vB or IPB lawsuit?

If you have ever been contacted by vBulletin (Jealsoft) or Invision Power you probably know how scary it can be going up against a big corporation if you want to call them that.

What are your first reactions do you ignore it, do you email them back or what?

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I know when i get an email from one of them I contact my lawyer and let him know of a possible lawsuit for we can get started on protecting me if something happens. Then i go and email them and try and work it out, but when one of these companies finds somebody to attack they take it and attack like a pitbull so it rarely succeeds.

yes i have a routine down as many people believe my licensed tend to be illegal for some reason even tho I have a friend who works with vbulletin and i have many licensed and even some alpha versions.

 

I have never been accused of being a nulled-license holder. I'm surprised this has happened to you so often.

 

I have quite a few people who i have upset in the past as I have refused service to them because they were not people i wanted to do business with, do to their racial beliefs and they try to find anything that they can use against me.

 

That doesn't make sense. They don't make contact unless it's an actual nulled board, they have a database full of customer information. They check a reported site against their records, if it's there, it's a valid customer, if not they'll contact either you or your host.

 

Either I don't understand you or your story is missing some important information. If you have all legal licenses and they mistakenly contact you thinking one or more isn't, wouldn't you just have to either update your urls or tell them where to find you in their database of licenses? Why would you even need to resort to a lawyer when legal licenses are much cheaper?

 

Never happend me. Not even when I am using an nulled version.
Just kidding :p Never had an nulled version installed. But this haven't happen me.

 

I'm a bit confused as well. Michelle about sums up my thoughts.

 

I contact my lawyer just because its precautions incase something arises, and they contact me because none of the licenses are actually in my name, they mostly in family's names or business names

 

I'm confused, as well. Please explain further.

It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever that vBulletin and/or Invision Power Board would accuse you of using nulled-copies of the software without hard evidence. Something simply does not fit here.

 

But why are you repeatedly contacted and accused of running unlicensed instances?

 

I am assuming its because I do not always run the latest version i believe one version i have running like 3.6 another 3.8 etc.. I generally do not upgrade unless i have my skin already upgraded.

 

That still makes absolutely no sense. There are a vast majority of license holders that do not run the latest release of the software and are perfectly fine.

 

As far as I'm aware, the version you're running has no impact on its legality whatsoever.

 

True nick, but from what I have been told is that the people who report me claim to have access to my ftp and have seen the files and that they are nulled.

 

If people are reporting you for the sole purpose of entertainment, they need to be dealt with appropriately.

 

That's fine, but both companies have a quick way of checking if your installation (based on the URL it's installed) is licensed or not. They don't contact you unless they have ensured that you are indeed running a pirated copy.

 

Yeah, still not making sense here. As long as the installation has the license number and is at the url you specified in the vB member's area, I doubt they really care whose name its in.

 

Jelsoft really doesn't care whose name they are in. Here are the reasons you would be contacted.

1) The site does not have a license at all.

2) The site is running an expired lease license.

If you bought a license and did not update the URL in your license details to point to the installation location of that license, than you still fall under #1 above.

If you bought a license and assigned it to URL X and then later moved it to URL Y without updating the license details, then you fall under option #1 above.

If you bought a license and it was installed at URL X and URL Y at the same time, then you fall under option #1 above.

If you have a dozen parked URLS pointing to URL X and they don't use 301 redirects than your parked domains will be in violation of option #1 above.

Its really easy to not get contacted. Make sure your license is installed on the URL that you tell Jelsoft its installed on. If you buy leased licenses make sure to renew them before they expire. But if you ask me, leased licenses are just a waste of money. I've thought that since they were first introduced.

As long as there is a valid license assigned to the URL in question than they will never contact you.

I don't know who Invision handles license tracking.

 

Wayne, thank you for taking the time to shed some light on the situation. It's appreciated.

 

I'm also a little confused.

But with Wayne Luke's post, I understand why they would contact you.

And, I can't quite buy it that people are accusing you of using Nulled versions of Jelsoft's product for entertainment purposes. It's easy to know if you're being contacted by legal personnel or a person looking for a laugh.