vB license agreement
 

In another thread Filburt pointed out that a user could not use vbulletin to display content that was not of Jelsofts liking or that Jelsoft deemed illegal.

I think this is way out of line and unenforecable. It's like saying GM can take your car back if you choose to rob banks with it. There is a such thing as the first amendment and talk of an illegal subject matter or investigation about that subject is not illegal last I checked. The DCMA is a dangerous and illegal piece of legislation that should be challenged regulaly to prove it's illegality. Jelsoft seems to be playing internet police on this one. Just because you put a clause in a contract does not make it enforceable. Lawyers try this regularly to challenge the laws, but good Judges protect our rights as citizens more often then allowing a dangerous precedent circumventing the First amendment. I doubt it's enforceable.

Any comments?

If you are using vBulletin to distribute warez software, or child pornography, then you don't deserve to have a vBulletin Licence;)

It would also be hard for you to argue your point against Jelsoft's agreement, seeing as it is a Registered British Company, and subject to British trading laws - When you are selling an International product, you cannot create one Licencing agreement for one country, which contradicts one for numerous others - If you don't agree with their Licencing agreement, don't purchase vBulletin:p

Satan

he's got a point tho, i can understand jelsoft frowning but in all honesty they shouldn't enforce what a user can or can't talk about. altho the user in question was stupid and should've hidden such forums from guests anyway.

Really? Nothing on the internet or in the real world states that I can't make my move to distribute warez OR child pornography via 'vBulletin' or any products contracted under Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd directly. Jelsoft is trying to play internet police, and that doesn't fly in any court system. What they're trying to do is to claim "rules" that aren't EVEN close to their jurisdiction. Same thing with the hacks (code modifications) off of this very website. No one can enforce me from distributing hacks freely over my website. They aren't even physically OR legally copywritten with any country's Patent/Copyright Office. I could distribute them, it would make me look bad, but I could distribute them LEGALLY.

Now, here we go into another ballpark which many of you are going to argue. But before you do, I'd like to address it. Yes, you can distribute the code which you modified for the website software vBulletin. How? Well, doesn't it say in the license you can't distribute any code of the vBulletin software or the package itself? Yes, it does. However. Remember, when you modified the code, how you weren't able to recieve the help/support/etc originally guaranteed by Jelsoft "because you made modifications"? How it wasn't any longer supported? Yeah. The code that you modified just became yours. It isn't Jelsoft's any longer. For Jelsoft to stand by that contract, they would have to make it so that you couldn't touch OR SEE any of the code. That's how that works. If it was always like Jelsoft had, then anything under PHP scripture would belong to Rasmus Lerdorf and his original partners/developers.

;)

all i will say on this matter is that most of us are grown ups and understand what JS are trying to do, thats not let there software be related to any illegal practices. This would make the company look bad imo. There license may not stand up in a court of law in "some" countries but try and argue it in a court of law...... I mean if your using the software for child pornography or warez then i would love to see anyone win a court case.... :)

Website hosts can scrutinize and void customer contracts if their client decides to dispense adult material or warez on their site. Free hosts like Geocities do it the most.

As far as I'm concerned, a license agreement is the gateway of how a company controls their product (or service) once in the function of a customer. They can set the rules as they like. I can't get into the specific of legal issues, as I'm no law analyst, but I doubt Jelsoft is breaking anything.

Concerning the issue of dispensing your own hacks, Shovel is absolutely correct. Why he addressed it here though, I don't know, because it should already be obvious that you can dispense your own snippets elsewhere as long as they don't contain complete vBulletin files.

They coded a program and they want their program be used in the way they like it.Their program is not hold a monopoly in the market so if they don't like their license agreement, you are free to use a rival program whose license agreement fits better to your demands.

They are not alone in their policy either. Many software vendors put everything they can hold against customers in their license agreements. Many companies are even using these agreements as "weapons". For instance say you purchase 1000 Windows license from Microsoft and spend a lot of money to design all your company's system based on Windows. Then you decide to host your internet site on linux which then angers Microsoft. They pay your 1000 Windows license fee back and ask you to stop using Windows anymore. Since you can't do it, you agree to host your server in a Windows NT enviroment instead of linux or your whole company network will go in jeopardy.

The legal validity of such license agreement items (mostly with respect to consumer laws) is another hot discussion. This discussion is blur either because comments would change according to the law system you are discussing as every country can have a different attitude on this legal issue. The truth is such things are going on everyday in the software market.

Hence all of what you posted, do you still think it is right that because one of your servers runs the Linux operating system, it is quite alright for them to not allow you to run Windows on another one of your servers, after you spent good money on the program and the multiple licensing (for use with more than 1 server)? What you are doing there is not even illegal, let alone voiding any legal agreement.

I can see why Jelsoft does not want their flagship (and probably only) product being used in a way that could contredict the way people look at their company. However, the policy is still wrong. They are not cyber police. We are using their software because we bought it, and other than that, if people are posting warez or child pornography, that agreement is all that they are voiding. Should Jelsoft be responsible? No. Should Jelsoft stop people from doing it? No. Jelsoft can put it somewhere on something that they are not responsible for the sites run by their application.

What happens if you have a board with 200,000 posts a day? It is a computer forum. Unless you have 100 dedicated mods to every forum and a few good super mods, it would be hard to monitor whether some measly guy posted a link that would let them download Photoshop 6 for free, or download some child pornography picture. Is the license agreement voided then?

Sad thing is, I know a few boards who illegally distribute copywritten material and other things, such as child pornography. I would give you a few examples if you want. Why hasn't Jelsoft stopped them from using their product yet? Someone tell me if you want examples of some sites. :p

Jelsoft should not have the right to stop a site that uses vBulletin (that they legally paid the money for) just because it has discrimative material. Enough said. ;)

Note that as the members of this website we aren't "supposed" to distribute the hacks freely on our own site.

Hmmm...
Well we'll let you distribute it, and then take you to court - Both are deemed illegal in the USA, Europe and Australia, and I believe in China, Japan, Africa and Russia, but don't quote me on that:ermm: - I know for a fact that child pornography is illegal outright...

As velocd rightly said - You can only distribute the snippets of code which you created, and nothing more...

Sure we are - We can do what we like with our own modified code ... *cough* TECKWIZARDS.COM */cough* and numerous other sites...

I say again - You distribute it, and we will take you to court;)

They have every right - You agreed to their terms and conditions when you signed up, and if you don't like them, you don't sign up...

Well if you report them, they will take action eventually - You forget how many sites out there run vBulletin:ermm: - They cannot check them all at once you know...:rolleyes:

Jelsoft have the right to revoke your licence - They then have the right to prosecute you if you refuse to remove the vBulletin system from your server... So no - They cannot stop your site, but they can stop your forum... They would let the courts stop your site;)

That is why there is such a thing as the Jelsoft staff being reasonable - They understand that you cannot control every post your members post, but they do expect you to deal with any situation they ask you to - If you have one post with a link to a copy of photopost or photoshop, they aren't going to crucify you - If you have 100 posts with them in, they may take a different attitude...

The point is - You don't like the licence, sell it to me or other people that accept the terms, or shut up with the moaning - Everything you do in life is subject to laws, whether you live in the "land of the free" or not...

Satan