(2013-09-03, 07:18 AM)MYSQLi Wrote: [ -> ]Developers in particular have lost interest in the project, especially developers that create premium plugins and themes. Look at labrocca at the moment, he's selling a website that was once thriving, his plugin have now been ripped to shreds by the uneducated people of this community (as well as other developers content). The level of brain power that these individuals have is incredibly low.
Developers spend hours upon hours creating themes and plugins for MyBB and in some cases sell it for a small fee. It's very damaging for a developer when a low life user opens up a new forum that is entirely based off of nulled content, some of what they have spent hours creating. Developers need to be protected in some way or another, MyBB in itself is a great forum software but plugin and theme developers are the lifeline of mybb and they are the people that play a major part in the evolution of MyBB.
I agree , with your view.
I have posted about this once ,regarding the protection of the plugin authors and Designers.
But the story was in ruins , may be in archives.
All of my themes were ripped including My Own site's theme.
I literally lost interest in making themes anymore, but a few guys who are genuine approaches me for a design and i wouldn't say no and continuing my work.
MyBB is really awesome software, but it is losing its luster due to these rippers.
We need a team of ethical hackers to fight against these guys.
(2013-09-03, 07:50 AM)Tom K. Wrote: [ -> ]While I certainly agree it is disheartening to developers, it sounds like you are implying this is MyBB's fault. It really isn't MyBB's job to prevent copyright infringement, nor could they if they wanted to. Every forum software has this problem. Developers are the ones that need to sort it out. We really need internationally equivalent laws to protect people. The DMCA is almost useless as most skids just host their site outside the US.
Yeah agreed with this too , it is not MyBB's fault but it is not developer's fault too.
We dont make themes or plugins to get ripped.
Its the users who need to change.
Verification of users need to be done before they download MyBB software just like some software like sharetronix of Vanilla forums.
Designers/Authors need a badge so users could directly find them and contact them.
Support denied is not just okay for the sites using nulled content, they need to get banned.
DMCA is a waste of time and they just advertise with the badge on the site, other than that its a pure nonsense.
Quote:While I certainly agree it is disheartening to developers, it sounds like you are implying this is MyBB's fault. It really isn't MyBB's job to prevent copyright infringement, nor could they if they wanted to. Every forum software has this problem. Developers are the ones that need to sort it out. We really need internationally equivalent laws to protect people. The DMCA is almost useless as most skids just host their site outside the US.
No I'm not at all saying that it is MyBB's fault. It may not be MyBB's job to prevent copyright infringement, but it's certainly going to have a massive impact for future releases of the MyBB series. Although MyBB 2.0 will be a completely new rewrite, people are going to always want plugins to achieve different functionality. Developers are losing interest and that's quite clear to see at the moment.
So although its not their fault, it is in their best interest to try and help is some way or another. I've no idea how, but something needs to be done. I remember a few years back, there was plugins and themes being released on a regular basis, it's actually quite rare now to see new content being released and this is hugely because of content being ripped.
But there really is nothing the MyBB staff can do. Its completely out of their control. :/ Ripping of content happens in all software niches, not just forums and not just MyBB. There are thousands of nulled vBulletin, Xenforo and IPB themes out there and they're far more expensive pieces of software.
(2013-09-03, 10:01 AM)Tom K. Wrote: [ -> ]But there really is nothing the MyBB staff can do. Its completely out of their control. :/ Ripping of content happens in all software niches, not just forums and not just MyBB. There are thousands of nulled vBulletin, Xenforo and IPB themes out there and they're far more expensive pieces of software.
Precisely. If you're having trouble with your content being ripped, hire a lawyer. Individual action needs to be taken. One country can't solve world hunger.
(2013-09-03, 10:14 AM)Nathan Malcolm Wrote: [ -> ]Precisely. If you're having trouble with your content being ripped, hire a lawyer. Individual action needs to be taken. One country can't solve world hunger.
I dont have content of my own. I'm speaking on behalf of the hard working plugin/theme developers within this community, people you should be encouraging to continue to develop addons for MyBB, clearly your not bothered.
