Can anyone figure out this legal mumbo jumbo?

[ASSEMbler]

We have received a valid claim under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, codified at 17 U.S.C. 512 (the \x93DMCA\x94), that materials on your web server hosted at ServerBeach may violate the copyright interests of the party filing the complaint.
In accordance with the DMCA, we hereby inform you that your web server that hosts the domain http://assemblergames.com has been or within the next 24 hours will be, disabled to the extent necessary to comply with the DMCA.
Your web site will remain disabled unless we receive a valid counter-notification from you. The DMCA provides that a valid counter-notification must contain the following:
1) The counter-notification must be addressed to the host\x92s designated agent (the \x93Designated Agent\x94) and must state, under penalty of perjury, that the infringement claim in question is a mistake.

DMCA Notices
Attention: DMCA Agent.
Peer 1 Dedicated Hosting
101 Marietta St.
Suite 500
Atlanta, GA 30303

2. The counter-notification must contain the following information:
(a) a physical or electronic signature of the subscriber;
(b) identification of the material that has been removed or disabled, and its prior location;
(c) a statement, under penalty of perjury, that the subscriber has a good-faith belief that the material was removed or disabled as a result of a mistake or misidentification;
(d) the subscriber\x92s name, address, and telephone number(s); and
(e) a statement that the subscriber consents to the jurisdiction of federal district court for the judicial district in which the address is located. (If located outside the US, the subscriber must consent to any judicial district in which ServerBeach is located.)

Upon receipt of a valid counter-notification from you, we will provide the complainer with a copy of the counter-notification. The complainer then has not less than ten (10), but no more than fourteen (14), business days to notify the Designated Agent that it has filed a request for a court order to restrain the infringing activity. Unless such notice is received, ServerBeach will replace or enable the disputed material.

Your cooperation in this matter is appreciated. Please reply to this e-mail to notifying ServerBeach of the actions you are taking to rectify this situation, or to confirm that the infringed content has been removed.

Infringing content:
--------
[quote]

I am an agent authorized to act on behalf of Jelsoft Enterprises Limited who
exclusively own vBulletin, a forum Software.

I can find no record of this user purchasing a site license for this
location http://assemblergames.com/forums/
[quote]


From what I get, they want a response by mail in 24 hours? lol.

[Yakumo]

hmm, not too easy to figure that out. Like you said, seems they want mail pretty soon. Is that possible? Isn't there one member of the boards who's familly is connected to politics? I remember someone saying something.

Yakumo

[RPA]

Look like they want you to show evidence that you purchased a vbulletin license for this site.

[Sally]

Your best bet would be to try to call off the dogs at Jelsoft and have them call rackspace. You should probably call rackspace too, just to be sure. Then again, I am not a lawyer.

[MexicanGritzTaster]

My question is, how do they KNOW you don't have a valid license...

- Does it phone home?
- Did your ISP snitch on you?
- Are they using other means (a backdoor), which is likely as much a violation of the DMCA as the pirated software itself

It is always nice to know who put the bullet in your back

[madhatter256]

My question is, how do they KNOW you don't have a valid license...

- Does it phone home?
- Did your ISP snitch on you?
- Are they using other means (a backdoor), which is likely as much a violation of the DMCA as the pirated software itself

It is always nice to know who put the bullet in your back

Assembler was under the assumption the designer purchased this legally.

I'm glad the license debacle was taken care of. Now its time to sue the designer...

[cahaz]

who was the designer anyway? I remember that he left, but i dont remember his member name.

[the_steadster]

cjpc designed it

[MexicanGritzTaster]

madhatter256: Here is what is snakey about the whole thing. Lets pretend person X (could be anybody, the ISP, someone from here, the old designer, who knows) informed Jelsoft Enterprises of said license violation. THEN, someone at Jelsoft Enterprises had to SOMEHOW determine that the software wasn't licensed. How could they possibly know? There is nothing in the whole order process that seemed to tie the software to any specific domain at all. If this IS the case, the means of which Jelsoft Enterprises determined for a fact that the software was being pirated could be the real issue here.

[Tachikoma]

Not really, there could be a publically viewable file "www.whatever.com/forums/authentification.php" which displays the licensee and the "product code" which is easily comparable to sales invoices.

[MexicanGritzTaster]

But said PHP file isnt guaranteed to be the "original". There is something more to it. But, Ill digress as this seems more like a "Don't put me in jail" than excersize of ones rights.

[Sinjd]

when you buy vbulletin you have to declare where it is being used in the members area. You are also given a customer number, which (iirc) is recorded within your install to stop piracy.

Having said that, I do not beleive jellsoft can track it themselves, they rely on people reporting boards they believe to be pirated and then jellsoft check the records. Therefore someone will have said to them "I think Assembler is running a pirate board" and jellsoft will have checked the database, found no record for this site and thus moved forward with piracy charges.

Has been a while since I read the whole anti piracy stuff for vB mind (i've had mine for over 4 years) so I could be mistaken.

[ASSEMbler]

Yeah, I got it sorted out. Was probably sobman as he was giving me some strange ims.

[mairsil]

Well, too little too late (I just woke up), but I can read legalese. Basically, they require a written statement which says one of two things:

a) The DMCA agent is wrong about the infringing content.
b) The infringing content has been removed or is no longer infringing.

Obviously, this situation would fall under (b). In addition, it should have a statement to the effect that you were unaware that the content was infringing since you hired someone else to do the website. The final part that needs to be included is proof that the infringing content has been removed. In this case, a receipt of the purchased license would be sufficient.

While I would both mail and email the counter notification, you technically only need to do one or the other. Even though Jelsoft has said that the case is closed, unless they properly notify your host, the host can still legally shutdown the server if they have not received the counter notification.

[GaijinPunch]

I'm still curious why you went with VBulletin in the first place. Is there anything specific it does better than phpBB?

[ASSEMbler]

Wasn't my call, I thought I was getting a front page and forums, and he tried to do all in one swoop using the least amount of code. = Vbulletin.

[madhatter256]

Hmm. Just curious. Were you contacted directly from Jellsoft or a third party, Assembler?

Did they shut down the server, or did you shut it down voluntarily?

[Evangelion-01]

Hmm. Just curious. Were you contacted directly from Jellsoft or a third party, Assembler?

Did they shut down the server, or did you shut it down voluntarily?

the forum worked, the sections were just hidden.