I was asked how you can find out if there are any pirated copies of your apps around the web.

To be honest - that is quite simply done manuelly by using our good old friend google.

Just search up the name of your apk file. For this to do it is best to give your paid app a well searchable package name to do so. You will maybe find some hosters hosting your files or other sources.

Most of the "known" forums out there were hiding the apk name from search engines, so you also need to search for your game name also.

This way you should be able to find it on the "known" forums.

You can do that once a day or once a week with the search results delivered for that period (you can tell that google, by using ght options on the left side of the google website)

If you are lazy (like me) you can also put up a small script which does this work for you and informs you about new found items, maybe filtered by the "all known" forums.

You can also let google send you a mail, as soon as new search results are found - I've tried that also but was not satisfied because I found that it does not notify always .. did no further investigation about it.

I am thinking about putting up a little service for other developers where they can track their apps .. maybe I'll make an app for that ..

How to react on found pirated copies

To be honest .. you cannot do much about it. Yes, you can register at the "known" boards and report the thread (they will remove it) and yes you can also report the files on the different hosting services, when you found some (they will remove it also).

But that would cause you so much work, that it is better to think about better protection inside your app. You will not be able to stop pirating your app but you will be able to lower it.

For me the most annoying thing was, that there IS a free version available and my games are no big sellers - it's like a backstab and I don't like to be backstabbed.

So, even if you will be able to find most of your pirated copies - stop trying, it does only cost you nerves and time. Better invest it into new updates for your apps. Users get the benefit of automatic updates and new features every time, instead of waiting for a pirated copy and update manually.

You see, most of the users will be lazy too and are much more willing to buy your app, if they get more benefit of it instead of pirating it.

update: a reader of my website just gave me another tip on how to find such copies (thanks to hendrik). If you have a video of your app, then look at the referers. Because the video is linked with the pirated copy you will find some sources in your video stats.