BUSTED! Sim Kingdom = Sim Pirates I felt like being the rumour mill this weekend, so I'll start one Recently a site was launched in cooperation with SimsMad.co.uk, UkSimmers.com, TheSimsSpot.co.uk, and MissingStudios.com called Sim Kingdom. It's also powered by vBulletin. What's so bad? It's a pirated copy of vBulletin. In short...BUSTED! *submits link to Piracy Team at Jelsoft*
Hi im mattkidd the owner of Missing Studios. Missing Studios did not no intill now that sims kingdom was a fake copy of vbullten and therefore we will be pulling out of this agreement ASAP. I had No Idea of this :O i cant belive it ,we totally apologize for advertising and being a part of Sims Kingdom. I will do my own investigation on Sims Kingdom and Post Back shortly with any info from the owner of Sims Mad. http://www.missingstudios.com
Missing Studios Statement 2007 We have recentlly been informed of Sim kingdom ( a forum we joined and become part of earlier this week ) has a pirated copy of VBulletin , while we personally are not 100% sure if the statement is true we have pulled out of the sim kingdom site entirely. Everybody at missingstudios apologises for this matter and we hope that you still keep coming to missingstudios.com when it fully opens after its upgrade. Thankyou Missing Studios Management http://www.missingstudios.com
Hmmm, their forum is no longer accessible - this is their current message: 'Sim Kingdom has closed right now due to being rumoured to have a fake version of VBulletin, even though this is not true. We have therefore deleted VBulletin so we can't be a target for lies again. We will update the site again soon with a new software. I for one am not happy about this, but I don't want to be a target.' ---------------------------------- Ok, if their version of vBulletin is genuine, why remove it? It's a sure sign of a guilty conscience. By the way, nobody said they had a 'fake' copy - I believe the correct word is 'pirated'. If Sim Kingdom has a genuine license for their version of vBulletin, they have no reason to remove it, and to be honest, would you remove it if you had paid for a license? The Piracy Team at Jelsoft can easily confirm whether they have a license or not. If it's a genuine version, Sim Kingdom have nothing to hide and should continue to use vBulletin. Removing it only confirms guilt on their part. I hope that as this situation has surfaced in the early days of Sim Kingdom's existence, they learn from this and in future they will keep things legal.
Heh; They posted this on their home page as well (Simsmad.co.uk) Like what Hugz said, if you have a license, the piracy team can easily check whether you have a valid license or not. They are moving to SMF it appears
It's a shame when the community hurls words like fools at each other. One has to wonder how anyone can claim to be unaware of piracy. Google vBulletin and the top result is to vbulletin.com (with the helpful text extract Fan sites cost their owners serious money to set up: Domain name registration and fees, server hosting purchase, bandwidth fees ... it's kind of funny that payment of 48 of our english pounds could have slipped their memory Besides which it hasn't taken them very long to locate the (almost) open source SMF project. It can only be assumed that someone of wonky geekery persuasion has pulled some wool over they eyes of the poor saps at front of house. (I'm always willing to give the benefit of the doubt.) [/SIZE]
If I had paid for a license, I would be proud to continue using the software and in the knowledge that I would never be penalised by Jelsoft, because I had done nothing wrong. I would make a clear statement to the accuser that I had bought a license for vBulletin and I would also post on the vBulletin site forum to express my innocence and that I had bought a license. Nothing to hide, no reason to stop using something I had legally paid for. I will say one thing though - the statement on Simsmad.co.uk is not the best way to respond to the situation they're in. Being disrespectful by calling fellow sims community members 'fools' is not the best way to start a fansite forum's existence. Additionally, they feel 'forced' to remove vBulletin as they do not want to be 'penalised and reported to be part of a piracy breach' - again, if you know you have paid for a license and you have a legal right to use vBulletin, why run and hide? I would be more than happy to prove the accuser wrong if I was in their position. Obviously, they can't prove their innocence. If I was in their position, I would take this situation as a learning experience, and move on. Fansites are more likely to welcome new sites into the community and possibly offer support or forge alliances if they know the site owner is genuine and honest. After all, you wouldn't hang around with a law-breaker in real life, so why do it on the internet? I really hope that Sim Kingdom can put this behind them and keep things legal from now on. If they do that, there's no reason why Sim Kingdom can't evolve and become successful. Being honest with your members, and having a legally based forum, is the only way to go.
