php...boards...money?

[The Hobo]

Okay, lets say I finish and want to sell my bulletin boards I'm making...how do I do it? Where do I go, what do I do after I finish them?

[chrisjk]

Do what these guys did http://www.vbulletin.com/ ;)

[The Hobo]

That still doesn't really help me. Let me clarify:

Lets say I finish my boards and I want to sell copies for $10 a piece. I create a form, you fill out the information and such, then they have to pay by PayPal (since I don't have a merchants account or anything)

I get notification of the money and send them a link with a password. They can download the software once, then their password expires. They have paid, they now have the product.


Okay, now how do I try to prevent (I know full prevention isn't possible) people from just going and uploading it somewhere and giving it away for free? How can I limit this?

Also, can I really sell a product if I haven't copyrighted it? Can I say "(c) Kristopher Wilson" blah blah? I know it's intellectual copyrighted, but is that enough?

I have so man questions.

[JafferAB]

well, you get a website (made by me) then get the board advertised and send it free ot loads of places.

then start charging for it, but make sure the link toour site is in the bottom of each like Vbulletin or PHPbb etc etc.

then when the money starts top be raked in you give me a little bi tof each for the website :) and take the rest yourself. If you dont want the website either then i suppose you could keep it all yourself, bu tthats the geenral jist of it i think :)

AND NOW THE ANSWERS OR SUGGESTION TO THE QUESTIONS YOU REALLY ASKED :D

to sto people pirating my mirc script, although people odnt pay for it :P i put in a system where it checks a value on my server and if its "0" for instance then it ownt run. If you give serial number for copys of the board, then have a system so you can get all the boards to send you their SNs every week or osmething. then if 2 boards send the same SN within a week, you can disable them both by invalidating the SN, the SN wont validte so the board wont run. This can be pirated but wont be unless you put in enough code that somneone would really have to mess up the script to pirate it :)

yeah, you can sell anything as long as it isnt alreayd copywrited :D you can say (c) whatever, but that would only create doubt as to whether it is copywrited or not :) nevertheless i would do it because it makes you look more imporatant :D

[JoshT]

Originally posted by The Hobo
Also, can I really sell a product if I haven't copyrighted it? Can I say "(c) Kristopher Wilson" blah blah? I know it's intellectual copyrighted, but is that enough?

I have so man questions.

*** I'm basing this info off of my memory from a paper I wrote a while ago while I was in college - do some research before you take my word for anything ***

If it's your original work, under US law, it is automatically copyrighted by you. However, until you file the appropriate paperwork with the appropriate government agency, your ability to seek legal damages for copyright violation is limited ( I think you can sue for cease and desist but cannot claim monetary damages ). If you really want to sell your software, why not get the official paperwork - the fee isn't terribly bad.

But put that copyright notice on it now, I believe it is perfectly legal and legitimate. (I put it at the bottom of my web pages)

[chrisjk]

Originally posted by The Hobo
Okay, now how do I try to prevent (I know full prevention isn't possible) people from just going and uploading it somewhere and giving it away for free? How can I limit this?
Well, put simply you can't

The only deterant is the possible court action people who upload it elsewhere could face. Since you're basically giving them the source when somebody buys it, there is nothing you can do to stop them copying large amounts, or selling it themselves even

Which is mostly why these sorts of things are freeware.

As for the "calling home" sugestion, yes you can do that (vbulletin does that), but as I said you're giving them the source, it wouldn't take 5 seconds to remove the checks...vB is a piece of piss to pirate

[The Hobo]

bah. I'll just have it as freeware.

Thanks all :)

[Pc_Madness]

Something along the lines of...


Person Buys product
You give them a mile long password (Like atleast 60 char)
Then they download it
they enter the password in a screen (in VB, maybe it could be like an unextractor or something)
They check it at your site
then if its correct, it opens
If not, you whipe their harddrive clean :D