A Site Possibly Ripping Hacks Posted Here
 

I did a search for one of my hacks just to see if it got out elsewhere, and i noticed that there is a site that i believe is holding all hacks in which we place here, and offering them for free.

*** link removed by staff ***

Posting it here is not a good idea, you're just adding to the problem. Some of Jelsoft's work is on there so I've reported it. I'm going through it now to find all of my modifications (already found 3 on there), I'll be sending my own notice once I'm done although I doubt it will do much..

..and how do the rest of us do that since you've kindly removed the link ... :confused:

Would you rather have every unlicensed user browsing this forum to find that link and download the latest version of vBulletin, your modifcations and multiple commercial add-ons and styles? I don't do these things just to tick off mod authors you know. ;)

If you want the link feel free to send me a private message.

Put it inside a code tag then, they are hidden from non licensed users are they not ? :)

cant argue with that

I'm sorry but links to sites that host pirated copies of vBulletin are not allowed, even if they are contained within the code tags.

Then post it in the coders forum. ;)

Which is where this thread should have been started.

No, that is not company policy.

I would think that all of you would have some type of copyright recourse here. I know you all put in a lot of hard work and time that most of us (vB license holders) benefit from greatly - Big Thanks, BTW - and that you don't charge for, however since you are the author of this work, I believe you automatically hold some type of copyright over it even if you let others here at vb.org use it. You are not giving some knock-off site rights to make it available there.

I'm no lawyer but I think it would be worth looking into if these people are doing it with multiple coder's hacks / work.

I reported a site a while back that i found released vBulletin on newsgroups, and every single hack ever released from 3.0.2 up to 3.5.3


At last check the site was still up :(

How does a site release hacks on a newsgroup? I'm quite sure vB would go after anyone who is doing this on an ongoing basis if they were aware of it. Might want to let them know again just in case.

From the moment a work is created it becomes copyrighted. :classic:

You really don't need to file a copyright either, but it does make it easier if you want to take care of problems legaly...

I know that covers written content, and I assumed it would cover coding work.. So, time to look at enforcing it. I bet the DMCA would be an aid to this just as it would music, programs & copyrighted material. Time to contact their ISP, DC or whatever. If anyone needs more info on the DMCA and noticing them, I will try and help. I've done it for content related matters and it worked great.

Good luck since most the actual files are hosted in Russia. At least from the sites I have seen.

Are both the site and images hosted there? I'm not trying to split hairs but even re-directing to them could cause sanction for a U.S. based website. Registrant address matters not..

Linking to the files does, however. Even if you were to get the ISP to drop the site(s), its owner(s) will prop back up somewhere else. The U.S. copyright laws have no weight in Russia.

That is right but if you know of the offending site and they are in the U.S. or any treaty nation (there are a lot relating to copyrights) you can have them taken to task over. Then, if they pop up again you still have a better than not (knowing) chance to track them to the next stop. It's a pain in the arse but I would do it if they came at me like that.

I have seen a few of these sites hosted on german servers tho.

Here is a list of stolen ones in a Torrent from one site (if your style is on this list you may PM me for the link) My styles are on there too :( That sucks.

*** attached file removed by staff ***

Sites yes, but ckick the downloads and you will see they are not usually hosted on that site.

not true, alot of these files are hosted on rapidshare.de (because its soo easy for them to throw the files up there)

I said many, not all.

Now you have posted another link for them to delete. :D

so what action is bound to be taken ? Legal or just a warning ?

There is bound to be no action since not many here likely have the money to do anything and jelsoft will only deal with it's own interest, vBulletin itself.

Mother F**ker's they stole mine

Unfortunately, I too don't see how the principle of pursuing justifies the monetary means. Contacting the ISP and/or organizations similar to the SIIA is the better option.

is one of them, I reported them, but they're in russia like you said so nothing can be done about them

if the country has no copyright laws or only reconizes ACTUAL copyrights like jelsoft has. there is nothing you can do about them. There is also nothing that can be done if they are being dispersed via torrent. The legality in most countries differ. but if they don;t reconize non registered copyrights or don't have those kind of laws then the authorities AND the hosts will just laugh.

Sad I know I had a buncha things ripped i did for ipb, but all you can do is grind your teeth and move on.

Keep the sites to yourself, the next person who posts a link to a piracy site is going to have something bad happen.

USE THE PIRACY FORM~! http://www.vbulletin.com/piracy

Again, DO NOT POST ANYTHING (in code, html, php, mysql, quote boxes, etc) on this site that has anything to do with pirated hacks or vBulletin.

Hmmmm - so members trying to highlight to other members sites that are pirating their work are to be threatened with bans (or whatever "something bad" means) for their efforts. Interesting policy......

Perhaps you could explain what exactly reporting a site illegally hosting hacks will achieve, because it's very unclear to me - are Jelsoft now going to take action against them ? I thought they were only interested in pirated vb, not hacks.

Most of the time said sites are also using pirated vBulletin.

If you want to let another author know of a website, please do it in private.

Very professionally worded from someone who is a staff member....

Oh and by the way, I don't appreciate the fact that my list was removed in this thread. It had no links to the pirate sites, only a list of those styles from members being stolen. I was well within the rules of both this site and VB.

Well, apparently, as pointed out by a staff member in another thread, if people have a need for something and like it, it's ok to steal.

*shrugs*

It was removed because the filenames for several ripped styles were shown, making it easy for users to search the likes of Google for them. It is most likely that any sites offering these styles, would also be offering modifications from vbulletin.org, and perhaps even nullified versions of vBulletin.

It is our policy to try and prevent vBulletin piracy. I'm sorry that you don't appreciate it, however I saw a valid reason for it's removal..