Publishers and developers generally hate piracy, an ever-looming specter that just adds up to lost revenue at the end of the day. Despite that, some developers are less concerned with piracy, while others are looking at different ways to deal with it as opposed to online passes and DRM. At the Midem conference in Cannes, Rovio Mobile CEO Mikael Hed said that piracy can actually bring new business to companies.
"We have some issues with piracy, not only in apps, but also especially in the consumer products. There is tons and tons of merchandise out there, especially in Asia, which is not officially licensed products," said Hed. "We could learn a lot from the music industry, and the rather terrible ways the music industry has tried to combat piracy. Piracy may not be a bad thing: it can get us more business at the end of the day."
Hed said that Rovio has learned its lessons from the music industry.
"We took something from the music industry, which was to stop treating the customers as users, and start treating them as fans. We do that today: we talk about how many fans we have," he said. "If we lose that fanbase, our business is done, but if we can grow that fanbase, our business will grow."
[Via The Guardian]
