How do you fight against nulled themes?

Envato Authors Theme Authors
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Hi Envato Community!

Lately, we’ve experienced more problems with the nulled and stolen themes.

  1. Have you experienced the same problem?

  2. How do you fight against that? Just by using the activation code? Is there some other way?

  3. Have you filed the DMCA against these pirate websites where your items were found? Did it help? How long did it take? Did Envato help somehow? Because all they keep telling us is that we should submit the DMCA against these pirate websites on our own.

I think due to the fact that Envato obliges us that the theme has to work even without the activation code, we can’t protect it 100%, but there should be ways to make it as protected as possible.

Thanks in advance.
ThemeRex Team.

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Envato is prohibiting to use secondary actions ( such as key-gates, I have been informed to remove from my plugins ) and there’s not much thing to offer but only solution I have found and it’s allowed, use activation key and ask/request buyers to get the item updated through your system after the activation instead of “updating” the latest version onto ThemeForest/CodeCanyon.

That’s how you could actually track down the items properly even though the activation key is in used multiple times/several domains - when you notice there’s another URL is using illegally, you can request take-down notice to their hosting. I have filed quite lots of DMCA, some hostings take an action fast, some, they don’t even care.

If you can find the user that has breach the Envato policy, you can contact Envato, they will force the user to purchase another copy or else they will disable the account. ( Been through twice )

Make the general features of the theme work without activation, put everything else on a plugin that would require activation/update.

If you don’t have enough sales, leave exclusivity and manage everything as you wish.

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I also faced the same issue if Nulled code of my items. It affects to our revenue by a smaller number of sales. Even some of the nulled website’s sale our code in very cheap rate. How to overcome from that issue?

Some of the buyers install and activate the license in one domain and after some time, he asks to deactivate old one and reactivate in new domain. what should I do, technically he has to purchase new license, but he says I am not using that old domain. What is solution of this case?

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Yes, they need a new license.

Although some authors are allowing domain change, you can send this link ( Regular License | ThemeForest ) and tell them they would need a new license and ignore their request.

If the item is marked as supported, you can also ask them to “extend the support” before providing the domain change, the extension of the period would cost around 70% of the item if the period is over.

I do ask them to purchase a new copy and if they are not happy, they could contact Envato support ( https://enva.to/help ) - Envato support asks them to get a new copy..

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