Preventing un-licensed Pirates using our work ?

Pirates we all have to admit are in the category of the "I'm a tight fisted gutless *******s" group. Though I feel anyone directly pointing the finger at them are possibly misguided themselves, If they weren't taught as children by their parents the fundamental values the blame partially lies there.

I guess being anonymous online people tend to feel safe behind a monitor but when push comes to shove they are no better than someone breaking into a house and robbing the contents of some poor victim who work hard all their life except they do this behind a computer. Anonymously.

Anyway, as john said, we all tried to combat piracy in our own little way but it's a futile battle you'll never win and worry yourself over resulting in your own wasted time.
 
When you say they are all "tight fisted gutless *******s", keep in mind that many versions of vBulletin released as pirated copies were actually first got by paid pirate users. Some pirate groups do own a valid forum license, just so they can get their hands on genuine clean copy of the very latest release to hack for releasing.
 
mrGTB said:
When you say they are all "tight fisted gutless *******s", keep in mind that many version of vBulletin released as pirated copies were actually first got by paid users. Some pirate groups own a valid forum license, so they can get their hands on genuine copy to pirate for release.
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Gary Gary Gary. :LOL:
 
I have to bite my tongue here, not everyone who "pirates" stuff is a "I'm a tight fisted gutless *******s". Many do it just to remove the DRM that is enforced upon us.
 
Can't understand people getting pirated software, as there just stabbing themself in the back as if they keep getting the illegal stuff the same would happen as what happened to the Atari ST games / software (becomes no more). Then where will the pirate (tea leaves) people be, I hope they catch them and wire there vitals to the national grid and energy....you get my point. :)
 
I never have really understood why so many people say that there is absolutely nothing that can be done about this.

I too design and sell commercial skins on a high volume basis. I now own and sell John's original vB work, and he has been the the business for a very long time. With this comes a lot of pirating...a lot of it. Now, I individually license every single skin that I sell to one domain. With that I 100% know whether or not a particular installation of my skin is valid or not. Whenever I run across one of my skins that looks fishy, I check my database. If it's not there, I run a whois on the host. If the host is in the US (which is usually the case), I send a DMCA takedown notice to the host, and 9 times out of 10, the person either removes the skin or the host suspends the account. It requires a whopping 5 minutes of my time and is well worth it. Not only does it give me a sense of retribution, but it does decrease pirating in my opinion. The odds of that person to continue to pirate software probably will not change, but I bet the odds of them pirating my stuff will drastically diminish. Now, if the perpetrator is hosted overseas, I don't bother with it, because DMCA laws will not apply to them. Delivering any other copyright notice would involve too much legwork in that case. Although...I have sent a few DMCA notices to the UK before just out of curiosity, and yes, it has worked. I'm pretty sure it should not have, but it did :)

Some commercial skin providers don't keep track of valid/licensed URL's, and I guess that's up to them...There is no way I would be in this business if I didn't do that though.

Am I claiming to stop global pirating in its tracks? No, of course not...but what I'm saying is when I run across it, I spend 5 minutes of research and/or taking action. 9 times out of 10 when I take action, I'm successful. If more copyright owners people put forth even a little bit of effort instead of shying away from it, I do think the world be be a slightly less pirated place (y)
 
I feel your pain. I used to run a skin website a few years back. I developed 15 skins, including logos, icons, and the works.

And one day when I was at work (my real job) I got a paypal notice of a transaction that was about $650. This sale included ALL my skins, ALL my icons, ALL the logos, EVERYTHING that I had made. The guess what happened 30 seconds later? CHARGEBACK!! These d*** heads download everything for free and got their money back. Upon calling PayPal they said they couldn't do anything as the credit card the purchased was made from was "stolen."

So case in point, if you every want to rip off a developer for all his works, buy all his hard work with one purchase and then call paypal and tell them someone stole your credit card so you get your money back.

I did however eventually find the pirate "team" who did this but there is nothing I or anyone can do because they pirate all VB stuff and now... well... the software we are communicating on ourself.

You are not alone in this and like it was previously stated, piracy will never stop.
 
Ryan said:
I never have really understood why so many people say that there is absolutely nothing that can be done about this.

[snip]

If more copyright owners people put forth even a little bit of effort instead of shying away from it, I do think the world be be a slightly less pirated place (y)
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I think you are wrong Ryan.

I used to do just what you described, and was sucessful in a lot of cases too, but it got to the stage where half my day was spent either dealing with reports of piracy, or tracking sites down, doing DMCA notice and taking that action.. it got to the point were it could never be cost effective... it also completely kills creativity to have to do such "policing" - for me anyway, I cannot be creative when I have to invest that much negative energy.

It also ime makes absolutely no difference, the only people who might have a rethink after you do that, are the same ones that will eventually come and buy from you anyway, as they actually have a moral compass, and ultimately it points them in the right direction.

Anyone who feels entitled will never change regardless of your actions.

My 2 cents as someone who has spent 8 years and has sold a tanker load of skins.
 
What I'm saying is that if:

1) Someone pirates my skin
2) They use a US-based host
3) I find them

There is a 90% chance that I stop them with 5 minutes of my time. If more skin, mod, and software vendors used this approach, how could it possibly not decrease pirating?

I shut down websites when the above happens. It is a major inconvenience for the person pirating my work. I doubt they'll do it again with my work, but they may try somebody else's work. I have no plans of changing a pirate's morals or outlook on life, because I don't think that can be done...but what I'm doing is discouraging them from stealing my work again.

These people may eventually learn to use a host overseas, and if they do that, they'll get away with it. I find that most pirates I find are here in my homeland though...either because they're too scared to use an international host or they just don't understand that if they do, they can steal work and get away with it.
 
