With the release of Google's License Verification Library (LVL) and the subsequent cracking of applications that make use of LVL, the Android development community has been buzzing.  The Android Developers Google Group has several active threads discussing how LVL can be improved and what the best approach to solving piracy on the platform might be.

One Google engineer made an interesting statement in response to my claim that I thought a "culture of piracy" might be developing in the Android user community:

That's actually a really good point.  I don't know anyone that pirates apps.  The statement raised a very interesting question in my mind:  Who actually is pirating Android apps?  In my experience for my apps such as Screebl Pro, I've seen piracy rates that are very high (as I described in this blog posting). Things had gotten so bad, in fact, that we actually developed our own license verification solution some months before LVL in an attempt to stop piracy of our applications. 

But the question remains.  If I'm not pirating apps, and you aren't, and no one knows anyone who is, where is the piracy coming from?  In the case of my app, I thought it would be interesting to try and identify which parts of the world were spawning the most pirates.

Me:  Hey Amazon, can I buy a Kindle Fire to test my apps on before you ship to the general public?

Amazon: No.  BTW, we've forked Android, but to get you started here's a two-paragraphs description of the features of the Fire so that you can create a VM image and "test" your apps.

Me: OK.  I know that you test everyone's apps yourself.  Do you know if my app works on Fire?

Amazon: It does not.  That's as much as we're going to tell you, however.  Good luck, and be sure to see our two paragraphs that describe the features of the Fire.

Me:  That sucks.  How can I test my app on an actual device?

Amazon: We recommend that you buy a Kindle Fire, so that you can develop new apps for the Fire.  Have you seen Angry Birds?  It works on the Fire.  You should get your app to work there too.  Make sure that you update the price of your app.

Me:  OK.  I got my Fire from FedEx today.  I plugged it in and it doesn't seem to have any way enable debugging.  What do you recommend?

Amazon: See our FAQ.  It has a two-paragraph description of the features of the Fire.  Use that to create a VM image on which you can test.  Have you seen Angry Birds?  You should write apps for the Fire.

Me: Hey, XDA, does anyone here know how to debug on the Kindle Fire?

XDA: Sure.  Just do this (http://blog.actlocalmedia.com/2011/11/developing-on-kindle-fire.html).