I Think Your App Should Be Free

Firstly, what are the current equivalents of a mobile App Store for (pirated) music? There are definitely a bunch of places you can find it if you look, but few of them are as "one-stop-shop" as current app stores.

Secondly, does pirated music often outrank the artists/album name/track titles in general internet searches? Most of the time you'll get the artist, maybe some unofficial fan sites, and some dodgy-SEO lyrics/"free if you pay for our questionable rapidshare style hosting" that probably doesn't even have the content.

If you consider piracy-specific search engines, like TPB or whatever napster/gnutella mutated into, then you're more likely to find real content, but that requires knowing where to look in the first place.

If you consider 'your VC' as an artists music label, then they've probably already got some kind of enforcement system going on. You probably won't have to do all the 'policing' yourself - it's their loss just as much as yours (if not more, due to some of the interesting accounting) if copies aren't getting paid for.

All in all, it seems like a fairly weak metaphor, although I can see how it could become more of a problem in the future.

Edit: I forgot to mention "They’re doing the best they can, they say. Most of all, they’re complying with the law, they say." - I can't imagine many people who download pirated music do so without realising that it's illegal and/or immoral. Legitimate looking services like streaming sites are harder to judge - they might have a license for the content, or they might not. Compare this to an official platform App Store, where consumers can reasonably expect some level of dilligence in ensuring ownership. And if it becomes necessary, there's some sort of accountability back to the person who uploaded the pirated content.

I imagine the author here chose android because it has a less tightly controlled app store, and it may be possible to create anonymous accounts if you're only dealing with free apps (compared to iOS where you need to have bought a dev license to get any signing keys, even for free apps, as I understand it).

The development community has a great solution: app stores. But these only work if the people who run the app stores are willing to help protect the products of those who sell in that store. I think this is what the post is mostly about (and has little to do with the music industry).

To pirate work on the net... Whatever.

To pirate work by placing it in the same app store that your product is sold. That is just messed up.

It sounded to me like the message was supposed to be "it doesn't sound so awesome when you see it from the other side of the looking glass, now does it". (It felt like it was targeted at people who can identify with developing mobile apps)