Nice, making snarky comments to someone who has over a decade of experience dealing with this exact issue.
I was going to try really hard to not get into the weenie wagging contest here, but to provide context I myself have a decade of experience running a company that sells COTS enterprise solutions, with employees and P&Ls and bottom lines and millions of dollars involved. I personally think I'm a bit more educated on the pressure points a company like that experiences internally. Obviously those points can work, considering Charles' request for a re-frame of the issue so that a dialogue could commence (because they aren't going to bring it up themselves; we've already established it's inconvenient). But that's not even where my comment was directed. My comment was directed at that lazy Occupy strawman he's dragging through the mud. The strawman is saying that asking for a reasonable dialogue and compromise is somehow equated to the Occupy movement. It's a false equivalency and when he continued in that vein after it being pointed out, he went from being intellectually lazy to intellectually dishonest. This has zero to do with Occupy, it would only be an appropriate analogue if we were on IPS' board and banging a lot of pots and pans demanding attention; this is a single thread on a single forum -- not even affiliated with IPS -- that's simply a customer expressing after being shutdown in their venue. It's more equivalent to Meet the Press than Occupy. Painting this with the brush of a currently divisive sociopolitical issue without context is verging on a downright troll. So you can consider that snark if you like. It's calling a spade a spade. I could've wasted a wall of text previously meticuously going through why his position is defeatist and why entities like VBSI and IPS are probably happy for that position, but I think we all know in our heart of hearts here the most straightforward of these reasons why it's convenient to have the defeatist parade rolling out: if your customers as surrogates work to shut down anybody who tries to get you to articulate an uncomfortable position, you're saved the trouble of doing so yourself. That's truth and that's strategy.
Note: I skipped over all replies because this thread is long, I'm addressing the OP directly in this post. Sorry if this was covered before, I just thought I could give you an idea from what it is like on the other side. I used to be an administrator at vBulletin.org and I often times got PMs from the local hackers and stylist about their work begin posted on warez sites. The thing is, I couldn't really do anything about it, I would tell people this and they would go ballistic sometimes even when I explained it in detail as I'm about to explain it to you. Like your situation a lot of those sites ran vBulletin that were offering "warez" copies of the modifications. They were also offering "nulled" copies of vBulletin of course, and the sites in questions ran nulled copies themselves. I know because I knew how to check for it (I didn't have access to Jelsoft's database of customers or anything, I just knew what to look for to know if the source code of their forum had been tampered with to disable the remote check). Now when this happened I would do a couple of things: 1) I would pass the url a long to the piracy department at Jelsoft. 2) I would inform Jelsoft that the site in question was also offering nulled copies of vBulletin for download. 3) I would inform whichever person had contacted me in the first place, because their work had been "stolen" that it was up to them to enforce their own copyrights. Here is the problem though, a lot of these sites offering warez are hosted in countries where copyrights do not apply. Hence, under the law, nothing can be done. So really, all of this was useless. But I did it anyway, because I lived to please the customer. Now, at some point, we decided to fight back the only way we could. For a short while (a week tops) we had a system in place. to "catch" people who were downloading the files from vBulletin.org and uploading them to these sites. What it did was this: - We required all modifications be uploaded in .zip format. - We stored a copy of the .zip that was uploaded on the server in its original state. - When a user downloaded the .zip from the thread, certain details about them where packed into the .zip file on the fly and hidden away so no one would even notice unless they thought to look for it. This system wasn't fool proof, but I believe that given more time it would have helped weed out the baddies. It gave us solid evidence to ban a customer from downloading modifications from the forums as we could prove they were breaching the copyrights of the person that had created and uploaded the work. Sadly, the same people we were trying to protect caught wind of it pretty quickly. Someone noticed that the .zip file they uploaded had a different hash when downloaded from the server, and with a