Preventing un-licensed Pirates using our work ?

ExpertPixels.com

Well-known member
EDIT:

Had to remove this post due to reasons outside of my control. Myself & a Friend owned a domain which we since dropped, this domain was purchased by someone else and now the site redirects to adult related content.
 
Moved to off topic as it's not a XenForo specific issue.

Downloads here on XenForo.com are restricted to licensed customers only.
If someone with a license chooses to redistribute anything though, there is very little that can be done about it.

Software has always and will always be pirated.
 
Sorry Brogan, really wasn't sure where to place it...

Thanks for your feedback tho, still sucks just knowing that we are supporting these people, mate if a shop assistant gives me too much change back i make sure i hand back the extra change... having these people not only take sometime from free then asking for support and knowing good and well they are cheating companies really really sucks.
 
I fully agree.

I have every sympathy with those who have their skill, hard work, time, and effort abused in this way.
 
It really is hurtful to the people that put in hard long hours to develop these products. Be it free or not, there's a reason piracy is frowned upon. I also can't understand some of these pirates. A lot of them that run unlicensed forum software, not just limited to Xen, have their hosting in the USA and UK. Don't they know that without a license that they WILL be shut down eventually? Why even put in all that hard work when you're going to lose it all? I could turn an eye if they were using an unlicensed version for simply testing purposes but anything beyond that is not only destructive to the developers of the forum software, styles, add-ons and all that good stuff but it is self-destructive for their community as well. As for the pirates that are smart and go off-shore, I don't think anything can be done and that is an unfortunate fact. I'm on off-shore hosting myself but I payed for the forum software I use so I can support the developers and get access to support and community benefits (priceless). If you can't afford proprietary software, there are free alternatives.
 
This is why all my addons will have a free version and a premium version. The premium versions will be tagged (not in the conventional way either), so that if they get released I will come down on the distributer like a ton of bricks.

Unfortunately doing such for styles is much harder, as I don't mind people spreading the free version around assuming it promotes the premium ones :)
 
This is why all my addons will have a free version and a premium version. The premium versions will be tagged (not in the conventional way either), so that if they get released I will come down on the distributer like a ton of bricks.

Unfortunately doing such for styles is much harder, as I don't mind people spreading the free version around assuming it promotes the premium ones :)
I could buy your premium version and upload it for free for others (nulled as in taking all your tagged info out) yes this is just an example :)
Just the same as here and everywhere else
There is nothing that can be done
 
I could buy your premium version and upload it for free for others (nulled as in taking all your tagged info out) yes this is just an example :)
Just the same as here and everywhere else
There is nothing that can be done

Thats asusming you can find the tag ;)
 
Just charge for support. Want that image centered? $5. Need a color change? $5. Premium membership lets you create support tickets, common fixes cost $5.
 
Imagine going to your job for a week, lets say a labouring laboring job... you bust your guts for say $900 for your weeks work, you count / rely on this income to pay your bills etc, live life, keep the Mrs happy etc etc...what i am getting at is you can count on getting paid at the end of the week.

Now as a small / hard working designer having your designs (that you only charge a few dollars for) passed around like a bowl of m&m's and shared more and more, it gets to the point where you wonder why on earth you do this as a living... I enjoy designing and would like to make a honest living from it, just very hard when so many people visit your site and before visiting your sales page / checkout page they are back in Google searching for "So and So Designs" hotfile etc etc.. takes one person to share a premium product and before you know it your work is spread everywhere and as days / week / months go by your hard work / support / updates etc is all for nothing.

I do enjoy designing for different platforms i like a challenge and like to see that in some small way my work has helped someone, just gets hard to continue to produce designs especially for free when we have people not only use it on unlicensed sites, Ive even found several people who have removed the small credit link and replaced with their own link then redistribute the style / design as their own... I tried to contact hotfile to have a old premium design i created removed... you think anyone can afford to spend 30-60 mins per design trying to convince the filehosts that you are indeed the rightful owner and have not given permission to share the work... Hotfile ask 100's of questions when you report a claim, they just about ask you what you had for breakfast and to prove it... it's the big file hosting companies that profit while us small designers get screwed.

Sorry anyone reading this i will give up on this, not going to win this battle sadly, doomed if you do doomed if you don't.

Darren
 
Feel for you and Steve, Darren. Nothing really can be done as others have said. Take it from someone who has been robbed more times than I can begin to remember, you can either live with it and spend your valuable time on things you do have control over or you can let it drive you nuts to the point you give in...those really are the only two options you have.
 
Hi Darren,

I really feel for you too, and have been in this situation a billion times over the last 8 years or so of designing online .. and worse have had others steal my work and claim it as their own, even selling them openly!
The internet does house some utter low lives.. but there are plenty of lovely people to make it worthwhile overall.
I had to long ago learn to live with the thieves and rippers, and to just get on with it.

You have to accept that there are those who will forever think the world owes them, and that it is OK to take and steal, or that anything on the internet is fair game... you can't beat them unfortunately.

Don't give up :) The good outweighs the bad, but I know only too well how hard that is to see some days!
 
Hi Darren, a small practical suggestion for you mate. Join Elance. Start taking paid custom theme projects through eLance and through your own site. If you are good at your work you will find plenty of paid work. You can keep releasing free skins in your free time (if you have any left... ;) ) and bill people hourly for support requests.
 
Cheers for the support guys.. i am being a sook tonight i know lol.. will get over it, but as for free releases now i am afraid that's going to have to stop and i will need to go back to premium styles just to stay afloat, does make it a little easier to control who you offer support to tho, which is a main reason we may kill off skinden.com

Since a few designers have replied to this thread, some feedback on this would be great: http://i51.tinypic.com/2hz0307.png (very much a work in progress and will have a lot more goodies / effects added before i even consider releasing).. do you think people would have a problem paying say $15 for the style, this would include 1 year support and updates etc..

Thanks again guys, was going to say it's good to hear others get ripped off to, but well really makes it worse knowing how wide spread it is.

Darren
 
I really can't see what the huge issue is here. You release a free product and get upset that people running possibly pirated versions of xen use it? Even if they are removing your copyright (which does suck don't get me wrong) they were never ever going to pay you a dime for it. You aren't losing any money here. If they are keeping your copyright they are probably only helping you with spreading word of your product to those who actually may pay you.
 
Not too fussed about pirates using my addons really - even if they could download the addons legally, they would likely not be the type of person to make a voluntary donation.
That is true, though it still bugs me to see my add-on being pirated even though it is free. :unsure:
 
It's not right to use pirated software, but...

I would think that most of those sites that use pirated software are "fly-by-night" small, starter/hobby sites and that most of them that would eventually grow into something larger, would eventually "go legit".

So think of it as an unauthorized sampler, so to speak. You would be hard pressed to find a large, successful, long-running site to be running pirated software.
 
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