[Briboy923]

EDIT: I know my post is long, but if your viewing this message, please read it. Pretty much poured my heart out into what I said, and I really mean it, but for both this issue and a lot of other issues, I make a good point at the end if you want to skip the whole "Music Industry" analogy.

Originally Posted by hypedave

I can see how this may be an issue with people that use this hack the wrong way i.e. John Doe sets up a domain called virtualvb.com, installs his vb board then installs this hack and uses the vb subscription feature to charge people to have their own miniature forum within his forum. But what about us members who actually see a good benefit from this within our own community, rather than try to make a profit?

This quote is from like... page 2, but anyways. I know this has been said HUNDREDS of times, but restatting the point. On my forum, I have just under 75 sub-forums, in over 15 categories. To save space, I used this hack to assign each category an actual forum. This is because our company has 5 different subsidiaries, and each of those has its own group of subsidiaries. Charging people for virtual VB THAT IS ILLEGAL. It clearly says you cant resell or rent out space. So, yes, thats where the liability is. But its just like the thousands of pirated VB's out there. we dont know they are pirated until we catch them, and we dont know if someone is using this hack to do what you said unless we catch them. Even though we know there are so many pirated copies, that doesnt stop Jelsoft from distributing copies of VB instead of making customers "host" their forum on a shared server (and thus, not being able to edit, retrieve, or view the code of the files).

I take this thread as an omen right now, because as we speak, I am finishing up a persuasive speach about warez (in particular, whether downloading music should be outlawed and can/should be stopped). The answer is flat out NO. It cant. What goes on behind private FTP's is nobody's business. Hell, I know people who have burned copies of VB for friends and mailed it USPS. I mean, you cant just take away peoples rights. When somebody goes in to a movie to videotape it, thats against the law. BUT, its against the law because that directly violates copyright issues. Same with music, games, etc. Nonetheless, people still do it. People dont get caught. Why? Because it would take the entire world's police force to crack down on people who steal copyrighted material. As I said earlier, you dont know who is doing it until your caught. Just like the poor 12 year old kids that are getting sued for downloading Britney spears. And you know what my speech says? "Let em do it". Sure, they may not be going out and spending 18 bucks on a CD. But ya know what they ARE doing? Going out and begging mommy and daddy to buy them a $100 concert ticket. So, wheres the oppurtunity cost in that? Reports show that 10% of an artist's income is from CD's. The rest? Promotions, Ads, Concerts, etc. How do people KNOW who Outkast is? Because 100,000,000 copies of Hey Ya are on computers ILLEGALY. So why is Outkast one of the wealthiest artists? Because everyone goes to their concerts, everyone listens to them in their ads, everyone KNOWS them.

IRCSpy.com has been up for a long time. You go there knowing you're getting illegal material. But, whats also on IRCSpy is freeware, trialware, demo's, etc. Thus, you're mixing the legal with the illegal. And again, you can't stop it. People pay for their servers. People pay for their homes. I have friends that keep cocaine, pot, all sorts of drugs in their homes. They arent caught. Why? Because the Feds dont know. Cyber-property is the same way. The gov isnt ALLOWED to snoop peoples servers with un-justified search and seizure. Its in the damn Patriot act.

My point here is, and I do have a point, and this isnt because I like the hack, but its because I am a huge civil rights person (and Im only in 10th grade). In the majority of software business', close to 75% of all of a company's sales are from resellers (our definition of resellers doenst include other companies, it could be ads on sites, word of mouth, etc). I am going to let you know right now that 8 of my forum members asked me whether to buy the Owned License or the Leased license of VB in the last week. Why? Because they loved what you can do with it. What I did for a few days, before this hack was taken down, was offer trial admins on a little sub-forum made by VBHost. So, I resold 8 copies of VB. Imagine that times 100 other forums. Whats going on here is an unjustified assumption. You are ASSUMING that if this hack gets into peoples hands, they will use it wrongly. And you know what, that could be true. Many warez sites that offer VB also offer fake VB.org accounts, ftp's with hundreds of hacks, etc. Why are they still up? you havent caught em. But, I bet you my entire lifes savings, that at least ONE person, of all of those illegal forums, have bought VB because they enjoyed it and didnt know where or how or even that they could get it illegally. One person DOES make a difference.

On an expoential equation, if you take one person, double it, and each month double it again, in a few years, your Bill gates =) Simple story. I rest my case. I dont care whether or not this hack is re-instated, but I hold my ground. Thats all I got to say =)