little checking the trick was exposed. This same person decided to go directly to the public forums with his discovery, complain about it, and cause a stir. At which point the system became useless because it was known to the public at large, and the jig was up. If you're interested, we managed to ban about 10 "warez uploaders" in that week before the system was exposed. At any rate here is my position on the issue: - If you're selling your modifications/styles/work related to whatever it is you do with forums it is up to you to enforce your own rights as the copyright holder. You can not expect IPS, Jelsoft, the guys at Xenforo, or any other company to enforce your rights. Sure if their software is begin offered a long side yours on the same site they might act, but only because their copyrights are begin ignored. - If you're uploading this stuff for free, why do you care? Does it matter if some guy on a warez site uses a piece of software you released for free? I never understood this...my stuff was plastered all over the internet, offered in torrents with 100s of other modifications, and honestly I could care less. - Even if you're selling your software/graphics/whatever do you think the people using a "warez" copy would have paid for it anyway? Everything is pirated these days, and honestly, most people I know that pirate software/movies/books would not have paid for them anyway. - A very small percent of pirates are simply "trying before they buy". They pirate your stuff, and if they like it buy a legit copy from you. If they don't, they ditch it. Either way you're standing a chance of gaining a sale. So my advice, is not to worry about it much. There is really nothing you can do about it anyway, its like the war on drugs or terror...it can't be won. Instead of fighting it try to use it to your advantage. I'm not saying piracy is a good thing, but I am saying its a fact of life and you just have to learn to live with it. If it were up to me I would have shut down every site I ever knew about back when I was an admin at vBulletin.org. But it was beyond my control, and more importantly not worth the effort. For every warez site you take offline 10 will spring up to replace it. This is why I run Linux on the desktop. Don't get me wrong, I buy software. But I love Linux on the desktop so much now.... Nearly everything I use is FOSS, and what I do buy I can run via a VM or Wine. Hell I have two monitors on right now, one running Windows XP in a VM, the other is the desktop for the native OS (Linux Mint) with 8 work spaces. The entire thing is customized to my liking. I really don't have a need to "pirate" my software, I either go with FOSS or buy it. But I will admit to checking a warez or leaked copy out of something from time to time. I would have never learned the little I know about photoshop without a warez copy of it in the late 90s. Now I'm a paying customer, because I'm not a broke pre-teen anymore! If you're interested, here is a snapshot I took of my desktop: I love my linux desktop....don't know how I ever got a long in Windows! I only boot into it now to edit video as that isn't too fast inside a VM. I also run Windows 7 on my gaming PC for obvious reasons... But if they ever port Steam to Linux I'll ditch it on that machine too!
@JDW, you need to come down off your high horse. If you don't get the analogy I was making about the OP acting like some of those Occupy tards with his approach then you need to get out more as it was a wholly accurate example of how not to get your point across. Secondly, my opinion that "fighting" this with the powers that be will be as productive as pissing up a rope should not be so readily dismissed just because you think it's bad advice.
Brad's post is an excellent analysis of the challenges and pitfalls from somebody in the trenches, and provides the necessary context as to why IPS can't just go and shut them down. It's a discussion providers should have with their customers. If IPS hasn't had it, they should have it. If they have, they should direct angry customers -- in this case AzzidReign -- to it so they can understand the position. It's not not caring. It's not having an appropriate toolbox. There are still things they can do together with their customers as a community, though. Obviously you can't coopt everybody, but making a bona fide attempt to build a customer culture that's educated about these matters can retard their prevalence and acceptability and mitigate the outrage.
None of the options apply to me. I was posting to let the community know about these guys so we can all send them DMCAs. My situation was they had RIPPED my skin. It's to the point where it's on all warez sites now. Luckily, we were able to put in an exploit in one of them and that was spread around to almost all the sites that downloaded it so now we have the ability of removing almost any site that has our skin download *evil laugh* Moral? Maybe not... Fighting fire with fire.
