I agree. It seems shocking that the sales team would need any reminder after that debacle. After that incident, in this thread I pushed for sales team policies to change. It appears that fell on deaf ears. Here's a quote from me in that thread that seems rather applicable now:
IBJoel, in that thread you said this:
It has happened again. Are we going to re-word the rules or not?

That DVDFab ad sure looks sponsored and not Google generated...

I'm talking to our business lead about it.

Is DVD piracy still even a concern?

I think that 99.99% of the people who are going to use a ripper are just going to use it back-up their own DVDs and possibly transfter them to a HTPC.

If someone wants to pirate a movie, there a easier ways to do it these days.

Yeah, I was thinking that myself. I'll freely admit that I used to copy DVDs from time to time (with free software) but that was over a decade ago. It seems like ancient history to me now, ripping DVDs seems so quaint. Honestly, I have way too much stuff to watch on the streaming services I subscribe to now, I don't need to rip anything.

Speaking as a consumer, no. Speaking as a studio person/rep., it's one of the things that irks them to no end.

Since the Ad for DVD piracy thread was locked, and the DVD piracy ads have been a staple on the forum for the last full month at this point, I think we can all assume that discussing DVD/Blu-ray/UHD piracy is A-ok by forum standards now.

The ONLY ads I EVER see at the top of every page here are the DVDFab ads and "DVD Ripper" ads. So discussing these topics must be fine.

Thank you, DVDTalk. I look forward to the friendly discussion of piracy going forward.

Yep, I've seen those ads at the top of every....damn....page for over a month now. Blaming them on Google is obviously not the case at all. So hey let's talk piracy! Hey, you guys remember DVD Shrink?

The ripper/fab ads are 100% not Google generated. It's very easy to tell the difference.

Yes I totally agree, but that's the excuse we were originally given.

I guess the "sales team" forgot that paid ads for (technically) illegal ripping software is a no no on this site per its own rules.

Guys, please read through this entire thread. These sales contracts were created without my knowledge and I have spoken with our business lead, but the current contracts must be honored. The rules remain the same.

Does whoever signs these contracts not understand that ripping software is not allowed on this site or are they accepting contracts from anyone who's willing to advertise?

In other words, could we start seeing ads for guns/tobacco because some business thought it would be beneficial to advertise here?

Plain and simple: If a company can advertise Product/Service in Category X on this site, then it is completely illogical to suggest that users of the forum of this site cannot have conversations about Products, Services, or Category X.

If I want to talk about "business cards" because I see an ad at the bottom of the page that says "50% off business cards!", then I should be free to do so. It might not garner much discussion because... who cares about business cards.

If someone can advertise business card services, I should be able to talk about business cards.

If someone can advertise DVD ripping software, I should be able to talk about DVD ripping software.


I get that "contracts must be honored!" but as long as they're being honored, then the topics or categories of those advertisements should not be banned during that duration of time.

The advertising team weighs different factors when determining contacts, one of which is product applicability to the site. That said, no one from sales is in the forums. Their information about the site comes from us and metrics. When that is ignored, it is beyond my power to make those calls, but I have spoken to the person who can.

There has been no policy change of the forum rules.

Except for IB itself.

I get that the IB sales staff handles all IB sites not just DVDTalk and may not be privy to specific forum rules. But after the dust up last year over the SPONSORED ripping software... it should have been clear to the sales staff that ripping ads aren't allowed on DVDTalk. Guess not.

The original ban on discussions of ripping software and other piracy was created because the site owner Geoff wanted to remain on good terms with the intellectual property owners, the DVD companies. Maybe IB doesn't care what Disney, Warner, or Sony think. Maybe the big IP companies don't care as much about people ripping DVDs anymore. Maybe this place is like Gormenghast, with lots of old rules that no longer make sense.

The thing is, any given sales person shouldn't have to know. For all we know, the entire sales staff might have turned over since then. And it really doesn't matter that none of them are on this forum to have some sort of tribal knowledge about our rules. What there should be is a clearly documented and enforced policy that every sales person follows. It really shouldn't be that hard. How is it that the sales staff doesn't sell sponsored ads for pornographic DVDs, for example? Presumably there are ad categories that they are not allowed to sell, per policy. Why isn't DVD ripping software part of that policy by now??

For what it's worth, I am no longer seeing the ads...at least not today.

^ The contract must be over with the start of the new month. I hope promoting piracy for a month was worth it to keep this ship afloat.

As I am not part of the sales team, I do not have a say on what their specific policies are, but do offer feedback from you guys and my personal feelings on it (since I handle editorial and therefore liaise with studios, I have an interest in this as well).

I do appreciate your attempts to emphasize the importance of this issue to the sales team. FWIW, my little rant there wasn't directed at you - I know you're doing what you can. It was directed at the sales staff and their management.

So I heard back from our head of sales. Official corporate policy is that we do not advertise tobacco and pornography, although advertisement does not equal endorsement. She will be speaking with all our reps to avoid this occurring in the future.