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Vanilla-Team: Shouldn't you ban "mega6382" and his stolen addons.

phreakphreak Vanilla*APP (White Label) & Vanilla*Skins Shop MVP

Hi Vanilla-Team,

Sorry, but shouldn't this be your job to ban this user and delete his addons, which are ours and others stolen themes?
That things is a legal issue.

Greetz

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Comments

  • phreakphreak Vanilla*APP (White Label) & Vanilla*Skins Shop MVP

    @mega6382: Sorry "Haseeb Basil" i won't respond to your private messages anymore. It's a ethical guideline you are crossing here. I informed your company about this. You are 15 now and you should step away from those practises.
    This will be a important learning for you, think about it now not later.

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    • VanillaSkins | Plugins, Themes, Graphics and Custom Development for Vanilla
  • mega6382mega6382 Ultimate Programmer ✭✭
    edited June 2013

    @phreak said:
    mega6382: Sorry "Haseeb Basil" i won't respond to your private messages anymore. It's a ethical guideline you are crossing here. I informed your company about this. You are 15 now and you should step away from those practises.This will be a important learning for you, think about it now not later.

    OK I won't PM you just tell me what do you mean by company? nothing else

  • phreakphreak Vanilla*APP (White Label) & Vanilla*Skins Shop MVP

    Sorry, mega6382. I won't answer to that. Think about what you are doing first.

    • VanillaAPP | iOS & Android App for Vanilla - White label app for Vanilla Forums OS
    • VanillaSkins | Plugins, Themes, Graphics and Custom Development for Vanilla
  • I think you should not take anything this 'guy' says at face value.

    grep is your friend.

  • phreakphreak Vanilla*APP (White Label) & Vanilla*Skins Shop MVP
    edited June 2013

    @x00: Unbelievable. It's a badly programmed SPAM-Bot of the future. That clears a lot.

    mega6382 - Copycat Spam-Bot Warrior [Discontinued model].

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    • VanillaSkins | Plugins, Themes, Graphics and Custom Development for Vanilla
  • mega6382mega6382 Ultimate Programmer ✭✭

    what is wrong with you guys.

  • vrijvlindervrijvlinder Papillon-Sauvage MVP

    They own some of the themes and content you posted as the author. Without permission. What you did is not right at all. They have a right to be very angry.

    You need to fix this by removing any icons or images that belong to someone else and replace with ones you made.

    You need to give proper credit to the real authors of the themes and say where they came from and what you modified if anything.

    You need to use icons which are not protected by copyright and belong to someone else.

    Please update all your uploads in this way or they will likely be removed.

  • mega6382mega6382 Ultimate Programmer ✭✭

    @vrijvlinder said:
    They own some of the themes and content you posted as the author. Without permission. What you did is not right at all. They have a right to be very angry.

    You need to fix this by removing any icons or images that belong to someone else and replace with ones you made.

    You need to give proper credit to the real authors of the themes and say where they came from and what you modified if anything.

    You need to use icons which are not protected by copyright and belong to someone else.

    Please update all your uploads in this way or they will likely be removed.

    well now this is like a mature guy.

  • TamaTama United Kingdom ✭✭✭

    @vrijvlinder said:
    You need to give proper credit to the real authors of the themes and say where they came from and what you modified if anything.

    I think the issue is the themes he has stolen are all paid themes.

    There was an error rendering this rich post.

  • vrijvlindervrijvlinder Papillon-Sauvage MVP

    Yes I understand, however that is too late the deed is done , I suppose another option to make up for it is paying for the themes in question.

    However paying for the themes does not give right to claim as your own either.
    Nor does it give the right to distribute once you paid.

    Ultimately it will be @Todd who will decide what to do with this. :(

  • mega6382mega6382 Ultimate Programmer ✭✭

    @tama they are not stolen they are cloned

  • TamaTama United Kingdom ✭✭✭
    edited June 2013

    @mega6382 said:
    tama they are not stolen they are cloned

    You mean you copied the css and default.master.tpl ( which downloads when you attempt to view it in a browser; by default ) and then you are passing it off under the same name but for free. Of course this is stealing ( because you are providing a bypass for payment - aka piracy ).

    In a nutshell, the stolen themes ( Sugar, Google, StackOverflow ( and maybe Facebook - not sure ) ) should be removed; making the links unavailable and allowing the team at VanillaSkins to continue to use this as a source of income ( because it is their work ). You could make themes under the same name but it should be your work, or based off another free theme ( with attribution ).

    There was an error rendering this rich post.

  • whu606whu606 I'm not a SuperHero; I just like wearing tights... MVP

    I would hope someone from the Vanilla team deals with this quickly.

    It is frustrating that we are a community forum, but no one in the community has the power to act on this sort of thing.

    These themes should not be available for free download anywhere, and certainly not on this forum.

  • vrijvlindervrijvlinder Papillon-Sauvage MVP
    edited June 2013

    ( because you are providing a bypass for payment - aka piracy ).

    This is the biggest issue here. mega is providing people with pirated product . That affects the business of the authors big time. It exposes Vanilla to potential lawsuits for offering pirated add ons to the public. Even though the chances for Google to start a lawsuit against Vanilla for theme infringement, are small, their legal docs state clearly that you can't use the logo or the site design for your self.

    It is called Branding protection . These brands choose who they want to be associated with not the other way around.

    Best example is music. If I buy a cd and make copies(cloning) then spread those around, that is not legal. You are only allowed one copy for personal use, by law.

    So if you buy software including themes, you can only make one copy for yourself but you can't distribute. Not for money not for free.

    Every published work by an author is automatically protected by copyright law.

  • TamaTama United Kingdom ✭✭✭
    edited June 2013

    Saw your changes to the themes, changing the icon does not hide the fact you have stolen the themes :(

    There was an error rendering this rich post.

  • mega6382mega6382 Ultimate Programmer ✭✭

    @tama and others there is no "default.master.tpl" file not even a single "tpl" file the only thing in the theme is "about.php", "custom.css" and some image files. and @vrijvlinder I know the thng I have done is wrong. I should not be doing this and I am sorry for that.

  • hgtonighthgtonight ∞ · New Moderator

    I think everyone is in agreement that mega is out of line.

    Don't feed the troll. Don't engage.

    Notify those that have power (@Todd, @Lincoln, @UnderDog) and don't respond.

    Search first

    Check out the Documentation! We are always looking for new content and pull requests.

    Click on insightful, awesome, and funny reactions to thank community volunteers for their valuable posts.

  • TamaTama United Kingdom ✭✭✭
    edited June 2013

    @mega6382 said:
    tama and others there is no "default.master.tpl" file not even a single "tpl" file the only thing in the theme is "about.php", "custom.css" and some image files. and vrijvlinder I know the thng I have done is wrong. I should not be doing this and I am sorry for that.

    that still doesn't change the indisputable fact you have stolen the theme

    going to follow @hgtonight 's advice and pull out of this now.

    There was an error rendering this rich post.

  • vrijvlindervrijvlinder Papillon-Sauvage MVP

    He is not the only one Tama, if there is going to be a clean out then all themes should be checked for this, I know of one other theme called Vanllix which also has the vanilla skins favicon without permission.

    The author was told and did nothing about it. There needs to be a theme upload guidelines and rules.

  • mega6382mega6382 Ultimate Programmer ✭✭

    How could you say the theme is stolen even if the files are not complete. And I am saying myself that the files are taken from "vanillaskins" so I don't think there is any confusion left. Am I right or not?

This discussion has been closed.