Piracy - The Battle

[Forsaken]

Honestly, battling piracy is really not worth the time as the people who pirate generally aren't going to purchase the products they're pirating. There is also very little you can do as a large portion of them are in locales that do not have strict piracy laws. Even in the US or parts of Europe the piracy laws in place are made for large corporations and not small entities such as style designers or add-on developers.

That said there are a few things mentioned here that I would like to see implemented:

Resource developer forum so that developers and designers can crowd-source information about pirates and report them directly to staff. I would also like this extended further to include services offered to members as I know quite a few developers and designers who have been ripped off at least partially by customers.

Displaying whether someone is licensed or not. This is something that would save a lot of time; currently I ask either Lawrence or Jake (I think I've asked Brogan in the past as well) if someone is licensed before I approve their license on our shopping cart. This has saved Kim and I from selling to pirates quite a few times, and if it were added it would definitely speed up our approval process.

Not sure if this has been suggested, but an API that would automatically check if someone is licensed and perhaps check payment details (from Paypal) against license details without storing or giving out the information would be a huge benefit as well. It would drastically cut down on chargebacks and purchases made by stolen Paypal accounts. I don't see this being done, but one can dream .

Most piracy can be avoided by making precautions against accepting all payments. Obviously there will be those that have a lot of experience in it, but most piracy or chargebacks come from small time pirates rather than the big ones.

 

[EQnoble]

Uhh ... the community.

Just like the community ran things while "people were away" !

It would be like an Apple Apps store.
80% of a sale goes to the developer.
10% to the xenforo.org community.
10% to Xenforo.

Some of the xenforo.org money might go into salaries. I don't know.

In support the community would upkeep a Community Codebase that would include key integration items (Widget framework, Tags, Tag Me, whatever) and Security keys.

Xenforo Inc. will agree to working with the .org to ensure compatibility of the community codebase, etc.

The community didnt run things when people were away...we SUPPORTED this place by showing presence...they paid the hosting bill, domain regs, controlled user account info...blah blah blah...we were here only BECAUSE they provided a place to call HERE.

Also cant just say the community runs it...it needs to be impartial people with no personal stake at all in the outcome or operations of the site. People who sell things can't be involved in the site management for reasons of posterity. That would be like the apple store controlling sales of software for a microsoft OS. Also you need a command structure....everyone working on something that can change the outcome for any single person would need to report to someone and actions accounted for or it will get abused like EVERYTHING else.


This being the case...we are back to how do you select the people who are going to run it...and we end up with the same answers.

We are going in circles here ....in the end we would have accomplished the same end result by doing nothing.

 

[tyteen4a03]

1. Not sure what you mean. We already have customers only forum.
2. Requested over and over again.
3. Server scans client - The internet is decentralized, it's not really possible to scan every forum out there. Client tells server - First thing nullers remove.

Rather than focusing on stopping piracy by blocking, I think we should give more incentives for people to buy xF. Access to resources is one, more frequent sales and discounts could be another.

(A wild idea: 4 years ago when I was still young, my friends about the same age as me had no money, phpBB was the only option (and it was no competitor to vB at that time) so they had to turn to nulled scripts, just to start a forum and hope to be famous. Could we try something like that - we supply the licenses and necessary support, they do the planning and running? Teenagers are very creative but what they usually lack is money. They get to start their very own forum, we get to promote XF with it.)

 

[Ignited]

Personally the thought of un-orthadox call backs and the spying method as whole makes me not want to buy add-on's from certain developers in this thread. I pay money for my server, nor do i know you, so in aspect why should i allow you to monitor my server after giving you money?

Piracy is something like the war on drugs, gl trying but your better of dying before you accomplish something. Not trying to be harsh but i am a small developer/artist myself and piracy affects me to, but what bothers me is the "lack of privacy" some of you are speaking of.

It's a 2 way street, without it many popular software wouldn't have as many paid clients as it does now. Not implying it's a good thing to pirate anything, just simply stating with every - there is a +.

