Decoding files?

[Mr Happy]

A member asks for a file to be decoded which he bought and has the rights to because he want's to change the layout. He bought it 6 months ago and since then the site where he purchased it has gone offline so no official support is available. He want's to decode it and is perfectly entitled to do so in such a case and request help.

If you buy a wordpress template your allowed decode it in some cases. You have to keep the authors link but you are allowed decode it to change it's appearance, font etc to match any other changes you may have done.

If you go adding a rule don't just ban requesting of decoding a file completely. Their are loads of legit cases. Have it something like "you must have permission to decode the file in question".

I've very afraid that staff would just go around closing every topic where someone asks for something to be decoded even if they are fully allowed to do so. It's not that it happens much anyway that people request stuff to be decoded. I just hate to see innocent people punished because of a minor amount of people end up making it miserable for everyone.

[Gavo]

This site is using a hacked database of W junction

[soft2050]

A member asks for a file to be decoded which he bought and has the rights to because he want's to change the layout. He bought it 6 months ago and since then the site where he purchased it has gone offline so no official support is available. He want's to decode it and is perfectly entitled to do so in such a case and request help.

Why would a seller give right to decode his/her work? He encoded files for a reason.
Some seller sells unencoded version of the files in that case.
Also, disclosing encoded php files privately/publicly is disallowed by many php encoders

Wont say about Wordpress since didn't used it much but i guess the encoded part in wp themes is the author's website link checking and not the html part.

If you go adding a rule don't just ban requesting of decoding a file completely. Their are loads of legit cases. Have it something like "you must have permission to decode the file in question".

This could be done But how staff is going to check whether the end user has the permissions

[Mr Happy]

If a site closes or a script is no longer supported and stops working which you purchased you can decode it to fix it for personal use under the terms you were previously using it as long as it wasn't a subscription based model.

It's an example and I'm not saying it happens often but you can't penalize legit cases no matter how few they are because of a some are doing it for illegal purposes. That would be like the government banning everyone from driving a car because a few people speed. You don't penalize everyone. You punish the people who commit the crime.

The easy way is to punish everyone but it's not the fair way.

[Sp32]

Every time I have seen a decoding thread I have closed or deleted it. The chances of someone doing it for legitimate reasons is highly unlikely in my opinion. If you want files decoded then go to hacking or coding forums, simple.

Unless you want to become a Mod (Which I would be happy if you did @Mr Hapz) and help out towards the deciphering of legitimate vs illegitimate decoding threads then I guess not much will be done about it, I sure do have better things on my time to do than differentiate between decoding threads.

[Mr Happy]

Every time I have seen a decoding thread I have closed or deleted it. The chances of someone doing it for legitimate reasons is highly unlikely in my opinion. If you want files decoded then go to hacking or coding forums, simple.

Unless you want to become a Mod (Which I would be happy if you did @Mr Hapz) and help out towards the deciphering of legitimate vs illegitimate decoding threads then I guess not much will be done about it, I sure do have better things on my time to do than differentiate between decoding threads.

You don't have to waste your time checking decoding threads. This is a community you have to remember where members report this stuff. If someone tries and sells a premium template they don't own like a nulled theme that's for sale on themeforrest it's not usually the staff who notice but the members and end up reporting the thread. The seller usually get's banned for trying to sell a nulled theme.

I don't see how this is different. If soft2050, Gavo, myself, etc who are all non staff. see a request to decode a file they don't have the rights to we can just report it as usual. It's impossible for staff to check and validate every hosting thread or sales thread and I wouldn't expect them to just as it's impossible for them to check every decoding thread but that's where a community which is what KWWH is can help.

[-Im.z2ight-]

Why ban wordpress decoding? They offer decoding help on wordpress.com. If it was a problem do you think they would allow the massive threads they have on it?