[Infowarrior] - App Store DRM cracked, but what's the point?

[Richard Forno]

App Store DRM cracked, but what's the point?

Poetic Justice thy name is Crackulous. In just the last 48 hours, the  
free app that cracks App Store DRM has been appropriated and resold by  
unscrupulous metapirates. There have been 20,000 downloads so far—and  
over 10 million iPhones sold.

By Erica Sadun | Last updated February 2, 2009 12:52

http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2009/02/poetic-justice-watch-crackulous-released-pirated-re-sold.ars

Sunday, warez site Funky Space Monkey announced the release of  
Crackulous 0.9, a GUI front end to xCrack. Crackulous, as the name  
suggests, removes the DRM from App Store software, allowing users to  
distribute pirated programs outside of App Store channels without the  
developers or Apple getting paid. Crackulous was developed at  
Hackulo.us, a donation-supported forum dedicated to, well, stealing  
software. There's really no way to put a good spin on it.

Crackulous is the brainchild of iPhone pirate Salad Fork, who  
notoriously called an early leak of his software "absolutely  
disgusting and downright insulting." Back in November, Mr. Fork became  
outraged when his pirating software was pirated and released without  
his consent or control. Today, he must be experiencing another wave of  
stress: the otherwise free Crackulous software has already been  
repirated and is being sold for ten bucks a pop in a new wave of  
poetic justice.

What Crackulous does

According to the Crackulous v.9 specs, the software lets you "[c]rack  
Applications from the App Store! Share them with the community!  
Crackulous can crack multiple applications at a time, with the most  
POWERFUL and EASIEST to use application available." Here's how it  
works: users pay for and download a legitimate copy of each  
application from the App Store. Then they apply the Crackulous crack  
to create a version that can be distributed and run from a jailbroken  
file system. Finally they upload the cracked version to a warez site,  
where the software is hosted for downloads.

Once cracked, the Hackulo.us onsite FAQ strongly encourages users to  
upload their application to Appulous, their online repository for  
cracked iPhone apps. Appulous members can then download the pirated  
software for free. Like Hackulous, Appulous is presumably supported by  
donations to cover hosting and bandwidth costs.

A rather touching notice at the bottom of the main Appulous page  
mentions that "Appulo.us, its logo, website, and web application are  
Copyright ©2008 Appulo.us. iPhone and iPod Touch are registered  
trademarks of Apple, Inc. All other contents are copyrighted and  
trademarked by their respective owners." It's good to see that the  
Appulous owners are so scrupulous about enforcing copyright.
Pirated pirating

As of today, the Hackulo.us forum mods claim they've hosted over  
20,000 legitimate downloads, for whatever value of "legitimate" they  
may be using. In this case, they refer to people who have not  
appropriated the Crackulous software and are attempting to sell that  
software for profit. Because, yes, once again Crackulous has been  
pirated.

The Crackulous.net site is selling Crackulous for $10 a pop—at least  
for now. The price is due to head up to $20 per copy, making the  
current $10 PayPal price a Great Bargain. Amusingly, the  
Crackulous.net site accuses the (original) free version of being  
malware and adds in its "Is Cracukulous illegal" FAQ: "Of course not!  
Even the folks in Cupertino use Crackulous for testing iPhone  
applications and sharing them with their friends and family." Whoever  
developed this site surely had quite the sense of humor.

In a fit of indignant ire, the Crackulous developers are offended that  
the fruits of their hard work and effort are being distributed by and  
profited from others. The Hackulo.us announcement notes that one such  
party (by which we assume they refer to Crackulous.net) has reported  
earnings of $40, or 4 copies at $10 per copy. They write, "We've had  
well over 20,000 legitimate downloads, so his 4 isn't much of a  
penetration -- but hey, it's fun to virtually punch pathetic losers  
like this in the face."

Effect on App Store and developers

To date, there have been approximately 500 million App Store  
downloads, serving approximately 10 million iPhones. Compared to that  
10 million+ number, the 20,000 users of Crackulous represent an  
extremely limited subset of users. Yes, each Crackulous user can  
provide a copy of software that may reach thousands of users, but on  
the whole, Crackulous does not seem to present a serious threat to the  
App Store ecosystem.

Crackulous and Appulous users are limited to those who have taken the  
time to jailbreak their iPhones and, beyond that, to the minority who  
actively engage in software pirating. The biggest cost to developers  
looks as if it will be to support users who have not paid for their  
licenses and who are using application-specific services such as Web  
bandwidth or tech support for products they haven't bought. These  
costs are real and serious but they're unlikely to tip a developer  
from being able to operate with profits into losing money.

Apple is probably not going to do more than issue a few take-down  
notices in order to affirmatively protect its rights. As for  
developers, dealing with pirates is part of the normal status quo of  
the software business. For now, there's little that can be done.