Want more sales and less pirating?
- Advertise more.
- Respect the clients privacy.

There are ways to combat it, but disregarding someone's privacy is quite arrogant and not the route i would go as a developer.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[cclaerhout]

There are ways to combat it, but disregarding someone's privacy is quite arrogant and not the route i would go as a developer.

I shouldn't interfere here because I don't care anymore, but I'm still going to do ^^

What is asked here is a system to check if a member has a XenForo licensed or not. There's no personal data, no name, no address, no phone number, no email, no favorite food or sexual orientation. Just a system to check if a member has a license or not. There are thousands reasons to be angry with the new face of Internet last years ("social websites"... but it's not the subject here), but what is asked here doesn't deserve to get angry for it. Actually the system already exists: if you can post in some forum it means you've got a license. But it's not "developer-friendly"/"seller-friendly".

The second system which is asked is a private forum for developers to exchange username (pseudo) not to sell to because they will leech the addon. Again it's just a username, not a real name; EXCEPT when a paypal account has been used to make a fraudulent payment.

Sorry but I don't really see what is arrogant or even "bad" here. The customer privacy is totally respected.

 

[Syndol]

There's no personal data, no name, no address, no phone number, no email, no favorite food or sexual orientation.

Well, maybe just sexual orientation.

 

[cclaerhout]

Well, maybe just sexual orientation.

Only for lesbians then...

 

[jmurrayhead]

Displaying whether someone is licensed or not. This is something that would save a lot of time;

This. I see no reason this information can't be displayed. And don't give me that B.S. about privacy. Either you're licensed or you're not. It's not that big of a deal.

 

[Forsaken]

This. I see no reason this information can't be displayed. And don't give me that B.S. about privacy. Either you're licensed or you're not. It's not that big of a deal.

I'm less concerned about piracy than I am about fraud. Piracy isn't something that can't easily be prevented, whereas fraud can at least be cut down by review processes.

 

[jmurrayhead]

I'm less concerned about piracy than I am about fraud. Piracy isn't something that can't easily be prevented, whereas fraud can at least be cut down by review processes.

I said privacy, not piracy. Unless I'm missing what you're talking about.

 

[Forsaken]

I said privacy, not piracy. Unless I'm missing what you're talking about.

I haven't slept yet, shut up .

 

[Luxus]

Did I understand this correct, if licensed XenForo customers are caught using a pirated addon, their XF license will be revoked?

 

[Syndol]

So don't do it

 

[Biker]

Why not? Have you read the license agreement?

 

[Luxus]

Add-ons and services associated with a License (“Add-ons”) may have additional requirements which You must ensure are met before purchasing.
You may only use an Add-on with its associated License. If the Add-on purchase becomes invalid (such as through refund or cancellation, etc), you must immediately uninstall the Add-on and delete all associated files.
Add-ons may not be separately transferred between Your Licenses or to a third party. When a License is transferred to a Subsequent Purchaser, all Add-ons associated with that License will be transferred as well.
Access to Support and Updates for the Add-on is dependent on the associated License having current access to Support and Updates. The License's Extension Payment may be changed by the purchase of Add-ons. Once an Add-on is purchased, the Extension Payment will always take the Add-on into account. To not extend an Add-on with an Extension Payment, You must contact us to cancel the Add-on before making the Extension Payment. No refund will be given in this case and should You wish to re-gain access to the Add-on, You will need to re-purchase it.

I think this referrs only to first-party addons.

 

[Biker]

It also says you won't do anything illegal with the software.

 

[Luxus]

It also says you won't do anything illegal with the software.

Using pirated addons doesn't fall within its scope.

 

[Biker]

Says who?

 

[Syndol]

Using pirated addons doesn't fall within its scope.

Only one way to find out.
Which website do you have the pirated add-ons on?

 

[Luxus]

Says who?

Common sense, there is nothing in the license agreement that indicates otherwise. It's none of Xenforo's business if their customers do crimes that didn't involve them. Microsoft can't revoke your Windows license just because you pirated movies with it.