Piracy - The Battle

[Sheldon]

Not sure an outright revoke is good. Depends on the explanation (system compromise, etc.).

There is no explanation if you or your associated users are caught pirating. That is the point. Cut and dry.

If that is the case, everyone will use the excuse of a compromise. Unless FACTUAL solid evidence could be supplied, it should be revoked. They are not only taking money from developers, they are taking developers away from our community.

 

[DRE]

One of my first resources was posted on ecks eff Team but was only downloaded by three people in the Resource Manager. I ask some moderators to tell me who downloaded it so that I could single out who downloaded and uploaded it to the other site and they said they have no way of telling. If ragtek can code a 'Who Downloaded This Attachment' addon, surely y'all can add that function to the Resource Manager?

 

[Biker]

Case in point. Right now, I have nobody listed in the Associated area. I rarely check that area, too. If someone were to gain access to my login information and add themselves, I'd never know it until I went in to check on an upgrade or extend the license agreement.

Perhaps if there was a notification made to the license holder of activity on the account, I might see a license revocation as the solution. It all depends on the circumstances.

 

[Luke F]

As you guys know (form my involvement in the PC) we are looking at ways to help you guys out.

However it is an uphill battle, measures are only effective for so long... all it would take is someone to sneak past into the particular forum and then its all for nothing.

I did have an idea... but it would need quite a lot of logisitcal working out first.....

It's not that hard to ascertain who is trustworthy - reviews by established members of paid addons coupled with the outward complexity of the addon(s) should be a fairly safe metric to determine which developers are legit and which are posting 'trojan horse' (in the literal/historical sense, not talking about malware) addons to get in.

 

[alexD]

The following script would be a pain in the butt even for its developer to 'null', let alone the script kiddies (they wouldn't even be able to redistribute a working copy).

 

[Luxus]

In my opinion, instead of putting energy in dealing with piracy, the energy should be put in making the addons more awesome and provide support. Of course you lose money when someone pirates an addon, but you can compensate the loss by making people appreciate your work up to the point where they are morally forced to pay for it. If people really appreciate something, they are gonna pay for it. And if not, make them pay by showing them how awesome you are.

It's just like with Open Source addons of CMSes. Take Joomla for example. Most commercial addons of Joomla are GPL licensed, meaning they can legally be shared by everyone. And yet the developers make a living of selling and supporting those addons. They even advertise their addons of being GPL licensed. Why? Because people would rather buy a quality product with top-notch support than pirate a possibly altered copy. And lets face it, most of those who pirate addons don't have faith in their own forum. They know they will never have a successful forum because if they don't think it's worth spending money for their projects, they won't. And if by any chance their forum become successful, they will realize sooner or later that they need to get stuff the legit way to secure the future of their project.

Those piracy discussions are not a good idea in my opinion. Because piracy can't effectively be stopped, they easily could lead to frustrations and ultimately affect legit users. SimCity debacle, anyone?

 

[Mouth]

Here's a basic workflow I'm thinking ...

1. A dev listing an add-on within the resource manager has an opt-in option to allow xF to act on their behalf for confirmed piracy claims.
2. xenforo.com/piracy/ page for dev's, users, or interested parties to report suspected piracy of xF or an add-on. Page contains drop-down field(s) with values populated of xF itself and any opt-in resource manager add-on. Person reporting enters the suspect URL and selects xF and/or the add-on they suspect.
3. Upon a submitted report, xF staff and/or the add-on dev are notified by alert/email of the piracy claim to allow them to investigate and confirm/approve. They follow an alert/email link to confirm the claim.
4. xF staff receive notification of a confirmed claim via the dev or xF staff, and then send a template copyright notification (DCMA compliant and using strong wording supplied by xF lawyers) to the ISP of the offending URL requiring a removal.

Voila, in the majority of cases the ISP will act and either notify the URL owner and they will remove for fear of reprisal (and "naming an shaming" at xenforo.com/piracy-offenders/) or the ISP will remove (scripts or entire site) to comply with the copyright notification.

 

[Sheldon]

In my opinion, instead of putting energy in dealing with piracy, the energy should be put in making the addons more awesome and provide support.

Errrrm. If the developers refuse to sell anymore, due to the rampant piracy, who do you plan on making these addons "more awesome with support"?

 

[Luxus]

Errrrm. If the developers refuse to sell anymore, due to the rampant piracy, who do you plan on making these addons "more awesome with support"?

Please read my full post before replying, kthx.

 

[Biker]

Please read my full post before replying, kthx.

I read it, and agree with stewart1champ. If the developer gets fed up with the rampant piracy and stops development, it makes no difference at that point if the stuff is available or not. You've now lost a valuable resource who may have been cranking out fantastic products.

