How to detect if people remove your footerlink on a free custom style?

[markbolyard]

Like I mentioned in my PM to you, you have to look at it from the positive aspect. Most people that use your style will gladly keep the link in, or a least offer to pay to have it removed. Those sites that use them and remove the link, most likely are warez / porn / or sites in general that you don't want to be associated with anyway.

If you use the method I described, you will find that you can keep tabs on who's using it, and as far as trying to have the link added back, or the style removed... you can sent them a C&D, you can go after their host, but most of the time you will find that it doesn't help. Some of these sites host themselves on a home server so there is no host to report to. And the time a effort you put into tracking people down and taking legal action far outweighs the cost of what would be valued as a $200 vBulletin skin. (Not like your going to be producing styles that would sell for high $$$ on a freebie site for giveaway).

That's the downside to the vBulletin templating system. It's not files being uploaded to their server that you can encode with zend or ioncube. They are within the database, and often times need to be updated / modified, so encoded styles would not benefit the end user.

You just have to have faith that people will appreciate the work you put into it, and leave the link intact. I think (hope) for the most part, those here at vb.org are these types of people.

Last of all, anything you encode or protect in some manor to prevent others from modifying it, removing links, etc... can be undone. Almost like saying your site is unhackable... where there is a will, there's a way. So don't put to much time into worrying about it, and look at the positive benefits you will get but providing free themes. You are not only going to build backlinks, but you will gain appreciation of those that use your styles, and that may lead to future work and a good reputation for yourself