료앱에 대한 무료 불법복제앱이 존재하는 상황이니 그럴 만다.
음악컨텐츠 회사들도 울상이다. 안드로이드 마켓에는 유저들이 정상적인 경로를 우회하여 직접 음악을 다운로드 받을 수 있게 하는 뮤직정크와 같은 써드파티 앱이 수두룩하다.