Hi guys i cant belive it still :O Trust me missing studios had no idea that it was a fake copy of vbullten and we are taking this very seriously. As you may no the owner of Sims mad Ryan also owner and host of the Vbullten is to blame. Missing Studios had no idea of this. Missing Studios will no longer be part of Sims Kingdom. Thanks Matt Kidd http://www.missingstudios.com - v5 Coming Soon!!!
Well The Sims Spot replied to an email I sent out. As they say in the UK, cheeky lil fellow. anyhow, i replied back with:
Okay, I have been informed that our version of V-bulletin IS real and not a pirate. We are only changing to avoid these rumors and we think it might benefit the forums. It's like your trying to kill off other forums. We've only been going for 2 weeks, people won't even know we exist yet, so no one will actually care. Literally we opened 29th September 2007. And if you want to send us those sort of emails another time, forget the essay infront of it. Thanks, Tbatch
As a bunch of people stated before, if Sim Kingdom indeed bought a license to vBulletin, there's no fear of these rumors. You can simply ignore my accusations, rebuff me with a license number, and thereby making these rumors false and it goes away. Of course that vBulletin was the real script. It is vBulletin because no other forum application can be called vBulletin. Of course tbatch, if you don't believe me, get the license number of that vBulletin installation and go inquire with Jelsoft directly. (support@vbulletin.com). You can simply verify my findings. If I may point out, I had an opportunities to kill your site off WAY in advance. Yes your site went live September 29 (which I was aware of quite fast). It was about a week before I spoke up that you guys were pirating vBulletin and operating without a license. I never said you can't use vBulletin. I highly recommend vBulletin to all my affiliates and friends. Lots of them are webmasters in the Sims community. I like having other sites around. Many of us are good friends and we just chit-chat lots of time outside the community. It's not my intention to see you guys fail. I rather see you guys succeed than fail. But doing so legally is my goal.
Yeah, fine we can ignore them, but you're the owner of a forum with thousands of members. They are more likely to believe you. Therefore we would lose out of all of these members maybe joining Sim Kingdom to. If you wanted to inform us about this you didn't have to shout it out on your Forum when we actually closed our forum down after the emails. Anyway, I can't be bothered to argue anymore, we seem to be repeating things to each other. So maybe it's time we forget about this.
To be honest, this thread was actually created before those emails were sent out. Feel free to ask the people at MissingStudios to verify it . The email I sent should also contain a link to this thread. Whether I am the owner of a forum of a thousand members or a few hundred members wouldn't matter. I don't go spouting off and accusing blindly unless I have sufficient evidence that backs up my case. In all actuality, simply buying a license or simply owing up that it was pirated in the first place would have been far better. But here we are having a civil discussion on plausibility and hypothetical scenarios of reputation. In my opinion, Sim Kingdom's reputation was hurt far worse by denying it, deleting vBulletin and accusing me of lying. It doesn't really make sense honestly. Most would wonder why the heck would you buy a license for vBulletin only not to use it? Seems like a total waste of money.
http://forums.worldsims.org/showthread.php?t=13495 Dear Readers, Thanks for keeping up to date with this situation. Im dtr, an administrator of sim kingdom. Unfortunatly i did not know about this problem and another forum member on another forum pointed out that the forum had gone offline. Im not responsible for installing the software that the forums ran on. Another Administrator did so. I am extremly sorry for the inconvience caused and as joint owner who did not know or test the authenticity of the forum software i can only apologise. We will be open on software that will be 100% legal soon. I apologise to those members who suffered the deletion of their accounts. An issue to date that is yet to be discussed between administrators. Missing Studios remains a good freind of my main site, www.uksimmers.com. -> May i also add in that i have not discussed issues with Ryan. Uksimmers.com may or may not drop out of the forum. What i feel is a shame but some actions of some administrators is questionable and those questions will need to be answered. Thank you very much for reading, dtr.
I just wanted to commend both of you for your stance on this issue. I think it is highly commendable that you are taking the high road and apologizing; even though you didn't know it was a fake or pirated copy. Thank you both! I hope the community continues to support both your pages in light of the situation and your honestly and apology.
