Live Community, Nulled version ( New, important feature with great functionality for all customers )

[Marco Junior]

Hi Devs,
First of all, good morning, afternoon or evening to all users who will read this topic, the features developed in recent updates which were made available only to customers whose plan is linked to a cloud server directly with IPS, is somewhat questionable, yesterday I accessed a community of a guy who visibly does not support the development of the CMS, because it uses a NULLED (cracked) version made available by these Internet users who do this type of service using the new resources as if he were a client ( Cloud ), be very disappointed to know that I've been an official IPS customer for a few years, and even so I don't have the resource because I'm not a customer (Selft-Hosting) I was wondering how long will it be valid to keep my monthly fees and licenses active? Or even support the growth of the community and the resources with these restrictions can be used by other users whose version is these versions (Nulled) available on the Internet.

What do you intend to do about it? Because I, as a customer, am extremely disappointed to know that people who don't pay 1 cent of their money will have all the resources of the IPS without any restrictions with these nulled versions, and we subscriber customers who host their respective projects in their own environments cannot have them all IPS resources as IPS has limited this to users of their respective servers.

[Chris Anderson]

Here's a link to their piracy reporting page:

Invision Community - Report Piracy - Invision Community

[Marco Junior]

@Chris Anderson

This does not a solution !!

[Randy Calvert]

If it someone using a nulled version of the software, it IS the correct response. Report it to IPS. Only they can check/confirm it’s legitimate. If it’s not, they will contact the hosting provider and request they remove it.  There is a process for making this sort of request and IPS knows how to do it. They can’t FORCE its removal, especially if the site is hosted outside of the US. So sometimes it’s difficult and time consuming for the site to be taken down. 

They can’t just randomly login and delete it from somewhere on the internet.  There is a legal process that has to be followed and it can be slow and not always work. 

Also “nulled” versions don’t have access to cloud only features. For example the “who’s viewing/typing” does not work if you’re not on the IPS platform. It’s not a feature that is “turned off” in the software. The hardware the site is running on does not have the technology that enables those features to work.  

Piracy is something that hurts everyone.  It’s a shame that people do chose to do illegal things, but as a business… IPS has to still operate legally even if someone else is not. 

[Claudia999]

1 hour ago, Marco Junior said:

@Chris Anderson

This does not a solution !!

So what do you think would be a solution?

[Marco Junior]

This answer needs to be written by IPS not me.
I'm here just demonstrating my dissatisfaction with seeing NULLED communities using all resources without paying for them, and I as a customer (who manages his own hosting server) not having the right to use them because I don't host my services with an IPS.

The question here is the following if I decide to migrate my services to the IPS infrastructure, can IPS guarantee secure routes? low latency, decent ping ? A server in Canada? There are many variables for my project to run, and when we talk about online games we are constant targets of attacks, can IPS guarantee me quality? speed? security ? !

I am a customer and would like access to these features.
But I don't want to stop supporting the development of the platform because I'm a developer and I wouldn't want my customers to opt for a free version and stop supporting me.

 

[AlexWebsites]

I'm a bit confused @Marco Junior. Are you saying there is a nulled version out there running cloud only features? I would imagine that IPS has something in place to avoid the connectivity part of these features to their "custom" infrastructure that we "self-hosters" and specifically those running nulled software can't run... If not, it would blow a bit of a hole in the theory of not being able to offer to self-hosters. 

Is there a nulled version running on IPS cloud...no way, that would be a bit embarrasing. 

[Adlago]

The entire platform is a sufficiently complex software product. I.e. developers have a fairly high knowledge quotient.
So it's strange that product protection is so bad...
I think there are two lines of reasoning - one is for advertising purposes, i.e. the more programmers "struggle" with security codes, the more customers learn about this product. The other direction - lack of analytical algorithm to stop "nulled versions" - I think it is excluded, or ridiculously admissible...
However, the truth is in the normality of development, and this normality is paid for. The other is from the devil...

[Marco Junior]

@AlexWebsites

Yes there is, and this version contains all the features that we (self hosting) cannot use.
And that made me extremely upset, because I am a customer and I would like to have these resources but I cannot because I am simply not using a cloud service with IPS, which is also extremely complex since I manage online games and I am absolutely sure that the IPS cloud solutions would not be effective for my type of application.

In this case I would have to pay for a service with IPS and another server with a datacenter whose DDoS protection is effective for online games.

How we stay ? I will never be able to enjoy this system unless I decide to use the null versions and stop supporting development as a customer.
This is extremely irritating.

[Jim M]

On 3/3/2023 at 8:08 AM, Chris Anderson said:

Here's a link to their piracy reporting page:

Invision Community - Report Piracy - Invision Community

Please report any piracy at the above link.

On 3/5/2023 at 3:45 PM, Marco Junior said:

The question here is the following if I decide to migrate my services to the IPS infrastructure, can IPS guarantee secure routes? low latency, decent ping ? A server in Canada? There are many variables for my project to run, and when we talk about online games we are constant targets of attacks, can IPS guarantee me quality? speed? security ? !

Any questions on our Cloud, I am happy to move your conversation to our sales team.

[AlexWebsites]

37 minutes ago, Marco Junior said:

@AlexWebsites

Yes there is, and this version contains all the features that we (self hosting) cannot use.

That’s pretty interesting. I thought cloud customers had no ftp or other access. Let alone to download and null a script using proprietary IPS code for custom cloud features. 

I can see someone using a self hosted package that’s nulled, but cloud version? 

[Randy Calvert]

9 minutes ago, AlexWebsites said:

That’s pretty interesting. I thought cloud customers had no ftp or other access. Let alone to download and null a script using proprietary IPS code for custom cloud features. 

