This is a great article, right here. The author, Richard Gaywood of TUAW, raises a very interesting and tense issue in regards to software licensing: does removing the features from an app already paid for by the customer, and moving them to a more expensive “Pro” version, constitute “double dipping”? Do the legal implications of software ownership, outweigh the ethical implications of being a scumbag? Fascinating. No, wait- the other thing. Shitty.

Look, I get that Instacast could very well be within their rights by removing said features from their paid app, as outlined by software licensing agreements. But that still doesn’t make what they’re doing okay, as evidenced by any one of the myriad 1-star reviews the app is now being avalanched with on the App Store from angry customers.

The argument of actual software ownership versus perceived software ownership doesn’t really matter here- at the end of the day, this is an issue of doing right by customers. Shazam did it right when they changed their app’s pricing model: they grandfathered loyal customers of their app into the new feature set, free of charge. Did they technically have to do that? Probably not. Did they see a firestorm of 1-star reviews on the App Store as a result? Absolutely not- in fact, they saw the opposite, receiving a swell of high praise from customers who appreciated the respect shown to them.

And that’s really what this issue is about: respect. In this digital age, people are very, very protective over their perceived ownership of software, since there isn’t such a thing as a “boxed copy”, or any sense of tangible ownership that comes with a physical product. Pulling the rug out from under your own customers may not break any laws, but it violates the hell out of the law of common sense.

Instacast pricing raises hackles: are apps bought or rented? [Updated] [TUAW]

Update: I made a mistake about Instacast’s support for notifications in the original draft of this article. Please read my corrections at the end. My