(2012-11-15, 06:13 PM)Audentio Wrote: [ -> ]We don't own it, we have licenses that bind our services to it though. He can sell it to whomever he wants for however much he wants. But we hold an agreement with each theme that allows us to offer support for the lifetime of the product. I wouldn't call that ownership, I'd call that enforcing that our quality is kept up. If you don't require support, you don't want anything to do with us, you can try to purchase a reseller license which is just a fancy way of saying that you do not want us to be able to:
--show the product in our portfolio
--include a copyright in the footer, regardless of our copyright removal license
--use the product on unlimited sites (which we don't care about if its custom)
--support you if you need help
In general, under almost no circumstances, would we ever want or allow someone to take our code and resell it. Now if he had purchased reseller rights from us, he would've had to talk to us directly, and we would have told him most likely that it would've been okay so long as he does not include products of ours which will never have reseller rights such as our MyBB editor, our ranks, our fancyCollapse jQuery modification, etc. There would be shades of gray, which we generally just want to avoid altogether. But if someone really likes something we did and wants to resell it, I suppose we will work with them so that they can. It just opens a whole can of worms such as this, with people claiming that they recognize our work, license issues, etc.
And lets be clear on our terms of service, which I've added one clause (second to last) to. We purposefully made this easy to read. And while perhaps we could make it more specific and more inclusive, that just makes people not want to read it amongst other things. So we have this list which does have some shades of gray. If there are questions, please direct them to our contact form or our ticket system.
Ok, I was just saying the person I purchased this from was genuinely undert the impression it was his to do whatever he wanted with it, including the ability to sell it with re-sale rights.
Quote:In general, under almost no circumstances, would we ever want or allow someone to take our code and resell it
Of course, and fair enough. But it's not too far fetched to assume that a $350 custom theme would have custom code with it. Isn't that what differentiates them from premade ones? But as you've said, there's a lot of gray areas here, and fair is fair, I hope there's no hard feelings and I definitely don't want you to think I tried deceiving you here.
(2012-11-15, 08:39 PM)ESR360 Wrote: [ -> ]Quote:In general, under almost no circumstances, would we ever want or allow someone to take our code and resell it
Of course, and fair enough. But it's not too far fetched to assume that a $350 custom theme would have custom code with it. Isn't that what differentiates them from premade ones? But as you've said, there's a lot of gray areas here, and fair is fair, I hope there's no hard feelings and I definitely don't want you to think I tried deceiving you here.
Well, it differentiates in the way that it's only for their site (No one else will have it), it comes with custom features if needed (Forumkorner has a custom dark/light jQuery changer, which no one else on MyBB has I believe), and they do own it. However that doesn't mean they can get it for $350, then add it to their own shop and sell it 30 times to make more money. They could make a living buying custom themes and reselling them in a shop if that were the case. xD
Correct, and with the light-dark changer idea, we keep the right to use that code. We don't out of respect for the client who requested it or if we came up with it just purely out of respect. We may some day, but we generally wait a couple months to a year or more even, and I find this is common amongst the gist of professional web developers.
Its like writing an algorithm. We'll let you use it, but we reserve the right to use it if we want. Code is the same thing, and how something is written is unique to a company or individual. Someone could buy one custom theme from us, or two, take the best parts from it and make a whole line of products, which isnt fair.
But yes, I agree that all parties were genuine here, no hard feelings of course and no harm done. I am sorry that you took the time to release the product, I know how disheartening that can be. I've done this myself before, so don't worry its just part of the process of learning internet law (and how it often comes down to how someone is feeling sometimes
and if you havent learned that one you will soon).
I just hope the designing world doesn't come to a point where certain design elements, colors, general concepts, and etc become patented (because that'd just suck, I know that can't happen but it seems like we're heading there).
No I agree. I hope it doesnt either. But specific code? Thats subjective, because how much code you are "stealing" is unique to each individual. I mean lets be honest, someone can take some of our code or a design, switch a couple things, and call it their own. We rely on the community to deem what is moral and what isn't, what is stolen and what is unique. We already have an idea of what is and isn't moral but that is only justified if the community agrees. So if the majority of people believed that it is okay to take a product, change it up a bit, and release it as their own, then I guess we wouldn't have an argument. We can demand til we are blue in the face, but at the end of the day we serve you all, the public, the hardworking webmasters, the entrepreneurs. And generally speaking, the public wants us to keep our standard of quality and back our work. We can only do that if our work stays OUR work. So we do not sell rights to resell our work. I only have for special clients who needed it for affiliate networks or the like.
(2012-11-16, 06:55 AM)Audentio Wrote: [ -> ]No I agree. I hope it doesnt either. But specific code? Thats subjective, because how much code you are "stealing" is unique to each individual. I mean lets be honest, someone can take some of our code or a design, switch a couple things, and call it their own. We rely on the community to deem what is moral and what isn't, what is stolen and what is unique. We already have an idea of what is and isn't moral but that is only justified if the community agrees. So if the majority of people believed that it is okay to take a product, change it up a bit, and release it as their own, then I guess we wouldn't have an argument. We can demand til we are blue in the face, but at the end of the day we serve you all, the public, the hardworking webmasters, the entrepreneurs. And generally speaking, the public wants us to keep our standard of quality and back our work. We can only do that if our work stays OUR work. So we do not sell rights to resell our work. I only have for special clients who needed it for affiliate networks or the like.
I understand. This discussion has two sides just like every story has two predilections. My viewpoint is mainly concerned about how creativity on the web would become a modern example of how just about every ".com"" TLD has been purchased and for years in advance, but keywords or terms others might use will face trademark violation unknowingly from that start just because some major corporation was able to afford it trademarked is a perfect analogy. I also understand how collateral damage can come into play as well and Audentio would be hurt significantly if product X was taken then manipulated into product Y when it originated as product X from Audentio. It's a very controversial topic, I just want at least some form of breathing room for common grounds for creativity, code, and so forth. Like the color RED, BLUE, and GREEN shouldn't ever be reserved at the patent and trademark office, would be ridiculous. Or just imagine how the concept of gradient would of been patented.
Look at Microsoft's Windows 8 tablet tiles concept... you'd never think that creativity of the tiles would be claimed. Well, apparently a company patented the concept way before tiles came into these modern days.
Microsoft in trouble:
http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-live-tile-patent-violation
Tiles patented:
http://surfcast.com/patents.php
Rounded backs on smart phones? Patented by Apple, and yes they sued Samsung for this, as well as other things. Slide to unlock? Seems pretty basic to me but no it was patented by Apple. I mean pretty much everything on an ipod is patented from the ratio of the circle and the square as window and scroll to the position of the battery indicator and time and stuff, I mean they really nailed that one in pretty deep.
We don't want ridiculous patents to come to the web, which I think is what you are talking about. We just want our code to be our code. Take the idea if you must, its all been done before anyways, but write it yourself. Design it yourself. Don't take our work, as we had to pay our team members to build it. That is stealing. That is our argument on that issue.
In any case, we are going off topic and since I am supposed to moderate here from time to time this is probably setting a bad example. If anyone wants to discuss this further or has questions, feel free to contact me or start a new thread in the appropriate forum.