Like it or not, piracy discussions ARE necessary, as well as methods to discourage the practice. Personally, I'd like to see them locked up with Bubba for a few years to give them a new outlook on life.

 

[Luke F]

In my opinion, instead of putting energy in dealing with piracy, the energy should be put in making the addons more awesome and provide support. Of course you lose money when someone pirates an addon, but you can compensate the loss by making people appreciate your work up to the point where they are morally forced to pay for it. If people really appreciate something, they are gonna pay for it. And if not, make them pay by showing them how awesome you are.

It's just like with Open Source addons of CMSes. Take Joomla for example. Most commercial addons of Joomla are GPL licensed, meaning they can legally be shared by everyone. And yet the developers make a living of selling and supporting those addons. They even advertise their addons of being GPL licensed. Why? Because people would rather buy a quality product with top-notch support than pirate a possibly altered copy. And lets face it, most of those who pirate addons don't have faith in their own forum. They know they will never have a successful forum because if they don't think it's worth spending money for their projects, they won't. And if by any chance their forum become successful, they will realize sooner or later that they need to get stuff the legit way to secure the future of their project.

Those piracy discussions are not a good idea in my opinion. Because piracy can't effectively be stopped, they easily could lead to frustrations and ultimately affect legit users. SimCity debacle, anyone?

XenForo addons don't get a huge amount of sales and are generally more expensive than what the stereotypical pirate would consider throwaway money (unlike eg mobile apps), so piracy can be effectively prevented by cutting off updates to known pirates. Providing constant updates is half of it - the other is keeping up with pirates so that only old versions remain publicly available.

 

[Luxus]

I read it, and agree with stewart1champ. If the developer gets fed up with the rampant piracy and stops development, it makes no difference at that point if the stuff is available or not. You've now lost a valuable resource who may have been cranking out fantastic products.

Like it or not, piracy discussions ARE necessary, as well as methods to discourage the practice. Personally, I'd like to see them locked up with Bubba for a few years to give them a new outlook on life.

You have missed the point. There won't be any effectiv measure for piracy, there just won't. It's more likely developers will get fed up and quit because of failed attempts to counter piracy.

 

[Sheldon]

You have missed the point. There won't be any effectiv measure for piracy, there just won't. It's more likely developers will get fed up and quit because of failed attempts to counter piracy.

I don't think we have missed the point. If there isn't an attempt to combat, screw it.... why not just have everything listed in a unregistered area?

 

[Biker]

I've found that those that complain most about "anti-piracy" discussions and measures are those who practice piracy themselves.

 

[Mike Edge]

I read it, and agree with stewart1champ. If the developer gets fed up with the rampant piracy and stops development, it makes no difference at that point if the stuff is available or not. You've now lost a valuable resource who may have been cranking out fantastic products.

Like it or not, piracy discussions ARE necessary, as well as methods to discourage the practice. Personally, I'd like to see them locked up with Bubba for a few years to give them a new outlook on life.

Agree, but sadly with countries like netherlands, Panama, Korea etc.. there is not much that can be done about a pirated site. Same goes with revoking all access here, simply they will order another copy of xF with a stolen credit card and continue to suck down the releases.

Sadly it seems like it might have to come to it, but best method might be like Bobster does and he selects manually who he chooses to/no to do business with rather then you just pay and it is instantly mailed.

 

[Luxus]

I don't think we have missed the point. If there isn't an attempt to combat, screw it.... why not just have everything listed in a unregistered area?

Making paid addons unavailable to the public isn't an attempt to counter piracy. It just the nature of selling stuff.

 

[Deebs]

Perhaps if you solve this you could patent it and licence it to the Companies out there who spend millions a year on attempting to combat piracy and fail. Digital goods will always be pirated and there is nothing you can do unless you watermark, somehow, each individual copy (stenography somehow?). Another attempt could be like what some "always online" games are attempting to do, part of the application runs on a hosted server (owned by the publisher). Anyway, will be interesting to see what you come up with.

 

[Biker]

Perhaps if you solve this you could patent it and licence it to the Companies out there who spend millions a year on attempting to combat piracy and fail. Digital goods will always be pirated and there is nothing you can do unless you watermark, somehow, each individual copy (stenography somehow?). Another attempt could be like what some "always online" games are attempting to do, part of the application runs on a hosted server (owned by the publisher). Anyway, will be interesting to see what you come up with.

I've often thought that perhaps a method of "calling home" on a periodic basis might be feasible.

 

[M@rc]

unless you watermark, somehow, each individual copy

That's one of the best ideas I've heard to find the pirate.

 

[Sheldon]

I have never once stated to make the add-ons unavailable to the public.