Piracy - The Battle

[D.O.A.]

That is all that is being asked.

Rather than have to chase all over the board looking for a recent post of a Customer, within a customer forum, (or they may never have posted here...) just to know the licensed or not status of an individual would be extremely helpful to resource providers.

How is that in any way an invasion of your privacy.

You made me post again after I'd sworn off this... like ******* heroin.

I'm a privacy guy, that's my thing. I have no issue with you having a place here to verify by means of posting or download etc, hell have a private area to discuss people, whatever. But you will need xenforo to help if you want yes/no answers to who has a licence, the policy would need to read they will share info with third party developers on the forums here. I'm not about to jump off a bridge if forced to share such information but I am never impressed by companies handing over anything without my explicit permission, for good or evil. Probably explains why I don't google or facebook.

 

[ENF]

Forgive me, I've not followed this thread with great interest. I appreciate the values being discussed, but I don't care if people know if I'm licensed or not nor do I pirate material that has been put for sale.

I don't see the harm showing your license status, it doesn't give away any other details except that yes, you're licensed. As such as the example shown below:



That's fairly simple and straight forward.

 

[Steve F]

Yea pretty much ENF.

What is the difference whether we go searching for post in the appropriate forum to see you are licensed or its put in plain view, either we know you are now LICENSED! No more details needed..

 

[Adam Howard]

Associated accounts ---- We use them and I would image a lot of other valid customers do as well. It allows other staff members to seek out support and download updates as needed.

When I was on vacation and away from a computer... An add-on had an important security update. Because of associated accounts.... My co-admin was able to apply this without me. So updates were made in "real-time" even when I was away.

Removing them will not solve piracy. A simple VPN (Virtual Private Network) could be used to simply share 1 single account. So the idea of removing associated accounts is flawed.

Hidden Forums ---- I'd be apposed to this as well.... vBulletin and IPB both have them and things get "strange". Don't take this personally, but I like public accountability in regards to the company I do business with.

 

[Sheldon]

Associated accounts ---- We use them and I would image a lot of other valid customers do as well. It allows other staff members to seek out support and download updates as needed.

When I was on vacation and away from a computer... An add-on had an important security update. Because of associated accounts.... My co-admin was able to apply this without me. So updates were made in "real-time" even when I was away.

Removing them will not solve piracy. A simple VPN (Virtual Private Network) could be used to simply share 1 single account. So the idea of removing associated accounts is flawed.

Hidden Forums ---- I'd be apposed to this as well.... vBulletin and IPB both have them and things get "strange". Don't take this personally, but I like public accountability in regards to the company I do business with.

You obviously didn't read anything if you think the suggestion was to remove associated account. Show if it is the license holder, or show if it is an associated account. Nothing changes. Sheesh. Also, how was the update applied when your site was down the entire time you were away?

Public accountability? Sounds good in theory. All it is is a public fight. Look at this thread as an example, over a simple suggestion.

 

[Adam Howard]

You obviously didn't read anything if you think the suggestion was to remove associated account. Show if it is the license holder, or show if it is an associated account. Nothing changes. Sheesh. Also, how was the update applied when your site was down the entire time you were away?

Public accountability? Sounds good in theory. All it is is a public fight. Look at this thread as an example, over a simple suggestion.

I admit to skimming (reading).

Site was on and off, not down 24/7 (although close enough).... Vacation I'm talking about though was the one I took in December and not this month.

 

[Forsaken]

Forgive me, I've not followed this thread with great interest. I appreciate the values being discussed, but I don't care if people know if I'm licensed or not nor do I pirate material that has been put for sale.

I don't see the harm showing your license status, it doesn't give away any other details except that yes, you're licensed. As such as the example shown below:

View attachment 41781

That's fairly simple and straight forward.

This is pretty much all that was originally asked. As far as differentiating between licensed and associated users I'm not sure I agree as chances are associated users might end up getting treated differently when they often do the majority of real work on the sites.

 

[Sheldon]

This is pretty much all that was originally asked. As far as differentiating between licensed and associated users I'm not sure I agree as chances are associated users might end up getting treated differently when they often do the majority of real work on the sites.

The only reason I suggested to differentiate was so devs could see who is "actually" needing that license of said add-on. If the associate is grabbing for the owner, then I thought devs should be able to link quickly the accounts together. There is reasoning behind it. If you are ripped by the associate, for one, the owner of the license should be told (I vote revoked... lol). That is how they are doing it now, grabbing tons of donations, having one license, and 4 people are grabbing off it claiming to be "licensed". Pretty much identifies a ring-leader account.

