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[lordmenace]

Why does vBulletin not give rewards out for people reporting sites that give away large amounts of pirated copis of VB? There are COUNTLESS sites that have a tens of thousands of members each that give away Nulled versions of the board including all hacks/mods from this site as well as ways to make it look licensed, FOR FREE. Yet VB does nothing. If you want people to come forward you have to give them something. I'm not saying one must always look for a reward before doing the right thing, I am just saying it doesn't make sense to think everyone will stick their neck out for nothing. I bet if you gave free copies away, you would get A LOT more reports. What's worse, thousands upon thousands upon thousands of illegal copies, or few hundred of legit ones?

[Brad]

Pirated versions of the software are posted everyday, if Jelsoft gave away free copies of their software to everyone that reported these sites they would likely be out more money then they are now.

[Reeve of shinra]

We report it because we feel that vbulletin offers a great product at a reasonable price and its a small way of us saying thank you for not rasing rates in over 5 years.

[lordmenace]

Originally Posted by Brad

Pirated versions of the software are posted everyday, if Jelsoft gave away free copies of their software to everyone that reported these sites they would likely be out more money then they are now.

Does that really make sense to you? If one person reports a 60,000 member warez site, does that not meant a lot to you? There are sites that give out thousands upon thousands of illegal copies. If a few thousand illegal copies are worth less to you than giving 1 legal copy to someone who gets it shut down, then I have nothing more to say.

Originally Posted by Reeve of shinra

We report it because we feel that vbulletin offers a great product at a reasonable price and its a small way of us saying thank you for not rasing rates in over 5 years.

I think they offer an amazing product. I for one can not afford it because I am only a college student so I had to look for alternatives. I do not pirate the software because I view intellectual property with the upmost respect. It is just that vBulletin's business/legal sense is very strange to me. You have to also understand that not everyone will stick their heads out for everyone. If that were the case then most warez sites would be gone. You scrath someone's back and they'll scrach yours.

[Brad]

Originally Posted by lordmenace

Does that really make sense to you? If one person reports a 60,000 member warez site, does that not meant a lot to you? There are sites that give out thousands upon thousands of illegal copies. If a few thousand illegal copies are worth less to you than giving 1 legal copy to someone who gets it shut down, then I have nothing more to say.




I think they offer an amazing product. I for one can not afford it because I am only a college student so I had to look for alternatives. I do not pirate the software because I view intellectual property with the upmost respect. It is just that vBulletin's business/legal sense is very strange to me. You have to also understand that not everyone will stick their heads out for everyone. If that were the case then most warez sites would be gone. You scrath someone's back and they'll scrach yours.

Most warez sites operate in places where copyright laws are not enforced at all. In your example a site with so many member is likely operating in one of these places, and is widely known. A site like that is going to be reported multiple times, which means Jelsoft would be giving out multiple free copies if they were giving one away to anyone that sent in a report. Mean while the site is still online, more people are finding out about it, and jelsoft is giving away more copies of their software everyday.

[lordmenace]

Originally Posted by Brad

Most warez sites operate in places where copyright laws are not enforced at all. In your example a site with so many member is likely operating in one of these places, and is widely known. A site like that is going to be reported multiple times, which means Jelsoft would be giving out multiple free copies if they were giving one away to anyone that sent in a report. Mean while the site is still online, more people are finding out about it, and jelsoft is giving away more copies of their software everyday.

Obviously, we have to use logic. They would only get the free copies if it resulted in legal consequences.

On a side note. It is the end of the academic year and I have just enough saved up for the $185 vBulletin. Do I own that copy for life with $30 upgrades? I would say yes, but I want to be 100% sure. Also, if I install vBulletin on ONE domain and later on I want to move the entire forum to another domain (Still one installation) can I do that? I might just move the 1 installation around. Also, I have seen about 20 or so mods that may be useful to me. Can I use a pirated version of the board (Still buy a license- 1 board) that has pre-installed mods? I think it would be easier to use a pre-modded forum than install each mod one by one.

Thanks.

[Zachery]

vBulletin is 160 USD for life (plus vat depending where you live) It allows you to run one instance of the forum regardless.

I highly do not recomend using pre-modded versions, most of them are old versions, are not supported and have builtin security exploits.

Its easier to add things to vBulletin than compared to phpBB or similiar.

[MakZF]

Originally Posted by lordmenace

Why does vBulletin not give rewards out for people reporting sites that give away large amounts of pirated copis of VB?

Well, for one thing, you could setup your own warez board, report your own forum and get a reward for doing something illegal.
Besides, I always report vB boards that look suspicious to me, why should some low life get something for free that I legally aquired by paying for?

[harishankar]

Yeah, that's right. I recently purchased vBulletin and I am simply drooling at the features it offers. Certainly to customize and mod it is quite easy. Within hours I could get it to look like my old board.

With phpBB installation of mods is painful. With vB, first you won't need that many mods and secondly the plugin system seems to be a great way to painlessly install small hacks. That said, I've yet to install plugins, but I've had the license only for a few days.

I will report piracy, if I find sites that run pirated copies. How does it benefit me? Maybe if more people purchased vB legitimately the price might come down for future users and upgrades... That's how I see it. Minimizing piracy cuts down costs for the programmers and developers and they will be glad to pass on that benefit to us, the end users.

[Wired1]

A better question is how can you determine if a site has a pirated version?