Threatened By Pirate Reports

[xperior]

Today I received this message stating my forum, which I hold a license to, is illegal. I feel as a customer that this is a very inappropriate way to treat a customer who purchased a license. I will unfortunately not be happy to refer other people to vbulletin in the future if this is how they choose to treat their customers.



DMCA NOTIFICATION OF COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT

Date: 29 January 2008

Greetings

I am an agent authorized to act on behalf of Jelsoft Enterprises
Limited who
exclusively own vBulletin, a forum Software.

I can find no record of this user holding a valid current site license
for
this location

Please suspend/remove the GUI and files and prevent future abuse.

NB: If at your own prerogative you offer your client an opportunity to
remove the site themselves or purchase a license as opposed to your
removal
or suspension of service, please be aware that Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
whilst happy to respect your goodwill gesture, in no way requests or
requires such action from you and reserves the right to decline the
license
purchase and refund the fee. Copyright protection not revenue
collection is
our primary concern and motivation, and some forums which will not
fully
comply with the licensing terms and conditions cannot be accepted.


Formality:

In accordance with the provisions the Digital Millennium Copyright Act
of
1998

Please expeditiously "take down" or "block access" to the infringing
material and take appropriate action against the customer to prevent
future
abuse.


Declaration:

I, the undersigned, CERTIFY UNDER PENALTY OF PERJURY that I am an agent
authorized to act on behalf of the owner of certain intellectual
property
rights, said exclusive owners being named:


Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd., Howarth Lodge, 7 Reading Road, Pangbourne,
Reading, RG8 7LR

I have a good faith belief that the items or materials listed below are
not
authorized by the above intellectual property owners, their agents, or
the
law and therefore infringe their rights.


I further aver that the information contained in the Notice is
accurate.

Software: vBulletin

I may be contacted at:

Pirate Reports
PO Box 36
EAST MOLESEY
Surrey
KT8 9XT
ENGLAND

Tel: 44(0)20 8941 1843
Email: admin@piratereports.com

Truthfully,

C Pasca
Investigator
Romanian Office

http://www.piratereports.com (http://www.piratereports.com/)

This information may be passed to your client who should already be
aware of
the situation. The sender accepts no responsibility for an end users
incorrect registration or failure to do so as the Terms and Conditions
of
Use are clearly explained as an integral part of the purchase
procedure.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.4 (MingW32)
Comment: PirateReports Public Key
http://www.piratereports.com/index.php?page=contact
iD8DBQBHn2I7sET8wU8f+dwRAtqYAKCJInIt7FF5Ow4CTBrX4G HgqEBVKACfQm9N
iVFggj7af5dOP5MRancOzlU=
=RPlc
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

[Mark.B]

Today I received this message stating my forum, which I hold a license to, is illegal. I feel as a customer that this is a very inappropriate way to treat a customer who purchased a license. I will unfortunately not be happy to refer other people to vbulletin in the future if this is how they choose to treat their customers.


Is your site address registered within the member area? If you don't associate your site with the licence then you're in breach of the licence, I understand.

[xperior]

Yes the url was entered incorrectly. However, I stand by my original statement that this was a poor way to handle this. As you can see by the email it does not ask for a license, or tell how to rectify the problem. It only assumes that my site does not have a license.

[ManagerJosh]

If you get such a notice, reply back with a License number and update your members are with the correct URL. It will go away.

I do understand while you may feel they are threatening you, but understand the flip side as well is that there are literally thousands upon thousands of licenses and to attempt to guess or sift through the entire database to figure out whose license it belongs to is basically futile, especially if the URL was incorrectly entered in the first place.

I'm personally unsure of how this could be rectified better, but I'm sure they are open to suggestions. Based on personal experiences, I can tell you that asking "if you have a license" usually doesn't get a response from people. Most ignore it. People who pirate vBulletin generally ending up say 'Go away' or something similar in nature.

[PirateReports]

Yes the url was entered incorrectly. However, I stand by my original statement that this was a poor way to handle this. As you can see by the email it does not ask for a license, or tell how to rectify the problem. It only assumes that my site does not have a license.

Having stated you had not complied with the licensing T&C's why would you be annoyed? How would you expect my agent to guess who you are and if they managed to do that to guess where you want your license allocated.

[Freezerator]

Indeed, don't blame the messenger, look at what have caused it.

The solution is to always have correct information in your account, then you won't get an e-mail

[Selrion]

Having stated you had not complied with the licensing T&C's why would you be annoyed? How would you expect my agent to guess who you are and if they managed to do that to guess where you want your license allocated.
It is clear that the fault is author's, but anyway I think the message your agents send to site admins should contain a bit diffrent text. You can not exept a possibilty of a mistake. And if this letter, by a tragical accident, will be recieved by a hoster, you can not tell what he will do. Some of hosters kill accounts and information with out any investigation or questions...

[PirateReports]

It is clear that the fault is author's, but anyway I think the message your agents send to site admins should contain a bit diffrent text. You can not exept a possibilty of a mistake. And if this letter, by a tragical accident, will be recieved by a hoster, you can not tell what he will do. Some of hosters kill accounts and information with out any investigation or questions...

Thanks for your input.

The template email we use for networks in the US is prescribed in format and ours was prepared by a US attorney to suit those requirments. The format for non US networks has also been minimised as far as possible and does not state the person is a criminal but that there is no license linked to the forum which is the fact behind the report.

If we used the words possibly or we think in any report the networks would just reject them as guesswork so we stick with the facts which is all we can rely on. The user had no license linked to the forum which is a REQUIREMENT for legal use.

I do sympathise with some users who don't read the licensing agreement as often I have skipped over one or two myself when the small print is so small that I need a magnifying glass to read it but my client has a very short, simple and informative one page document which makes easy reading and has a lot of useful information.

If a problem is identified we will act swiftly to resolve it and if we are wrong (which after 5 years reporting we seldom are) we will apologise and take responsibility. Users need to do the same and appreciate the necessity of anti piracy administration which keeps the license fees for legal users to a minimum giving the asset a good long term value and resale potential if desired.

[seangworld]

can an actual member of the vbulletin team verify that this thread is even legit? since when is there an actual agent posting here and/or replying to threads involving piracy? it has been repeated time and time again that such things are kept private.

right now, i think it's a bunch of horse manure and think people are impersonating others.

[Freezerator]

can an actual member of the vbulletin team verify that this thread is even legit? since when is there an actual agent posting here and/or replying to threads involving piracy? it has been repeated time and time again that such things are kept private.

right now, i think it's a bunch of horse manure and think people are impersonating others.

Search his post, he has been confirmed by vbulletin staff..

[Floris]

can an actual member of the vbulletin team verify that this thread is even legit? since when is there an actual agent posting here and/or replying to threads involving piracy? it has been repeated time and time again that such things are kept private.

right now, i think it's a bunch of horse manure and think people are impersonating others.
Pirate Reports posting IS Howard from Pirate Reports. If he wasn't we would have moderated the thread as staff.