This particular warez site has been around for years, there's no kill-switch built into the software that IPS can toggle to take offshore hosted sites down. If the host doesn't comply with requests to take down sites like this, and the laws in the country the site is hosted in are so lax that there is no real higher authority to appeal to, then there's not a lot IPS can do. Any legal fees spent doing some all-out blitz in cases like this might be more then is actually being lost due to the piracy. Piracy happens. It sucks, but it's a fact of life. Software companies and individual authors have to decide how much effort they're going to put into stopping piracy of their products. But any time spent doing that takes away from new development and bug fixing, or other issues related to supporting the paying customers.
I think a lot of what took place was down to a considerable amount of misunderstanding. I don't develop the rules and guidelines for any forums other than my own. But if someone starts posting on one of my own sites with that kind of language, it's going to disappear. Quickly. I struggle everyday to clean up my own language, but I do have a handle on understanding there is a time and a place for everything. I'm thinking if Azzid had posted without the questionable/objectionable language, things might have turned out differently. I didn't have the ability to read the post on the IPS forums, as my licenses have expired. So I really was not witness to what was said and done over there. My vBulletin licenses expired long ago, but they still recognize I am a customer. IPS adopts a different policy. Buy a license and you're only a customer as long as you continue paying your license renewals. Again, they make the rules over there and not me. As soon as I raise the funds to purchase another XenForo license, they can delete my account, as I'll have no need to darken their doorstep ever again. That from someone who once had 5 IPB forums, BTW. I can understand what Brad and Michael are saying about trying to combat pirates. There are reasons pirates host their sites off-shore, so they can exempt themselves from particular laws. Whilst it might exempt them from legal action, it certainly does not raise them above reproach and contempt. As I've said earlier, thieves abound. Ask anyone with a brick and mortar store, they can go on for days about thieves. It is a sad note, but it has always been part of doing business. Ain't life with Linux the best? The company I am contracted to uses a Firefox extension to report contract work. And the extension will not work with Linux-Firefox. So that is the only time I ever use Windows. I have a laptop that dual-boots W7 and Mint 11. The desktop sitting to my left triple-boots W7, Mint 11 and PcLinuxOS. Heck, I even run Linux on my iMac. This particular machine dual-boots LMDE and PCLinuxOS. And I am finally to a point where I struggle to do most tasks in Windows. I'm ready to install LMDE on that machine and start running W7 in a VM. The only people who prefer Windows to Linux are people who game and people who have never tried Linux. Or have never tried any distro other than Ubuntu! (I keep pestering Azhria about doing a dual-boot. I figured she would be an easy sell, what with the code name assigned to Mint 12, but she's dragging her feet.)
heh heh I will try it, Mike.. I promise. I just need to do it when I have time to sit down without distractions and do everything in one hit.
All I got from your post is the things you can't do. Is there actually anything you can do? Afterall, you "can" take a percentage of resources submitted with the IPB charge that's enforced. it seems this benefits IPB and only IPB submit a commercial product? ipb get a percentage without dealing with piracy. Submitting free based resources? again IPB gains by having a variety of resources. Reading the last paragraph you just posted you don't sound very sincere but more concerned that development time could be potentially be taken away. What can you actually do? That's a question. Or more to the point, what are you willing prepared to do?Look at this post as a fact of life, and a person asking when did you just give up on your customers and worry solely about time being taking away from development.
I've kept out of this so far, but I'm out of the poker tourney and not pissed enough for bed so.... Time toget back to basics. It does not matter what you are complaining about, forum software, customer service at a store or treatment on a forum. Post/complain in an offensive manner will get you nowhere. Post/complain in a helpful manner or at least politely will garner better results, being whiney, bitchful and downright offensive means you get the response you deserve. People phone/email me with a problem, if they are asking for help in a polite manner I'll do anything and everything to help them, if they are acting like a tw@t then f**k them. So, next time you want to make a complaint, sit back, breath deeply and then be nice.
