vBulletin Piracy

[ccd1]

If someone finds a priated vBulletin board, what exactly do you guys do? I mean, there's no real way to get them to take the board offline if they don't want to, right?

[DWZ]

vB contacts the host and gets the site shut down

[Chen]

Re: vBulletin Piracy

Originally posted by baragon0
If someone finds a priated vBulletin board, what exactly do you guys do? I mean, there's no real way to get them to take the board offline if they don't want to, right?

Using pirated software is a felony. If the user doesn't remove the board his host is contacted, and they will suspend or remove his account. If the host refuses (or the user hosts himself), the host is sued.

[Floris]

Re: vBulletin Piracy

Originally posted by baragon0
If someone finds a priated vBulletin board, what exactly do you guys do? I mean, there's no real way to get them to take the board offline if they don't want to, right?

Why you need to know? Trying to get away with something? .. or ofcourse, you know a friend who runs a warez site .. there is a good chance that the warez version is already reported and in the database of vbulletin.com just waiting to be processed.

Get a job, earn some money, get a loan, beg your parents. Purchase it, you not only get support, but also some sleep.

[ccd1]

Anyone can easily host their own website. Who would you contact then? Hmmmm???? Who are you going to sue then? Anyone can stay anynonomus online. Good luck suing someone that's hosting his site from his living room in Russia. Or good luck suing someone using a pirated vBulletin on his private intranet.


I own vBulletin licenses. They're linked to this account, even. What do you mean get a job? vBulletin is incredibly cheap. Only $160.

Doesn't have to be a warez site--in fact, I haven't seen one of those in the past year (P2P took over that), it can be a person sending the ZIP files to his friends and posting it around.

The reason I ask is because one of the search requests on my website was "vBulletin 2.2.6 free"

[Floris]

Originally posted by baragon0
Anyone can easily host their own website. Who would you contact then? Hmmmm???? Who are you going to sue then? Anyone can stay anynonomus online. Good luck suing someone that's hosting his site from his living room in Russia. Or good luck suing someone using a pirated vBulletin on his private intranet.


I own vBulletin licenses. They're linked to this account, even. What do you mean get a job? vBulletin is incredibly cheap. Only $160.

Doesn't have to be a warez site--in fact, I haven't seen one of those in the past year (P2P took over that), it can be a person sending the ZIP files to his friends and posting it around.

The reason I ask is because one of the search requests on my website was "vBulletin 2.2.6 free"

Jelsoft will do their best to get down those users, who even host is at their own home in russia, since in most situations the terms of agreement with the internet service provider doesn't allow the user to use their services for pirated software and in most cases, users are not allowed to run a daemon on a private account. Contacting the isp with a notification will be enough to make the next step. There is always a way, and users are not that anonymous as they think they are.

Most users use the warez version with the argument, 160$ is a lot of money! I can no afford that. So that is why I said that. Keep in mind, I am not a vB team member. Just another happy license holder who thinks script kids with warez are big phat lusers. And that is why I am very happy to hear that you own a license.

[ccd1]

$160 is literally pocket change for me--I'd even donate money to Jelsoft if vBulletin were freeware or whatever you kids call all that Linux trash these days.

Most ISP's these days do allow you to host your own website. It was different a couple years ago, but even PacBell/SBC let you host your website on a resedential DSL account.

[nuno]

Originally posted by baragon0
Anyone can easily host their own website. Who would you contact then? Hmmmm???? Who are you going to sue then? Anyone can stay anynonomus online. Good luck suing someone that's hosting his site from his living room in Russia. Or good luck suing someone using a pirated vBulletin on his private intranet.

Your ISP then

[Floris]

Originally posted by baragon0
$160 is literally pocket change for me--I'd even donate money to Jelsoft if vBulletin were freeware or whatever you kids call all that Linux trash these days.

Most ISP's these days do allow you to host your own website. It was different a couple years ago, but even PacBell/SBC let you host your website on a resedential DSL account.

If you could spare some, feel free to donate to my pocket, so I can keep up hosting for my site and have a future for my forum.

I am not a linux kid I am an old-school sco unix user (from the day when they distro'd it for money on floppy's [those damn bendables])

Even though you have an ISP that allows you to run a daemon, as soon as they hear you are running a warez version of vBulletin, they should help by law to remove it.

[Spetnik]

What I don't understand is, vB is open source. What's to stop someone from rewriting the code with slight modifications?

[Darkshines]

Originally posted by Spetnik
What's to stop someone from rewriting the code with slight modifications?

Jelsoft can run a checker to see how much of the code has been changed. If they find that enough of it is the same, they can sue

I know of one case where Jelsoft suspected that someone copied their code, but it turned out they didn't. There are probably many, many other cases where people have ripped them off though.

[Floris]

Originally posted by Spetnik
What I don't understand is, vB is open source. What's to stop someone from rewriting the code with slight modifications?

They can do that if they want, being it illegal or not. I have learned at this place where the value of the license and its package lies.

and by the way:

license:
vBulletin source code may be altered (at the owners risk), but the software (altered or otherwise) may not be distributed to entities beyond the license holder without the explicit written permission of Jelsoft Enterprises Limited.

[Wayne Luke]

Originally posted by Spetnik
What I don't understand is, vB is open source. What's to stop someone from rewriting the code with slight modifications?

vBulletin is not Open Source. It is Visual Source. There is a difference between the two. The first has a variation of the GPL license. The second has a more restricted license.

[Spetnik]

Well, let me put it this way. As a developer, all I would need is the database structure. Writing a front end on that would be simple. From what you say, they can only catch you for copying the front end. By the same token, should someone write his own backend, and copy the html from vB (a legal action), they would be hassled by Jelsoft unnecessarily.

[Hooper]