I can see someone using a self hosted package that’s nulled, but cloud version? 

As a customer of both cloud and self-hosted… I can confirm there is NO FTP access or access to system files in any way. Services that are CIC do not work out of the CIC platform.   If it’s a “nulled” version, it is ONLY the self hosted features. 

[Marco Junior]

@Randy Calvert

So you're saying I'm lying? Or am I just making noise?
I have no reason to lie, although it's interesting that you think that way.
Amore: We are in constant technological advances, do you really think that would be impossible?
The IPS is software that updates have been released for many years here (official)
And shortly after, the nulled versions of the system are made available.
 

It is famous and well known for making these versions available.
Check for yourself the latest version made available by them.
In addition to them, there are several others with just 1 minute of google searching you will find several nulled versions.

@Jim M

I will try contact for migrate my services for here !

[teraßyte]

The link you posted is the self-hosted version, not the cloud version.

 

(And, considering the kind of site it is, I suggest you edit the post and remove the link.)

[Marco Junior]

2 hours ago, Marco Junior said:

@Randy Calvert

So you're saying I'm lying? Or am I just making noise?
I have no reason to lie, although it's interesting that you think that way.
Amore: We are in constant technological advances, do you really think that would be impossible?
The IPS is software that updates have been released for many years here (official)
And shortly after, the nulled versions of the system are made available.
 

It is famous and well known for making these versions available.
Check for yourself the latest version made available by them.
In addition to them, there are several others with just 1 minute of google searching you will find several nulled versions.

@Jim M

I will try contact for migrate my services for here !

Not possible editing

@Moderations !

Sorry for link !

[opentype]

2 hours ago, Marco Junior said:

So you're saying I'm lying?

The alternative to “you are correct” is not necessarily “you are lying”. You can simply be mistaken and that is what is being pointed out to you. 

[Matt]

Hi Marco, thanks for bringing this to our attention.

It looks like the nulled version you found is Invision Community 4.4.9.2 from January 2020. It does not contain any of the cloud exclusive features. We do not ship any of the cloud application, and even if they had the files they could not connect to our network that powers those features as none of that functionality is exposed to the outside internet. You would just get a connection error.

I understand your frustration but this person has effectively stolen our work. This is a criminal act. You would not observe someone stealing a car and think "wow, they got a car for free, why am I still leasing?" and then pick up a brick and stroll towards the nearest car. 😆

Piracy is an unfortunate side effect of offering a downloadable product. Most of the time a person uses a stolen credit card to get the files and then re-distributes them. This costs us twice, in the stolen download and then in chargeback and payment processing fees.

We have learned over the years that it is pointless to try and sign any downloads. We used to store hidden data in JPG EXIF but most warez sites take 2 or 3 copies from different people and then use diff to see what looks different between versions and then simply remove any signed files or data.

We do follow up piracy but it's a long slog as most hosts are uninterested or the person using the nulled version jumps from low cost host to low cost host.

[Kirill Gromov]

21 hours ago, Matt said:

We do follow up piracy but it's a long slog as most hosts are uninterested or the person using the nulled version jumps from low cost host to low cost host.

Following up not enough, you need to take action. The devs community has identified at least two pirates with an active license. But no action was taken in their direction (at least in public). You don't like it when your product is pirated, but you allow our products to be pirated. You can't really to affect on warez sites, but you can take away licenses. 

[Matt]

1 hour ago, Kirill Gromov said:

Following up not enough, you need to take action. The devs community has identified at least two pirates with an active license. But no action was taken in their direction (at least in public). You don't like it when your product is pirated, but you allow our products to be pirated. You can't really to affect on warez sites, but you can take away licenses. 

We can cancel licenses, and we can send notices to the host, but with a self hosted product, we have no direct way to shut the site down. We always follow up on piracy but it is a long a difficult path with most people using a nulled site who tend to find refuge with hosts that are either very slow to follow up on DMCAs or positively ignore them. The most likely outcome is they get kicked from one host and set up on another.

That is the risk we take by offering a downloadable product.

[Kirill Gromov]

This is true, but until you have revoked the licenses of the pirates, and I do not quite understand why. I see it in such a way that it is not so important for you to react to the piracy of files from the market, maybe I'm wrong.

[Marco Junior]

@Matt

Thank you so much for your answer, and sorry if I somehow caused discomfort to raise a piracy issue here in the community.
But this is really complex, and as a client (Auto-Shost) I am discouraged to see that people prefer to piraning and destroy a community as a whole, than supporting developers, I don't have a big company or a big comment And yet I pay my license to have a bug -free product and or possible problems in which I could make my community irregular.

So I hope you understand this survey, I really will inform myself directly with the site I recently accessed with a newer version and will try to know if he is a customer or not.
Again thank you so much for all attention so far.

[Tracy Perry]

Nulled versions happen with just about every paid script.  It is not limited to specifically IPS's script offering.  It's simply a reality that they have to deal with.

All YOU can do is report it through the proper channels and then forget about it.

The REAL issue is even after contacting a sites hosting provider, they may simply NOT bring the site down due to the piracy issue.  And even "going to court" can be a losing proposition, especially if the court has no jurisdiction where the site is hosted at.

If you like the script, then simply worry about YOUR continuing to support it, and not let the fact that threr are thieves out there that want something for nothing and are getting it (and it's not limited to scripts).  YOUR integrity is what is important.
Some of the most hypocritical statements I've heard are from admins that said "well, I pirated it to see what it was like, then I paid for it".  I look at that like "Well, I went into the steak house and ordered their best steak to see if I liked it, left without paying and then started buying it to cook at home".

 

Edited March 9, 2023 by Tracy Perry