I don't have one either. I'm not paying nearly as much for another license to remove the copyright. I suppose some people might see some benefit to it, but I certainly do not. If I want to spend that kind of money, I'll buy another license.
Eh, I've never felt the need to - I'm a proud vBulletin user and I'd rather show people that I am by keeping the copyright as it is.
To be honest I do - I buy Branding Free on everything I am using at the moment (still waiting for the vbcredits stuff to be sent to me) mainly because although I respect everything the coders do I have big plans for my website... becoming one of the biggest in Australia would be good and therefore I buy branding free for 2 reasons: 1) So I can Brand my own Network 2) IF people want advertising back to their websites to improve backlinks they can pay me for it!
I don't spring for the branding-free option because I feel that I'm already paying enough for the software. Maybe if I had unlimited resources I would.
I've never had a reason to spend so much extra money just to go branding-free. Don't think I ever will, to be honest.
Its mainly large companies that do this, every single large gaming community ive seen has removed copyright of there forums, for example ijji.com
Amen My site is still small so the money is better spent on advertising or site improvements.. But once I reach 10,000 or so active members, I'm going Brand free.
Wayne, out of curiosity, and if it's within your rights to share, do a lot of customers actually buy the branding-free license, in comparison to non-branding-free?
I don't have exact numbers but I would say between 20 and 25% of customer purchase the branding free. Some do it because of company policy. Others to provide a cleaner experience.
I don't have any branding free licenses because I really don't care if someone knows weather or not I'm running vBulletin. Anyone with a little experience can identify a brand free vB board as a vB board in 3.2 seconds anyhow so what's the point? What I will say is this and it's not just vBulletin that does it, lots of companies do it and I don't think it's right. I think it's pretty crappy that I have to display a companies name sitewide in my footer, just because. It must not be that important because you can pay (a ridiculous fee) to remove the copyright, so it cannot be for any reason other than what equates to free advertising, for a paid product. You want to protect your copyright or what ever the supposed reason is for it fine then comment it out in the source. That aside, I'm a proud vB user and don't care about the powered by vBulletin though I'd still like the choice to be able to keep it up or not rather then an upcharge to do so.
The reason people get the branding free licence if probobly not because they want it to be an secret that they use vBulletin its more likely the reason is to have a cleaner footer.
As I mentioned I brought it as I am trying to build my websies brand - I don't want to be just advertising every other company that has ever done anything by providing sofware or anything that I have paid for - i would prefer to have everything clean so when I get to the point where I can seel advertising space I have all the spaces I need... What I do hate to be honest is all the mods on vb.org that people add a little copyright in the footer, sure they deserve recognition especially on the bigger mods like vbCredits, ibproarcade, and some other of the bigger ones but seriously to have a different default avatars for usergroups to me you don't really deserve to have a copyright on my website - and therefore any small mod i install that has a copyright I remove immediately and don't bother using it.
I agree with you merk_aus, that does bug me too. I'm half expecting someone to release a mod that sticks some affiliate links for online casinos or pharmaceuticals in everyone's footer, like some of those free WordPress templates.
I never have and I don't have a reason to - I'm proud to show that I use vBulletin. I would, however, on a highly modified skin that almost looks nothing like vBulletin or your typical forum layout. Usually a site that uses vBulletin for something beyond a forum (like an Avatar posting community: Avatar Community Chat Forums - Online Life).
