Official Notice of ******* about the relationship with Vxf .vn and Copyright issues

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Not sure if Jon did or not but if it was me in *******'s shoes I would at least offer Jon some form of compensation, he's made thousands from Jon's work, is it really fair ******* gets to keep that money?

If you rob a bank and get caught you don't get to keep what you stole, same as if you stole a DVD or a TV or even a phone, you won't get to keep it you have to return it or pay compensation.

Now that I am home I can look at the post again - https://xenforo.com/community/threa...xf-vn-and-copyright-issues.91524/#post-886630 Apparently was actually in all of his addons according to Jon. The code is actually unnecessary in the majority of the addons as most addons do not have dependencies.

It is not some pile of code that generated heaps of money for *******. If this was a court case and it hinged on those lines of code alone, while guilty there would be no big settlement coming. You wouldn't have much of a case at all. In fact this is only slightly better than what got Oracle lauighed out of court when they went against Google for Google stealing source code. Different scenario as the code Oracle's lawyers were pointing out was so generic it wasn't even funny. While this is slightly more complex and a clear rip.

It's not even a part of any of these addon's day to day functionality. Now if Jon was upset about this it would be one thing. But really the only value that incident has now is its part of the large collective of incidents of the same kind of theft.
 
Then why was it in the add-on? Just for fun? Nope.

Lazyness? Its a helper. If its not called then it does nothing and its not needed. Distribution of dead weight. Instead of only sending the helper files that particular addon uses apparently it seems he just packs all of them. Now for all I know Jon does the same and that seems offensive, but its there to answer your question.
 
Now that I am home I can look at the post again - https://xenforo.com/community/threa...xf-vn-and-copyright-issues.91524/#post-886630 Apparently was actually in all of his addons according to Jon. The code is actually unnecessary in the majority of the addons as most addons do not have dependencies.

It is not some pile of code that generated heaps of money for *******. If this was a court case and it hinged on those lines of code alone, while guilty there would be no big settlement coming. You wouldn't have much of a case at all. In fact this is only slightly better than what got Oracle lauighed out of court when they went against Google for Google stealing source code.

It's not even a part of any of these addon's day to day functionality. Now if Jon was upset about this it would be one thing. But really the only value that incident has now is its part of the large collective of incidents of the same kind of theft.

I can understand your point here, it wouldn't hold up much in court, but if you check posts there's multiple things ******* has copied/stolen example his main site design is using a function taken from a wordpress theme, upon being caught he deleted the copyright notice from the javascript, image from TAZ (large image!) http://i.imgur.com/fPfZDQz.jpg

That image shows this,

gG2d29b.png


Checking *******'s site now that copyright notice is gone, https://*******.com/js/*******/Portal/js/jquery.imageScroll.js

More you look the more things like this are popping up, who's to know he didn't steal the code to the themes? the addons? we have already seen him copying Jon's code, we've seen him using Mike Creuzer's/Audentio's styling layout, we've seen him having almost identical footers from Russ/Steve F's PixelExit themes.
 
Checking *******'s site now that copyright notice is gone, https://*******.com/js/*******/Portal/js/jquery.imageScroll.js
Here is the original for that file https://github.com/pederan/Parallax-ImageScroll/blob/master/jquery.imageScroll.js

I'm wondering if the other copyright was because this had been distributed via a file that had been part of a wordpress theme? Either way no reason to take the copyright out as I am pretty sure this is usable as long as you aren't... trying to claim it as your own, sell it or redistribute... lol

Just before someone denies the above quoted fact,
View attachment 96388
The class name "hentry" is used mostly in wordpress themes / styles / whatever you call it.
https://wordpress.org/ideas/topic/what-the-****-is-a-hentry
Edit: looks the word is censored. replace all the four * with f word. Or just google it.

Hell his whole theme looks like a damn word press theme.
 
To play devil's advocate on the accusations of copying, it's not exactly uncommon in the xenforo scene. For example spot the difference between https://xenforo.com/community/resources/game-servers.2652/ and the servers sidebar widget on my site (which is a completely different custom addon predating it by a few years):

b5cm.png
xjdv.png

Okay, addressing the whole "shares" thing. First of all, if he only owned partial shares of a website, he wouldn't have the power to unilaterally shut the website down. The majority of the shares holders would have to agree to shut it down.

Secondly, there is NO WAY share holders of anything would agree to shut a money making business down. If he owned a majority stake in the website, then he would still have a fiduciary responsibility to keep the website running and profitable. Shutting the website down would in no way help any of the other owners of the website.

Therefore, I can argue that the idea of him owning a small part of the website is BS. He owns the entire website and he has shut it down because it does help his public image problem.

I believe it's the other way round - that ******* is a subsidiary of HKDA, which appears to be a company offering a wide range of web-related services. Being the XenForo arm of the company, it's entirely possible he/they would have the authority to shut down Viet XF

I'd be very wary of the fact that ******* has shown any linkage whatsoever to HKDA, as two of the most widely spread pirate versions of my addons traced back to HKDA email addresses (and the payments were also charged back).
 
Here is the original for that file https://github.com/pederan/Parallax-ImageScroll/blob/master/jquery.imageScroll.js

I'm wondering if the other copyright was because this had been distributed via a file that had been part of a wordpress theme? Either way no reason to take the copyright out as I am pretty sure this is usable as long as you aren't... trying to claim it as your own, sell it or redistribute... lol



Hell his whole theme looks like a damn word press theme.


Removing that copyright notice is piracy in it's own right, If using a script the original copyright notice has to remain, it's just strange he left a wordpress theme copyright in that file in the first place, did he even buy a copy?

I'd be very wary of the fact that ******* has shown any linkage whatsoever to HKDA, as two of the most widely spread pirate versions of my addons traced back to HKDA email addresses (and the payments were also charged back).

Well not shocking, if you can provide that proof to the administrators here I am sure it would help resolving this case against ******* faster.
 
Well not shocking, if you can provide that proof to the administrators here I am sure it would help resolving this case against ******* faster.

Pretty sure I gave evidence on that when it happened (over 2 years ago now), but I can dig it up again if necessary
 
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At this point, I think the points have been made and we will continue our investigations in private. If you have any further concerns, please bring it to a staff member directly. If you have questions for *******, at this point you'd do best asking them directly.

I do just want to note that pointing out a single "shared" class name is not particularly helpful and a pretty clear example of a witch hunt. Function is not subject to copyright either but the creative expression behind it is, so if you're wanting to find examples of copyright infringement, you'd need to be looking at the actual code behind it.

Also, be aware of the license of the code you claim is being copied (hint: MIT/BSD stuff can be used, though there are things that need to be done to meet the license requirements).
 
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