Ryan said:
I have sent a few DMCA notices to the UK before just out of curiosity, and yes, it has worked. I'm pretty sure it should not have, but it did
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That is the one point of your post I disagree with, in most cases you will find that all 188 countries that are policed by Interpol can and will quickly enforce all intellectual property laws. If they do not you should definitely record all messages between yourself and the organization that refuses to acknowledge your rights as the property owner to have it removed and report them to Interpol, that is part of their job.
 
A good anti-piracy code needs to be built-in IMHO... requiring activation via xenforo itself, and if its not present, the entire software shuts down without it within a 24 - 48hr type period. You can't beat something if part of the process is encrypted at xenforo's end, requiring a constant validation stream every x days or such...

You only need think like banking systems nowadays, with their little changing code tags that you can get to access your money. Every time you login via the web, it sends you a new code... this just needs to be done automatically via the server installed and xenforo. One code per copy, per domain, constantly changing behind the scenes for validity.

Tell me a hacker is going to bother trying to work that out for a mere $140 software!!!
 
If you can prove as a licensee of software that someone is running unlicensed software on a hosted server, that company has to comply and close that account immediately for piracy. There are only a few countries in which you can get away with it... and they aren't primary main countries.
 
Anthony Parsons said:
If you can prove as a licensee of software that someone is running unlicensed software on a hosted server, that company has to comply and close that account immediately for piracy. There are only a few countries in which you can get away with it... and they aren't primary main countries.
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Exactly... I find it amusing when people purchase 'off shore' hosting to try and perform illegal activities since most of these 'off shore' hosting services are provided via countries that are part of Interpol's jurisdiction and have first hand seen many shut down when properly reported for their illegal actions. I am pretty sure wikipedia has an extensive listing of the 188 governed countries.
 
CurveGotti said:
That is the one point of your post I disagree with, in most cases you will find that all 188 countries that are policed by Interpol can and will quickly enforce all intellectual property laws. If they do not you should definitely record all messages between yourself and the organization that refuses to acknowledge your rights as the property owner to have it removed and report them to Interpol, that is part of their job.
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Yes but I specifically sent a DMCA notice to a webhost in the UK, and it worked. DMCA is US, not international, law...but I didn't complain :p
 
Ryan said:
Yes but I specifically sent a DMCA notice to a webhost in the UK, and it worked. DMCA is US, not international, law...but I didn't complain :p
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lol didn't notice the dmca part to be honest, but I believe that's only half correct... part of DMCA has to do with the World Intellectual Property Organization from what I understand which means the countries involved in WIPO (I may be mistaken but I think all of the Interpol countries are involved) are responsible for enforcing DMCA.
 
It would be nice if we could integrate our site's much in the same way IPB has the spam thing, but xF's would work for boards that are mainly for releasing/distributing products by allowing integration with its customer urls to make people prove they are legit(unless this invades our privacy?) Maybe I am just too tired atm lol.
 
Anthony Parsons said:
A good anti-piracy code needs to be built-in IMHO
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No protection system will last. Even if the XenForo team will decide to encode some part of the software, there will be always someone that will be able to decode it and make it run without problem so for me it's better to avoid such a system. in my case, for example, I cannot run on my server any software that's iocubed so if XF were ioncubed I've never bought it...
 
Good to see so much feedback, i know pirating goes on etc, but the amount of people who accept / speak of it as "ohh well it's just little sites starting up, they will purchase if their site takes off" to me that is not a valid reason at all.. a license / investment into a new project is a gamble yes.. should people be able to gamble for free and stand to lose nothing, but if the site becomes a success it's ok then.. I don't know.. i am too honest for my own good i think, i can see the localhost usages as a fair excuse (try before i buy) but not on a live site, you don't get a lotto ticket for free and only have to pay for it if it wins... bad terminology / comparison but you get my drift.

As for someone who said just contact their hosting / files hosts... especially saying it takes just 5 minutes.. Hostgator yes they will not tolerate pirated software, little / unknown hosting companies can't afford to lose the business so they just ignore requests to have pirated stuff removed, I bet you haven't gone through the grief of dealing with hotfile (they are shocking).. 2-3 days turn around time 20 different questions (not easy ones to complete to their satisfaction) by then the file is mirrored 10x+ so little nerds can earn a free account just by uploading illegal content.. now i can't afford to spend 3-4 hours a day chasing down hosting co's / domain co's / website owners.. i did at first but it's way too much hassle. I don't / wont resort to putting call backs or tracking methods into styles either.

One last cheap shot and i am done.. if i could get vbulletin to share with us how they managed to screw up the customizable profiles section of their software it might just be possible to use their methods to include a credit link that can not be modified in free releases.. then again it's vb they probably don't even have their own hosting details handy yet alone a general guide to their messy code hahah.. is it obvious that vb have really ticked me off of late. lol
 
Anthony Parsons said:
A good anti-piracy code needs to be built-in IMHO... requiring activation via xenforo itself, and if its not present, the entire software shuts down without it within a 24 - 48hr type period. You can't beat something if part of the process is encrypted at xenforo's end, requiring a constant validation stream every x days or such...

You only need think like banking systems nowadays, with their little changing code tags that you can get to access your money. Every time you login via the web, it sends you a new code... this just needs to be done automatically via the server installed and xenforo. One code per copy, per domain, constantly changing behind the scenes for validity.

Tell me a hacker is going to bother trying to work that out for a mere $140 software!!!
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If they do that I'm selling my licenses and moving on. Wasting your time playing whack-a-mole with systems that will just be cracked time and time again is a terrible use of development time. Not to mention the amount of money that would cost on their end. Stick to developing a great forum system, not trying to make people who will never buy your product, buy your product.
 
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