A few weeks ago Google announced a new licensing service for Android applications. The service, once added to software, would force an online ID check each time it was launched to ensure the person using the application did, in fact, pay for it. Piracy is a huge concern for Android developers, and it’s one of the reasons some larger software companies haven’t begun releasing their products on the Android Market. Google had hoped that their new licensing service would alleviate some of those concerns. It turns out the service might not be all it’s cracked up to be.

It’s only been a few short weeks since Google first announced this new licensing technology, and it has already been broken. Android Police has already cracked the new licensing technology. Not only did they crack it, they also made it clear that the process was fairly simple, going so far as to suggest that the crack could be packaged into an application that would be able to break the licensing protection on every program on the phone with ease.

This is great news for anyone looking to get some paid applications for free, but it’s not good news for the Android community as a whole. Piracy is one of the reasons that applications just don’t sell as well on the Android Market as they do on Apple’s App Store. Android users have yet to see programs from major software publishers due to the lack of security inherent to the Android Market. Until Google can come up with a copy protection scheme that actually works, it’s unlikely that we’ll see any of those big developers and publishers bringing their applications and games to Android phones.

Google now finds itself in a sticky situation. The new licensing service turned out to be underwhelming, and they pushed it out the door with full confidence that it would help ease concerns over piracy. To have the service cracked wide open in such a short amount of time makes them look ill-equipped to protect the developers who want to sell their products on the Market. Despite Android’s ever increasing adoption rate, Google may find themselves in hot water if they can’t come up with a firm solution to the piracy problem. If developers don’t bring new quality products to the platform, Google will have a hard time keeping users interested.

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