(2013-09-03, 10:28 AM)MYSQLi Wrote: [ -> ] (2013-09-03, 10:14 AM)Nathan Malcolm Wrote: [ -> ]Precisely. If you're having trouble with your content being ripped, hire a lawyer. Individual action needs to be taken. One country can't solve world hunger.
I dont have content of my own. I'm speaking on behalf of the hard working plugin/theme developers within this community, people you should be encouraging to continue to develop addons for MyBB, clearly your not bothered.
I shouldn't be bothered, frankly. I'm as much a part of the community as anyone else, and it isn't mine or MyBB's problem. Someone ripped my forum's theme and I threatened them with legal action and had the content removed from Google. The owner complied with my request and they removed the content. In fact, they've gone ahead and removed as much of the content from their forum as they could see. I didn't do that for MyBB or anyone else - I did that for myself.
I'm not sure why people think this is our problem. It doesn't happen on our site and it isn't our content. I understand you want something done, but we cannot help.
(2013-09-03, 11:16 AM)Nathan Malcolm Wrote: [ -> ] (2013-09-03, 10:28 AM)MYSQLi Wrote: [ -> ] (2013-09-03, 10:14 AM)Nathan Malcolm Wrote: [ -> ]Precisely. If you're having trouble with your content being ripped, hire a lawyer. Individual action needs to be taken. One country can't solve world hunger.
I dont have content of my own. I'm speaking on behalf of the hard working plugin/theme developers within this community, people you should be encouraging to continue to develop addons for MyBB, clearly your not bothered.
I shouldn't be bothered, frankly. I'm as much a part of the community as anyone else, and it isn't mine or MyBB's problem. Someone ripped my forum's theme and I threatened them with legal action and had the content removed from Google. The owner complied with my request and they removed the content. In fact, they've gone ahead and removed as much of the content from their forum as they could see. I didn't do that for MyBB or anyone else - I did that for myself.
I'm not sure why people think this is our problem. It doesn't happen on our site and it isn't our content. I understand you want something done, but we cannot help.
I have never said it was MyBB's problem. Its a problem that exists within the MyBB community that is affecting individuals (developers). These individuals are people that have helped MyBB become what it is today, in regards to providing multifunctional addons/plugins and attractive themes.
As I've said its not MyBB's problem but it most certainly will have a drastic affect on the overall community, over time. Someone mentioned banning users that have nulled content on their forums rather than just denying them support, maybe this would be something to consider in the future and would show developers that MyBB is actively trying to deal with the problem.
I'm not completely ignorant to what you're saying Nathan, I totally understand that MyBB cannot solve these kind of issues directly, but maybe banning these users is the next step in supporting the developers within the MyBB community and in doing so might encourage them to create new content.
Yeah it definitely seems way quieter here recently. Not surprised however.
The only way you could prevent ripping of themes would be a global governmental initiative to track and prosecute offenders. We'd have to live in a world where every government knew exactly who you were and where you lived, so that if a claim was brought against you they could bring you to justice. There is very little any of us can do. MyBB.com can ban the skids, but there will always be sites dedicated to selling and giving out nulled themes, just like there is a black market for cocaine, or assault rifles. So long as there is demand there will always be supply.
It's not up to MyBB to take legal action against theme rippers and plugin pirates, no. But it is MyBB's job to nurture third party developers and sites using the software, and in that aspect they have failed pretty badly. When I was interviewed for the MyBB blog three months ago, I took this as a sign that they were finally getting serious about nurturing their community and their users.
That blog post three months ago is still the most recent one.
Plugin and theme discovery is still the same way it was like six years ago here, which is unfathomable. It's almost impossible to surface top-tier plugins, and there's no good way for devs to sell their paid plugins here. Contrary to what many here think, I feel confident in saying that high quality extensions, be they free or paid, add tremendous value to MyBB.
I feel bad to complain, because MyBB is a free project, and I've been able to use it to do some pretty cool stuff. But I'm also very invested in it, and have been using it for the better part of a decade; it's painful for me to see it floundering. There doesn't seem to be any real vision for how this product should evolve, nor is there a clear path to how non-developers like myself can help the MyBB team.
My prediction is that 1.8 will be released to little fanfare or uptake. 2.0 will never see the light of day. And if it somehow miraculously does, it won't really matter.