Sigh, It's always nice to see when someone stole your style lol.

rainmotorsports

rainmotorsports

Well-known member
So our style was originally designed for our forums on the e107 platform.
tbgclan6.webp

We then had it migrated to vBulletin 3 and eventually 4.
FireShot Screen Capture #041 - 'TBGClan' - www_tbgclan_com.webp

Our Xenforo Site - www.tbgclan.com

When we decided to move to vBulletin the original artist no longer had our files. So I found the brushes for the bullet holes and the flames and I took to work slicing it up so that it could be responsive.

I get a call today from the owner of our site asking if http://thekillingcrew.com/ stole it or I gave it to them. So yeah wow. The sad part is how badly coded the theme is on our own site. I did it in one day and then messed it up badly to allow for a really cruddy implementation of floating navigation. I had so much trouble at first I ended up fixing the header in place. Which is why the pull down for login doesn't move the page. I see they even copied that lol.

Our forum page versus theirs:
FireShot Capture - TBGclan.com I True Born Gaming - http___www.tbgclan.com_forums_.webp FireShot Capture - The Killing Crew - http___thekillingcrew.com_forums_.webp
upload_2014-10-13_21-43-22.webp


Even though they didn't rip the javascript yet they copied the structure verbatim. The class navstatic isn't needed without the javascript. I organized my main images into an element folder which I see they did as well just to keep the copy and paste easy:
upload_2014-10-14_3-14-41.webp


I am in the process of redoing the theme from scratch, I was waiting to announce our conversion until this was finally done. Looks like I am going to showcase my horrible work officially now thanks to someone else.

Edit - Oh I see who is on that site too. Funny @TacTicToe... would have helped you out in the past with all those questions you were asking but now, Id be forbidden and lose my job.
 
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@rainmotorsports

Oh wow...sorry to hear that.
Well on the plus side, the skins look really nice. Be great to see it actually live vs the screenshots.

(that said I sort of prefer the Vbulletin look, since it gets away from the "Uniform" look of Xenforo in a way but I like them both. You should release it as a paid style lol)
 
@rainmotorsports I feel your pain. I had @Russ make a custom unique theme for a site I used to run called SimCity Talk and within a few weeks of being open someone (a former member here that has now since been banned but not for ripping my style) and it just broke my heart. After that I lost interest in the site which because EA botched the release of the game came at a perfect time cause it helped kill the site. I paid good money to have something unique and awesome and for someone to just come along and steal it just plain sucks. So I know all to well the pain you are going through. Someone I know told me about it having been ripped by the unnamed person and I confronted them about it and they had the nerve to tell me they wanted to use it for a bullying website. I mean come on you ripped my style and then wanted my permission to use it for a bullying website heck you bullied me by stealing my theme. Oh well water under the bridge. Don't take it to personally cause if someone took the time to steal it then they must have loved the style. That's the way I tried to take it anyways.
 
Ernest L. Defoe said:
Don't take it to personally cause if someone took the time to steal it then they must have loved the style. That's the way I tried to take it anyways.
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The owner of the site is telling me I should be more upset then him. Yes I put some work into it but I am only truly horrified that I now have to throw my terrible work into the open with only days of work needed to finish the redo.

We had people steal parts of our site design back on vBulletin. Going as far as to pull stats from our own stats server (no longer running). I am used to it, could care less to some degree. First time I saw this level of copying though.

I was going to float the logo over the banner, always worried someone would take the banner. Can't copyright it so having the logo fixed to it offers partial protection against copying. But now I know, if I take the logo and make it separate thats getting stolen too.
 
DEZero said:
Looks like they are out in full swing, my main style over on my site was ripped a few weeks back. But figured it was bound to happen, people always want things for free...
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That they do. Pay for things like the rest of us do.What's bad is the person that ripped my style later became a very productive member of this site with some pretty cool addons but then they got busted and banned later.
 
rainmotorsports said:
I would even be nice enough to tell them the source images and my recommendations. Its a different story when you want help. Another thing when you just want to take it.
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I totally agree. Had I been asked about my custom style and knew before hand what it was going to be used for I might would have let them use it but then take it like they did. Not like I could have really stopped them from using it anyways
 
From the XF license terms: "You may not use the software to engage in any activity that would violate the rights of third parties."

I'd say that's pretty clear cut. Report them and get their license terminated (assuming that they even have a license!)
 
Cambion said:
What does terminating the license do? I mean they still can/will use the software if they wish, right?
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I don't know what issue they are taking up with them, nor what action they might be taking as it has not been discussed with me.

However terminating the license, if they are hosted anywhere respectable I believe would actually allow them to send a take down notice to their host the same as nulled software. But in general it might have little effect other than loss of updates. People are going to do what they want to do and while there is legal recourse for specific issues, often they are not worth it.
 
rainmotorsports said:
I don't know what issue they are taking up with them, nor what action they might be taking as it has not been discussed with me.

However terminating the license, if they are hosted anywhere respectable I believe would actually allow them to send a take down notice to their host the same as nulled software. But in general it might have little effect other than loss of updates. People are going to do what they want to do and while there is legal recourse for specific issues, often they are not worth it.
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Yeah that's what I figure. But if they are stealing stuff, they probably don't care about nulled stuff and will make plans elsewhere.
Sorry to hear about this mess though :)
 
Cambion said:
Sorry to hear about this mess though :)
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Oh well kinda sort of got something done because of this. I am backporting a lot of the changes from the new theme into the current one. Fixing the header, footer, floating navigation, search on mobile. Etc etc. Pain in my butt trying to mix 2 different styles. Same style but I coded them differently. Pretty close to going live with the changes.
 
So I contacted their host, since well we use them as well for anything not related to web hosting. They told us to go ahead and send them a DMCA takedown notice.

So here is the fun part. Actually figuring that much out :p
 
I get asked on a weekly basis to sell/copy the Se7enSins style, and I know Azzid has had almost every style he's had done for the site ripped, including the last two I've done.
 
Forsaken said:
I get asked on a weekly basis to sell/copy the Se7enSins style, and I know Azzid has had almost every style he's had done for the site ripped, including the last two I've done.
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Yeah I have seen those posted around on various sites. It's sad really. Nobody can have anything unique anymore without someone having to copy/rip it.
 
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