Piracy

Hello all...
Today I was going to help a member of this community. He was having issues with his vB4 install and I went to his site to check it out. I found that the skin was very familiar, mostly because I bought it when it came out. The creator is Sean of BluePearl Design, and I am semi-active on his board. Never once did I see the name of the person I was helping, nor was it in the user list, so I sent Sean a PM. He confirmed that that sites URL was not in his database. Meaning that he never purchased the skin.
I should hope that this site does not help people with pirated copys of software. For what it is worth, I think that vB is pirated as well, as well as cometchat. I sent Anat over at cometchat a PM as well asking if he had records, but the very first link in the bar leads me to a site that (I think) deals with pirating vB mods.
I would urge everyone not help someone who steals from developers. As a forumer skin designer, I hated it (and left the bis because of it) when my skins go ripped/leaked.

 

Sounds like a good idea.

I'm not sure what details should be disclosed publicly regarding these things, but can tell based on some of the wording of what people type, some are more likely to be licensed than others. I am not referring to any specific person though.

Admin sites seem to be a magnet to people that need help, but do not own the software.

 

I've removed the mentions of a specific user.

 

i do think you should report the person who is doing it, as its wrong that they are getting stuff for free that people should have to pay for, cause its stealing.

 

Fair enough.

I did. Unfortunately, there is very little a skin creator can do, especially if it is hosted off-shore...

 

Wow, between Pirated vBulletin, Pirated Skins, Pirated Cometchat, and Pirated vBSEO, you think the site would have been served a nice takedown notice.

 

It probably is hosted off shore then. Unfortunately there are hosting companies in some countries that do not care as long as the molah comes in. You also have the ones that have there own server who could probably well afford it.

 

Off-shore as in, hosted in another country, or off-shore as in, hosted in a certain type of country? If so, what sort of country's allow this?! I know of non.

 

It seems that some people have no morals or values. They think that its ok to steal whatever they want.

I do what I can to prevent piracy,,,, but its a uphill battle.

 

I don't do work for clients that have warez
haven't for years, not that it's much, but it's what I can do

 

Unfortunately where the will is there is a way for it. Not to mention if you're any good at it too it's really hard because of the demand for it. If you look at society today it's everyone want's something for nothing. Instead of a good job today is a good payday.

 

Just a side note Vbulletin has moved it's piracy service from pirate reports to an internal solution. Do you think out will get better as a result?

Sent from my HTC EvO 4G

 

Not sure if IB can do better or worse than Howard, their track record is not good.

Regardless, I hope that if I own a legit copy registered to 'myforum.com' that in the future if the forum software was actually at 'myforum.com/forum' they would not contact the hosting provider and have them delete the database.

That has been done in the past.

 

They pick that and they may end up with some counter suits. Though I've only heard of it when people use myforum.com/forum and myforum.com/demo with seperate databses, which would call for 2 seperate licenses.

But on something that obvious you would think they would send a warning first.

 

I've seen the take down of a misspelled forum more than once "myforums.com/forums" vs "myforums.com/forum". Not 2 different forums, just slightly misspelled in the license info.

The thing is, if a host is that quick and eager to delete the database, they most probably a small inexpensive outfit. Possibly any individual buying a re-sellers account. Any forum of any significant size and resources would not be using those types of hosts.

The people that loose the data do not have much resources to sue.



I must say, Howard is one of the reason we have backups automated to a different hosting account, and that is a good thing.