vBulletin Controversy

[Brandon]

So as I understand it as of to now, the site; HongFire; had "morally objective" content on there site, thought by "Howard G Spinks" (The vB Piracy Dude) so he had given them time to remove it and blah-blah-blah, im not a content writer hes the post:

Howard G Spinks
Dec 21st '06 02:18pm

Hello

The matter is not up for debate as you can either remove the morally devoid items as requested, or take your activities to another software.

You have had time to act as requested and I am having your license revoked under the Jelsoft Acceptable Use Policy and continued use of the software will be illegal and will result in your forum being deleted by your network.

I assure you that my 35 years in law enforcement have not been wasted as you appear to be insinuating.


Regards

Howard G Spinks
Jelsoft Licensing & Anti Piracy Agent

www.piratereports.com

So I guess Jelsoft didnt start this

Considering that it is Saturday and tomorrow is Christmas Eve, it is going to take a few days before we can straighten all of this out. Please be assured that we are not going to start policing our customer's forums and revoking licenses because we do not agree with questionable content that is contained within.

So now this dude says

Needless to say, we do not have the power to arbitrarily shut down sites, either on a legal basis or because we can't physically pull the plug on sites to which we or others object on whatever grounds. When a site is found to be in violation of the license agreement the best we can do is approach the owners of the site to request that they alter their site in order to comply with the license agreement, and if that fails we may take it to the next level and ask the hosting ISP to act on our behalf.

Well im gonna stop it and let you read the sources in the article i got found.

http://www.vbulletin-faq.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6115
http://blogs.dirtyworker.com/2006/12/23/vbulletin-license-problems/
http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?p=1989694
http://www.digg.com/software/PirateReports_revokes_vBulletin_license_of_HongFire_com_for_moral_reasons
http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=213539

Hmmm....so should it have been revoced.

 

[Chris Z]

vBulletin shouldn't have any control over what is hosted on their forum platform, as long as the user has paid for their software, the content provided should be entirely up to the customer

 

[noerrorsfound]

vBulletin shouldn't have any control over what is hosted on their forum platform, as long as the user has paid for their software, the content provided should be entirely up to the customer

I completely agree. If you buy a car the car company shouldn't be able to tell you where you can and cannot drive.

 

[Joker Boy]

vBulletin shouldn't have any control over what is hosted on their forum platform, as long as the user has paid for their software, the content provided should be entirely up to the customer

Perfect.

 

[Brandon]

Thats what people are saying this isnt right, but well see what vB does with a press release I hope.

 

[Livewire]

I completely agree. If you buy a car the car company shouldn't be able to tell you where you can and cannot drive.

Better. Probably the best example yet.

See, all I'm majorly confused about? You're going to war over a site that used a COMPLETELY SEPARATE image gallery for hosting the images. Wasn't even on vBulletin. But there are torrent websites running their forums on vBulletin, hosting files ranging from Age of Empires to Zero Wing (hey, A to Z ^_^).

And they're going after the picture.


:gtfo2: Jelsoft.

 

[Brandon]

Well it wasnt Jelsoft it was Pirate Reports, there Anti-Piracy Team.

We better be careful, they may revoce our lisence for talking about this...

 

[Livewire]

Update: Jelsoft has reinstated Hongfire.com's license - the site is back up and running.

But it's still BS that it was even down for a minute XD

 

[Joker Boy]

So its over? That's it?

 

[Brandon]

No

vB dudnt even release a press release yet, im still waiting.

 

[Livewire]

Actually from what the thread on Hongfire is saying it sounds like vB wasn't directly involved and Pirate Reports jumped the gun and suspended the license without ever contacting Jelsoft.

I'm not holding my breath though - I just recommended that my school NOT shell out the cash to upgrade from our crappy board system to vB, quoting that exact situation as my evidence.


Which got me an evil stare from the principal until I clarified that I didn't support the questionable material, but that I also didn't support censorship when it wasn't covered in the license agreement or acceptable use policy.

Now the debate is back to the techies over what alternative to use, they're looking at SMF and some other stuff. That's outta my league, I'm just the guy who had a reason to say "don't use vB" XD

 

[Derek]

They should not have control over what [people have on there sites

 

[azntechguy]

I too believe that they shouldn't have control over the content of its users. In my opinion, the only people that should have any authority over content is the ones we vest it into (namely, the government), and only sparingly at that.

I definitely dislike Spinks attitude. Nice attempt at being surly.

 

[YamiKaitou]

I believe that the only ones who should be held responsible for the content is the owner of the space as well as the company that is giving them the space. Forum software companies should not restrict certian content from being used on their software, that is down right rude. Those people definently went to far. They should of at least contacted vBulliten first and let them deal with it instead of taking it into their own hands. And if vBulliten didn't do anything, than they should of contacted the company providing the hosting.

 

[Livewire]

I believe that the only ones who should be held responsible for the content is the owner of the space as well as the company that is giving them the space. Forum software companies should not restrict certian content from being used on their software, that is down right rude. Those people definently went to far. They should of at least contacted vBulliten first and let them deal with it instead of taking it into their own hands. And if vBulliten didn't do anything, than they should of contacted the company providing the hosting.

'Cept that if you read into the laws it wasn't illegal content on the site - unless it was against their isp's TOS or their hosts TOS (unlikely), they wouldn'tve been able to kill the site. >_<

So they did the next best thing and killed the license, probably thinking that HongFire would just bend over and deal with it. But they didn't - they might have, but there's this unique little problem with forums: there are all types of people on forums. Firemen, policemen, pedophiles, teenagers, LAWYERS.

Causes a unique problem when they all band together cause something smells fishy too XD

 

[acidburn0520]

Censorship aside, I believe that vBulletin is by far one of the better Bulletin Board Softwares available on the market -- at least, that's my humble opinion.

 

[soten355]

vBulletin sucks, especially because of this. That's why Invision and phpbb are better.

 

[acidburn0520]

Putting Invision and phpBB in the same group is like comparing a Honda to a John Deer...

 

[t2t2t]

Putting Invision and phpBB in the same group is like comparing a Honda to a John Deer...

Would you say that too when phpBB 3 will come out?

 

[Simie]

phpBB sucks. No more said.
The admin panel is abysmal, even Proboards' is better.

IPB is really good, I tried a demo on their site, and loved it. (Especially the admin panel )