Who knows something about Sketchupbar.com

Frederik · 16 Sept 2009, 15:09

Hi All,

Does anybody know anything about http://www.sketchupbar.com ...

Although the site is in Chinese, it looks as if they're distributing commercial ruby plug-ins and other useful stuff...

I'm not able to read anything on that web-site, but as you will see on this site, they have modified the Twilight Render plug-in and made unauthorized translations to the dialogs...
This is - of course - illegal...!!

Does anybody have any experience with the persons behind this web-site...??

solo · 16 Sept 2009, 15:22

That's just wrong!!

A few months ago I was contacted by someone to inform me that my garden pack was being given away for free on a Chinese site, apart from going into my transactions list and finding only one purchase from China and sending an email which was never responded to, I was helpless.

I hope you can get this fixed as it's people like this that make me not interested in creating anymore content as it useless to fight against the Chinese piracy machine.

solo · 16 Sept 2009, 15:43

The person doing it goes by the name Pisces and is the ADMINISTRATOR!! bastard!!!

Oh he also has 1001 bit and Podium 1.7 pirated.

richcat · 16 Sept 2009, 15:44

@frederik said:

I'm not able to read anything on that web-site,

Frederik this might help a little - try pasting "http://www.sketchupbar.com/ " into Google search and when it comes up with search results there is "a translate this page" option to the right of the headings it finds. Then click on this and it will translate pretty well, and as its in translation mode other pages you open from this initial page will translate as well.

Frederik · 16 Sept 2009, 16:04

It might be that it's only the demo version they're making available, but it's really bad practise to alter and make other amendments to something like this...
In most countries it's illegal...!

This is what Google translates some of the info to:

@unknownuser said:

The finished version of localization by Pisces, I finished all of copyright. Any organization or individual without their permission prohibited for commercial purposes.This version is only released in "SketchUp bar" website, declined reproduced.:

I wonder from whom he got permissions...

Frederik · 16 Sept 2009, 16:12

Thanks for your feedbacks, Fred and Pete...

@solo said:

...as it useless to fight against the Chinese piracy machine.

Yeah - so I've heard, but hopefully someone in here can help somehow...?!?

@solo said:

Oh he also has 1001 bit and Podium 1.7 pirated.

I'm sure they have much more... But since I can't log in to their site, I don't know...

[EDIT] I just found that they have a fullversion of Podium 1.6...
Check it out here ...

solo · 16 Sept 2009, 16:18

They also are offering Sketchup pro build 7.0.10247 for download, and they have a disclaimer that translated had this sentence in it:

@unknownuser said:

Please download all resources within 24 hours to delete.

Like that will happen.

notareal · 16 Sept 2009, 16:29

Perhaps google has enough muscles to take the site (or pirates using the site) down. China has changed the attitude againts the piracy (at least a bit). Maybe someone close to SU developement would tip the Google SU team. btw they are ripping sketchucation.com too.

Mike Lucey · 16 Sept 2009, 17:20

That's interesting Bruce.

I imagine one way of helping to sort the piracy issue would be for companies to structure their prices lower in countries that have a much lesser average income than the manufacturing country. This could be easily done when it come to software as much of it is downloadable. I know it would not eliminate all piracy but I think it would go a ways to offering many people a legit option. Lets face facts! What is some guy in China living on $100 a month (or less) going to do when he has to decide to pay 5 month salary for an appliction or download a pirate copy?

Mike

notareal · 16 Sept 2009, 17:52

@mike lucey said:

... Lets face facts! What is some guy in China living on $100 a month (or less) going to do when he has to decide to pay 5 month salary for an appliction or download a pirate copy?

Mike

I think if someone in China has money to buy a PC, he also do have some money for the software. I seriously doupt that a guy in China living on $100 a month (or less) do have a computer.

Frederik · 16 Sept 2009, 17:53

Although I understand what you're saying, I need to disagree with you, Mike...
If you started to offer an application for a certain price (say 100,00 USD) in one country, and then you offer the same product for a much lower price in other countries (say 25,00 USD), how would you justify that difference to the users that need to pay 100,00 USD...??

I recall some of the discussions from the old SU Forum, where the difference in US price vs. GBP was enough to cause a conflict...

I know it's extremeloy difficult to prevent software piracy...
My initial post was not intended for us to discuss if, why or when software piracy is OK...
I simply asked if someone here knows anything about Sketchupbar.com ...
And if there was a connection somewhere, that we ban these people...

This is not only Twilight Render that seem to be cracked, Podium, 1001 bit, Vray, Maxwell and other plug-ins and applications also seem to be available...

@notareal said:

btw they are ripping sketchucation.com too.

Perhaps not that big a deal for SCF, but it's just the attitude and the fundementals behind these things I really hate...

dylan · 16 Sept 2009, 19:56

They also copy and paste many articles from here to there site.

majid · 16 Sept 2009, 20:39

owful to hear that, as I remember, one of the forum members signature was a link to sketchupbar.com , if I am true we could request some help... or maybe track the problem

edited:, it was linked to http://www.sketchupbbs.com as I remembered, so maybe we could ask him to solve this

chango70 · 17 Sept 2009, 07:03

@frederik said:

Hi All,

Does anybody know anything about http://www.sketchupbar.com ...

Although the site is in Chinese, it looks as if they're distributing commercial ruby plug-ins and other useful stuff...

I'm not able to read anything on that web-site, but as you will see on this site, they have modified the Twilight Render plug-in and made unauthorized translations to the dialogs...
This is - of course - illegal...!!