You have no idea how long I've been polite, suggesting things, giving them props on the few things they've done well, point out ways to improve, etc. The thing is, they only listen to people when they are complaining about something. When we complain, they close the thread. Enough people have complained now to the point where they are finally doing something about many things. Hell, they just deleted another post I had on their blog, my guess is because they don't want seeds planted in members minds. I wasn't rude nor offensive, just stating what I saw. They (IPS) was stating it was paying members responsibility to find and report bugs. Many members spoke up stating that we shouldn't be the ones responsible for finding all of their bugs for them. Then bfarber decides to tell everyone that if they want a better product that they should join w/e program they have to do testing. I then went ahead and said something along the lines like "If you want your PAYING customers to find and report all of your ~1000 bugs for 3.2 thus far, then you should at least give a discount on renewals to those paying customers that do the testing or void the renewal payment period". Apparently, they think that that statement should be deleted so members don't hear that suggestion (because they want the people that pay them to work for them). They love to censor that community over there...a lot more than any community I've ever been apart of...even corrupt ones.
I'm sorry but it doesn't matter how long you've been patient, if someone sent me an email with any obscenities in it or insulting me in anyway, guess where the email ends up? Straight in the deleted folder. It doesn't matter what I may think of an individual when I'm sending them an email, I like to think I'm professional enough to keep the email professional and not resort to any insults. Never send an email or any kind of message when the red mist is falling, a lot of hard work can be undone in seconds. It pays to be polite, even if you don't seem to see any results straight away.
Sometimes it's best to just cut your losses and move on (even if it financially hurts you initially). I had to make that painful decision with my business and vB4. It's getting to that point that's difficult...but once you do and move on, don't look back. You won't regret it. In regards to some of the recent advice offered, I agree 100%. Remember, you catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar.
Trust me, I'm moving as far from them, posting my stats because I'm sure they can't get worse than they have on IPB, and I'm going to keep my licenses because of their stupid license transfer policies. The more I look into IPS as a company, the more I see how corrupt and evil they are and would rather not give them any more of my business. I guess they don't realize how much business they've gotten just because of me. If you look up xbox modding sites similar to mine, 95% of them now run IPB. Before I converted, they were all on vB. I'll bet when I convert to xF, most of them will also convert to xF. No one deserves the treatments they give to their paying customers. Seems most of you think that all of my posts have been profane on their site. There have been 2 posts that have been, out of how even many I have (probably around 300). 1 of which had a single bad word in it, the other one was posted by my staff member that had access to my account and was getting sick of all of IPS shit we were getting in the ticket system. I've pointed out their faults in a nice manner and they don't like that either. So instead of helping them become a better software, I'm going to move to a better software...period. IPS is nothing but a company that loves to censor what is on the internet about them. I'm surprised this thread hasn't been deleted by one of their staff yet.
Won't happen. We're a completely unbiased site. So long as the thread remains within Admin Extra's TOS it will stay put - if posts are made that don't meet our TOS, those particular posts will get removed.
Even if I were still staff here, the topic would remain, just FYI. On top of that... if I were to delete the topic, I would have done it after the first post was made, not 25 to 50 posts later.
I feel Azzid's frustration. I really do. When I was converting to Invision, I was astounded at how Matt and Mr. Warner went out of their way to help me. When I suggested they may have crossed some wires, I was equally astounded to see how quickly I was kicked to the curb. How did Kenny Wayne Shepherd say it? I could lose myself; I could curse like Hell; but I've lost the will to even try. Maybe I'm getting tame in my old age. Or maybe the wisdom of my advanced years just allowed me to see the bait-n-switch tactics and figure it was time to start looking for options, rather than cursing like Hell. Azzid, as soon as you get that conversion run, you'll be over it. Trust me. IPB's chewing on your backside so hard you can't leave it be. But as soon as you get busy working with XenForo, you'll realize the same thing I am realizing - the change should have been made a year ago. Two or three months ago, I was sick of my forums. XenForo has breathed new life into me and I'm suddenly having fun again. As soon as I can get my second site converted, I'll really be smiling. Heck, I may start looking at having more forums, like it was in the pre-IPB days.
