Sulake cracking down on VIP

[Jordy]

Ok darlings, I'm here to save the day.
Sulake clearly think they're just messing with kids who want to earn a few bob from running a fansite, but scare tactics don't get around my skills and truths :8



Incorrect. Sulake own the copyright to the images, yes, but copyrighted images can still be displayed by those other than the holders as long as credit is given. Think about the multitude of Runescape, WoW, Final Fantasy, Pokémon and every other type of fansite around - all you have to do is have a footnote saying "images copyright Sulake.ltd" etc etc



No need darling, we have a free genius



Again, if you give credit to Sulake for any images you have on your site you'll be fine. Receiving money for something that's actually illegal such as a retro/backwards engineered client would leave you extremely open to legal action, but images and names don't fall under that. I've got no love for your site specifically but I don't think anyone (let alone someone who has actually done fairly well with their site as opposed to a 10 year old with a web domain) to get pushed under by this.



Truth. They can't make us change our name any more than they can force images off our site if we give proper credit. Copyright on something simply means that no-one else can claim ownership or creation of it, it doesn't mean no-one else can so much as say something.



..And so we come to my final piece for now. Sit back ladies and gentlemen as a simple yet entirely legal loophole is mentioned to you.
"Donations" whereby each person will get extras does count as selling a service - this is the same anywhere you go. However, a competition with a cost to enter is not the same thing.

Here's a little story all about how my life got flipped, turned upside down: at a school fayre when I was young, I was told of the wonders of the beer tent. Of course, I couldn't go in, but it was pure genius that I learned that day. Being a children's event and not having an alcohol license, they could not legally sell beers, so a "raffle" was set up whereby anyone with a ticket ending in 5 or 0 would "win" a beer. Of course, every ticket ended in a 5 or 0, and because alcohol can indeed be given as a gift or prize to anyone over 18, it was entirely legal.

If worst comes to worst and we are forced to remove VIP, we can implement this in its stead without any legal worries. Sell competition tickets with a prize of VIP priviledges and make it so that each ticket wins. It's not illegal to set your own competition rules, and if people still want to see that as selling a service, a seperate domain for it could be set up (not directly affiliated with Hx of course) whereby THEY sell tickets to an online competition, the prize being HxF VIP.

Nice loophole and all that but that would hugely put people off buying VIP if they have to go through all that. It would complicate the system massively and confuse some users. I would rep you for the idea but I'm on mobile skin lol.

[GommeInc]

[SIZE=3]If worst comes to worst and we are forced to remove VIP, we can implement this in its stead without any legal worries. Sell competition tickets with a prize of VIP priviledges and make it so that each ticket wins. It's not illegal to set your own competition rules, and if people still want to see that as selling a service, a seperate domain for it could be set up (not directly affiliated with Hx of course) whereby THEY sell tickets to an online competition, the prize being HxF VIP.

How do you propose Habbox do that when Habbo can't see the ticket/raffle system? Habbox will have to show Habbo the numbers in the hat or the numbers member have. Otherwise it will just look like calling a cat a dog, by which I mean "you're still selling VIP, but calling it a raffle where everyone wins!"

The seperate domain could work. Just get a manager to buy a domain and have VIP go through that as a raffle/competition or product. I don't think sierk could own it, because Habbox will fall in the same predicament, but with an extra domain involved.

[FlyingJesus]

Habbo can have a look at the system if they really want - there's no law against setting your own terms for a competition, and those terms could easily be that all tickets have winning numbers.

[GommeInc]

Habbo can have a look at the system if they really want - there's no law against setting your own terms for a competition, and those terms could easily be that all tickets have winning numbers.

Then they would notice that each ticket results with everyone getting the same prize, which as far as I am aware, would still be selling premium services but trying to make it complicated. That's how they might see it though.

[FlyingJesus]

Whatever they see it as, it's a legal loophole. We'd know and they'd know that it's a way around their rules, and hell we could even make that a known fact by publishing it, but it still wouldn't be against any laws.

[Yonder]

They would make a new rule up though?

[nvrspk4]

Yes, Habbox has been ordered to remove its VIP services.

FJ it doesn't really work like that, RuneScape is alowed to shut down sites as the idea is someone is making money as a result of using their images. Yes, Habbox is not for profit, but it makes revenues through VIP donations. Therefore, Habbo has the right to take us down, even if we really haven't done anything wrong. If we post a message about L_Ws mother, they can yank our right to use their images and content, so that's what they'll do if we run a competition.

We were going to announce this seperately but I guess cat's out of the bag. VIP will be leaving end of November however we will continue to honor any VIP payments through their end, so if you really wanted you could buy VIP for two years and have it.

[Tintinnabulate]

Yes, Habbox has been ordered to remove its VIP services.

FJ it doesn't really work like that, RuneScape is alowed to shut down sites as the idea is someone is making money as a result of using their images. Yes, Habbox is not for profit, but it makes revenues through VIP donations. Therefore, Habbo has the right to take us down, even if we really haven't done anything wrong. If we post a message about L_Ws mother, they can yank our right to use their images and content, so that's what they'll do if we run a competition.

We were going to announce this seperately but I guess cat's out of the bag. VIP will be leaving end of November however we will continue to honor any VIP payments through their end, so if you really wanted you could buy VIP for two years and have it.

Gah you arent on MSN are you? Cos I had an great idea on how to overcome all this

[Titch]

Yes, Habbox has been ordered to remove its VIP services.

FJ it doesn't really work like that, RuneScape is alowed to shut down sites as the idea is someone is making money as a result of using their images. Yes, Habbox is not for profit, but it makes revenues through VIP donations. Therefore, Habbo has the right to take us down, even if we really haven't done anything wrong. If we post a message about L_Ws mother, they can yank our right to use their images and content, so that's what they'll do if we run a competition.

We were going to announce this seperately but I guess cat's out of the bag. VIP will be leaving end of November however we will continue to honor any VIP payments through their end, so if you really wanted you could buy VIP for two years and have it.

NOOOOOOOOOOO! :@:@:@:@:@:@

[GommeInc]

Yes, Habbox has been ordered to remove its VIP services.

FJ it doesn't really work like that, RuneScape is alowed to shut down sites as the idea is someone is making money as a result of using their images. Yes, Habbox is not for profit, but it makes revenues through VIP donations. Therefore, Habbo has the right to take us down, even if we really haven't done anything wrong. If we post a message about L_Ws mother, they can yank our right to use their images and content, so that's what they'll do if we run a competition.

We were going to announce this seperately but I guess cat's out of the bag. VIP will be leaving end of November however we will continue to honor any VIP payments through their end, so if you really wanted you could buy VIP for two years and have it.

Have you replied to them, trying to reason with them with how utterly stupid this move is?