 

[Adam Howard]

I originally suggested that there be a visual way of seeing who is and who is not a customer back in July 2012

http://xenforo.com/community/threads/att-staff-verified-xenforo-customers-request.33860/

The idea was "rejected" or "deferred" and it led to this current solution

http://xenforo.com/community/threads/manual-customer-verification.34054/

 

[Sheldon]

Yeah, time to revisit the suggestion. The developers of styles, add-ons, etc.. have slowed down a bit since then... and from my discussions with them, it has alot to do with the frustration of certain things.

 

[Adam Howard]

My own past frustrations with somethings have also hindered the development or sponsorship of development.

 

[Forsaken]

The only reason I suggested to differentiate was so devs could see who is "actually" needing that license of said add-on. If the associate is grabbing for the owner, then I thought devs should be able to link quickly the accounts together. There is reasoning behind it. If you are ripped by the associate, for one, the owner of the license should be told (I vote revoked... lol). That is how they are doing it now, grabbing tons of donations, having one license, and 4 people are grabbing off it claiming to be "licensed". Pretty much identifies a ring-leader account.

Yeah I know however seeing something similar done in the past with another platform showed that associated accounts often got alienated in terms of support.

I do agree license owners should be accountable for the actions of the associated accounts though.

Yeah, time to revisit the suggestion. The developers of styles, add-ons, etc.. have slowed down a bit since then... and from my discussions with them, it has alot to do with the frustration of certain things.

I slowed down on my releases updates because I really can't dedicate that much time to things that don't prove that profitable. I've changed my focus to mostly custom work rather than pre-mades because I'm not willing to compete on price or lower the quality of my styles to make them more profitable in terms of time spent.

 

[akia]

...but there is enough cliquey crap going on without sanctified forums for it at xf.

https://twitter.com/ForumScriptz/status/311647249107144705

Please don't feed the trolls DRE

Who cares what he thinks or tweets

He makes a valid point, this community has almost self imploded on its self already in the past. Making it more cliquey, is just going to fuel more divisions.

If developers want to talk amongst themselves privately to protect themselves, then there is no problem with that, but having it officially sanctioned here is wrong. plan and simple.

 

[Sheldon]

If developers want to talk amongst themselves privately to protect themselves, then there is no problem with that, but having it officially sanctioned here is wrong. plan and simple.

Thank you for your opinion.

 

[Ingenious]

I have no issue with you having a place here to verify by means of posting or download etc, hell have a private area to discuss people, whatever. But you will need xenforo to help if you want yes/no answers to who has a licence,

I don't really understand the logic behind this. You're saying you accept people can determine whether you own a licence from where you post on Xenforo, so therefore whether you are or are not a licence holder is a matter of public record, indirectly. But you object to a simple flag on your account that just states this information? What is the difference? Can you not see how much time and effort a licence yes/no flag would save, not just for developers but also for ordinary forum users here who may inadvertently reply to non-licence holders and give them help and support?

Yes, I suppose from a legal point of view Xenforo may need to change the T&C to give them scope to do this. But as much as I am against a few of the suggestions here, I can't see how a simple yes/no to being a legitimate licence holder is a violation of privacy.

As a compromise, how about a custom field here on Xenforo, set to "No" by default, that lets licence holders (and only licence holders) activate a flag or user title that confirms their licence status? Developers can then ask people to voluntarily activate this if they want support or download something. It's therefore in the hands of the individual member whether to cooperate.

And one thing, you only need to look at the number of people willing to have their licence status confirmed over at the excellent XFShowcase to show that most people are actually proud to confirm they're a legitimate licence holder because it's also a "badge of support" for the cause.

 

[Biker]

I fail to see how flagging a user as a license holder violates one's privacy.

 

[Shelley]

Another benefit is people with nulled licenses or pirating try to get support in the public (open) areas and pull a fly one. It'll be beneficial to know who is trying this on though it's prity easy to figure when they have 1 post but knowing makes it easier to report such posts and not provide support to people who try to get it.

It all boils down to people saying they "support" <insert software here> but when it comes down to the crunch the words are merely just that, words which can be conjured in seconds.

Either way, this thread is going around in circles there's never going to be a productive discussion and it's just a way for people to endlessly debate about something that won't ever come to a productive state.#politicaldebating

 

[John]

Some want to talk about sex and lesbians, or asses.

I vote for this topic!

 

[Biker]

I vote for this topic!

You would!

 

[Digital Doctor]

Hidden Forums ---- I'd be apposed to this as well.... vBulletin and IPB both have them and things get "strange". Don't take this personally, but I like public accountability in regards to the company I do business with.

What is the function of the vBulletin private forum ?
For developers to talk about pirates ?