I spotted a surprising article today over at Gizmodo.  It was surprising not for the fact that it deemed talked about piracy in general, but the attitude it treated piracy.  The story focused around Apple App Store piracy, which it found in general to be at about 10% or less for most apps, and deemed it not a big deal.

Here’s the money quote:

At first I found many developers' silence on the issue curious. But after talking to a few, and finding out the scale of the problem, it makes sense: An app developer has nothing to gain by taking their fight public — Apple is clearly aware of the issue, and it's not like you can somehow convince hardcore pirates to start paying for all the dozens of apps they steal, because they were never going to buy them in the first place. To these people they're literally just free samples, and are most frequently treated as such.

According to John Herman, the author of the article, he’s in wide-eyed wonder that developers wouldn’t sacrifice their PR efforts to pursue profits from 5-10% of their audience. What’s truly bizarre to me is that this attitude exists at all (and believe you me, it does. The SPA has been going after that 5-10% for decades now).

What makes the treatment of this situation different from the general consensus about “regular” software piracy? It’s hard to say – this isn’t exactly the start of a meme in terms of ink on the issue, but it is certainly reflective of a different attitude from the mainstream. I think that difference in attitude has roots in Apple-Fanboi-ism, since to make hay about the issue would involve making hay at Apple’s expense. The general software market is a decentralized one, and those who pirate are “evil” all on their own – to go after them alienates generally the people who wouldn’t buy their products in the first place.

In the case of the App Store developers, though, no one wants to anger the mighty Jobsian ivory tower, because getting your apps approved in the marketplace is already dicey enough.

There are other factors as well.  I think that at this point, it’s heresy to go counter to the commonly held narrative that Piracy is Evil, Evil, Evil, and sites like Slashdot and Mike Masnick’s Techdirt are the only sites I know that routinely write the other side of the story.

Hopefully this is the start of a turning point. Piracy is typically not the big deal it’s treated as, and draconian “three strike laws” that are common in parts of Europe are a result of this blown-out-of-proportion coverage. A return to sanity is a good thing, and here’s to hoping it spreads.

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