A little question about piracy
 

Hi everybody,

As promised, here is the reason of my product called : "Against vBulletin piracy logo". I suppose we all agree to blame vB piracy and to salute the vbulletin authentification system. Thanks to its efficiency, the community is big, clean and united. Though all of this, there is a point i still don't undersand. Vbulletin.org has developped a way to share the authentification system with trusted vB website. I'm a member of one of them (vbulletin-fr.org). As a novice coder and a designer, i've choosen this website because my work can be protected. I've also accepted some german coders to translate my hacks because they had such a system.

Unfortunately, it seems some vB coders don't care of this point. When they allow someone to translate and distribute their hack they don't check if their work will be protected. This precaution should be a reflex and may be even an obligation for vb.org coders. I mean when a coder accepts his hack to be translated and distributed in another place than vbulletin.org that can't check if a member has a licence or not, it compromised vB autentification system itslef. That's not very logical. Well this is just what i think. I've opened this topic because the opinion of vB.org interets me and because i still don't have any answer after i have sent a pm about this to a coder (not on this site).

Regards,

C?dric

P.S : this is peacefull message and i don't want anybody to take guns after reading it ;) Let's just talk.

No site other than official Jelsoft sites have the ability to do licence checks, it is the Authors choice as to whether he is happy for his mods to be released elsewhere. It's not up to vb.org (or anyone else) to dictate to a coder where else they can release their work. :)

Right, but a solution exists (read here) and it works. French users (and some of other countries too) are often criticized for having piracy licences (just do a quick search in vb.com or even here), but many of them don't do this. To encourage the purchases of vbulletin and avoid piracy, we all know that the best thing to do is to restrict support and hacks downloads only to users with a license. But once again, i may have wrong ;)

Links & codes done like that soon get passed around. Besides which, as a coder, it's my choice where I release my work, not anyone elses. :)

At the moment, it's the only way i find to secure my work ;) If you've got another solution for french community, i'll take it.

I've got another question for you :D
If vb.org is the only board to check licence on vb.com... why users of vb-germany tell me they have the authentification system before translate my hacks ? :confused:

There are 6 official Jelsoft sites, all of which have access to the licence system. These sites are this one plus the sites listed on the forumhome under vBulletin Network.

If the site is not on that list, then they are not able to verify the licence status of their users.

Thanks for your answer peterska2 ! So the "Links & codes" system seems to be at the moment the only solution to avoid piracy for french users.

And thanks for your answers Paul ; and for your great hacks !

There is no way to avoid piracy and there never will be one. It's just a fact of life in this big old world we live in.

In fact there is one. : Let's make free and opensource scripts, programs, musics and videos ! Did i say something wrong ? :D
Time for me to run out from here - i like tomatoes, but not rotten ones :rolleyes:

Even vb.org gets ripped hard and the only way that happens is by "licensed" members :cross-eyed:

Strangely enough, I did a Google search on my hack's name a few days ago. There were about 3 questions relating to the hack, and 10+ unauthorized download links. I've only released that hack on this site, too. The license check is just wasted effort.

heh, I just did a google on mine then.
It appears that Im popular in russia...

Seems i am a bad coder. My hacks often don't make it to warez sites.

I've only recently started coding and the fact that someone MUST own a vB licence before they can download the attachments I post - is great :)

You're not the only one Marco. I only ever see the same one that I did ages ago.

I have to say I agree with that statement. At the end of the day it all boils down to a persons morals. If he likes something he might have tried via illegal download first and then decides to buy it. Thats great!

I bet there are loads here who first tried vBulletin via P2P sharing. Then liked it and bought a licence.

Absolutely right. And the licence verification system, that gives access to support and hacks, helps to give up the dark side ;)

I wouldn't be so sure about that.

On another board I go on, someone who is a member here made a post saying that they can get anyone any hack just as long as they post the one they want. People had posted & this person was uploading the hacks to Rapidshare. And this board I go on is far from a piracy one, but one of the mods saw the post, deleted it & banned that person.

There really is no way to prevent it. It's basically a put up or shut up kind of thing. Having to have a valid license to get hacks from here seems great & then you find out some of those same license holders can't be trusted. It makes me wonder how many people bought licenses solely to give out the hacks to non-license holders.