Does anybody have any experience with the persons behind this web-site...??

Hope you are satisfied.

Frederik · 17 Sept 2009, 07:08

@chango70 said:

Hope you are satisfied.

Not yet...
They've breached the copyrights and license...
We will need to take action and I'm not satisfied at all before this is solved...

notareal · 17 Sept 2009, 07:13

egoddess, "providing unauthorised translation" like you say is same offering pirated software, even if you offer it "free". Now as you know that you are doing against the will of programmers of these softwares, please remove those. Twilight, Podium and actually all I seen you are offering do have a licensing scheme and you need to crack it somehow if you want to use it without license. If you really want to contribute and help to translate software contact the authors. I an 100% sure that author of Twilight Render is interested if you are offering a translation help, even thought actions of people behind Sketchupbar do not promise a lot, but distribution of that must be happen properly. Twilight is made for everyone, it's really bargain - and if you don't effort to it why not to use Kerkythea , it's free and already been translated to many languages or Luxrender , that as open source can even be distributed from your site, if you provide the source code.

purplewind · 17 Sept 2009, 08:15

I’ll tell you something about Sketchupbar.com
By tas_1985(Hu mingqi) on Wed Sep 17, 2009 13:00 pm
http://www.sketchupbar.com

Hello everyone! My web name is tas_1985, please forgive my poor English, I am a Chinese architect, and I’m one of the administrators of Sketchupbar.com .
FIRST of all I want to say is that: Sketchupbar.com is NOT a commercial services site, we DO NOT gain any income from this site and everything you can download from here is free! We even don’t have web advertisements. We are a professional sketchup team, not sellers. We build this site to provide a study place for the SUERS, and for free, of course.
Maybe you all will find some so-called “unauthorized translations”, “pirated 1001 bit and Podium 1.7” ,actually we got some of the authorization, others , we make them for the purpose of study, not for sale. And we NEVER release crack, pirated software.
For examples:
The 1001 bit translation, we got the authorization from Goh Chun Hee(the author of 1001), he has authorized purplewind（one of our moderators） .You can contact him to affirm.

Goh Chun Hee
gohch <a_t> 1001bit.com

I have got the authorization about Artlantis tutorials Chinese translations for free from the Abvent international manager:
Mr. Gulden
gulden <a_t> abvent.com

About the translations of Twilight Render:
The translation author “Pisces” has announced that only the copyright of the translation is hold, not the whole right of the software. And not for sale, just for the purpose of study. If this is illegal, we will delete it and never do this again.

Thanks
Best regards.
tas_1985

PS:
There is another site http://www.sketchupbbs.com
It is a commercial services site, its administrator often copy and paste many articles from SCF to his site to reach his business purpose.
He even releases the twilight cracks in his site:
http://www.sketchupbbs.com/viewthread.php?tid=32087&extra=page%3D1

And there is always a “intense relationship” between us. Actually they often supplant and obloquy us in many places. I don’t know the ID Frederik is or not one of their members, I make announcement here to tell you, our friends, we love sketchup, and will never be in pocket by using your works or releasing cracks and pirated software.
I believe everything will be clear one day, thanks again.

Fletch · 17 Sept 2009, 08:23

Thank you for your reply, egoddess,

My name is Shane Fletcher, Partner at Twilight Render.com

We respectfully request your site take action against this illegal distribution immediately. Twilight Render is very inexpensive and high quality. There is no reason to steal it. We made Twilight inexpensive so that it would be accessible to everyone.

Twilight Render has obviously been ILLEGALLY PIRATED AND REDISTRIBUTED ON YOUR SITE. This is both sad and shameful. If it were truly "For Educational Purposes" then Pisces would have contacted us and ASKED for permission to translate and redistribute. We were never asked nor contacted, though our contact information is easily available.

In addition, Pisces, or a partner, has "Re-branded" Twilight Render for this illegal distribution, changing the logo from yellow to green, and Illegally re-used a rendering WE PERSONALLY CREATED with Twilight.
%(#BF4000)[So they have stolen:

Our Software, 1. our Logo, 1. our Images, and 1. our potential customers.

In addition, Pisces is apparently claiming copyright on something Pisces was never given permission to do, and obviously knows is illegal and wrong. We, again, respectfully request your site take action against this illegal distribution immediately.]

We are pleased with all the talented and creative Chinese users finding Twilight Render so easy and fun to use.

Twilight Render is very OPEN AND WELCOMING to creating versions in different languages, and we are also committed to providing help for "educational" institutions... those interested need only to ASK and be given permission. We will gladly work with someone to translate the software, but rights will NOT be given to redistribute on any other website for pay or free. We are the only one with the right to distribute Twilight Render. Pisces clearly knows this.

Shane Fletcher
Partner, Twilight Render

bianhai · 17 Sept 2009, 08:24

Hello Coen Naninck, it has been a while. We have written a mail in advance to inform their administrator about your condition. Such theft of your article is shameful.
That website has just been established by armatures by stealing a lot of links from our website and original insertion and articles from your website.
Together you and we shall condemn and annihilate such action; we will always be go
we will always be good friends.
I will ask them to put an end to this activity immediately.

Yours truly,
Besides, I want to add your website and friendly link to mine.
In China, we are the main agency of google sketchup software. the information you search via google is:
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dd8dnz54_5fm5hf5
brian

solo · 17 Sept 2009, 08:30

Purplewind, thanks for the clarification.

I had a quick look at the sketchupbbs site and found many interesting things, and a few surprises.

http://www.sketchupbbs.com/viewthread.php?tid=32087&extra=page%3D1