First of all I apologise if this is in the wrong place or whatever but as the cliché goes 'I'm new to vBulletin and I've got some questions' ;)

I'd really like to keep this thread open if possible so that I can post new questions as and when I discover them. The main thing bothering me at the moment is image copyright. Obviously I'm quite aware in the general sense that other people's images are other people's property but I'm not sure where I stand by using certain images on my forum.

For example, I have my current forum's 'Go to last new post' icon set to a small Sonic the hedgehog image (used to be a big SEGA fan) and I'm wondering if this is legal or likely to get me into any trouble at all? I mean do I get to use the image under fair use terms? I found all my images online on 'free stuff for forums' type sites but this doesn't guarantee the legality as I'm only too aware.

I've seen skins using Microsoft images for sale commercially and skins with car pictures, anime shots etc so I'm wondering if this is a grey area in general I suppose.

I'd love to use some Transformers images too but the same problem seems evident. Avatars seem to be allowed though so I'm wondering what the general consensus is please? Is there a way for me to state somewhere that these are not my copyrighted images and does my use class as 'fair' or acceptable use (even in the sense of turning a blind eye) or not?

Also, are smilies copyrighted? I love a lot of the vBsetup smilies and I'd love to use some on my own forum but I'm not sure whether I'm allowed or how to ask for permission. I've seen lots of generic smilies online for free and in different colours etc but does this mean that I can use any smilies I like on my forum?

Thanks for your help everybody I have loads more questions like I say but I need to get my thoughts straight first so I don't waffle on too much ;)

Peace.

Pro.

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I've got my vBulletin installed now but it's literally just a default install with nothing on it yet so I'll keep it under wraps for now. I'm wanting to ask how I host normal HTML pages on my vBulletin account like on a normal web page?

I have a normal website that my new forum will be replacing and I'd like to host it on my forum server so that it's accessible via a link from my forum as in 'Click here to view my old website' or similar. I'm with SiteGround and so I've got cPanel to play with but I don't know how to host HTML files or where to put them.

I'm aware that I might have to rename the Index page (of my old site) to something different and update the internal website links accordingly but I've decided to make my own CMS using HTML and so this all ties in with the same sort of question.

I've still got my active InvisionFree forum and though I can't download the DB directly I can download HTML versions of all topics which I'd like to host on my new forum account. Also, I'm wondering whether I should wait until I install Web Templates or similar as ideally I'd like my HTML pages wrapped by vB login details etc. I'd like my HTML pages to be 'Powered by vBulletin' you might say ;) Would it be a simple case of copying and pasting the HTML into a new Web Templates created page to embed the HTML in a powered by vB page?

Thanks for your help everybody

Pro.

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How do I get all the little icons at the bottom of each post please? Facebook, AskJeeves etc. Thanks

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For your copywrite questions, create a terms of use page and include a clause stating that any images or logos hosted on this site will be removed at the owners request if in violation of copywrite act.

I can't answer your technical questions, maybe someone will chime in.

Hi Luigi, thanks for the reply Have you any idea whether or not I should just write my copyright myself or should I seek legal counsel?

Talking of image copyright, I've been thinking about MySpace and all those millions of layout sites with photos etc. They never seem to have any trouble do they

As for hosting the HTML files on my new server, it should be as simple as just uploading the files into the correct folder then linking from there I think, I'm just not at all sure where to upload the files to yet.

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Now that you've got your vBulletin installed, send Brandon a reply to his PM so you can gain full access to the forums.

As for some of your questions:
Creating a vBulletin "wrapped" page is somewhat difficult and time consuming if you don't want to use vBadvanced or another similar CMS. You can look at this modification if you sign up on vbulletin.org and it might give you some ideas on how to create html powered pages within vB.
How to create your own vBulletin-powered page! (uses vB templates) - vBulletin.org Forum

As for the social media images under the posts, that is part of vBSEO.

, thanks for the reply I PMd Brandon as soon as I got vB installed but he's not gotten back to me with instructions on how to prove my new status. The vB wrapped thing, I think I'll be able to do this myself through coding hopefully but vBadvanced is free isn't it? In theory I could use this software to explore the options. Do you mean that vBA can create the equivalent of a template? If so this sounds ideal for a quick fix until I learn more coding skills.

I've already seen that thread since I posted this thread but thanks anyway. I'm not too bothered now about the login etc, the main goal for me is being able to host HTML pages within my forum pages. By this I mean linked to the same as a normal website. Do I just drop some pages over to my server and link to their location? Is it that simple to use HTML pages with vBulletin?

The social media stuff, is it somehow copyrighted to vBSEO? I'm thinking that I could just embed <img src= and link to the bookmarking (or charity) sites that way assuming I've got the icons readable at such a small size. I might buy vBSEO soon when I've earned some more money that's spare but in the mean time I'd like to hard code my php URLs somehow. I think I noticed a thread on here about doing this or tools for rewriting them anyway. I'll have to look into this.

I'm trying to strike a balance between reading as much as I can before posting yet still interacting with everybody and hopefully helping other new users who may read my posts and the replies I get.

The main thing I'd really really love to know is how to go about hosting my old HTML files so that I can treat them as posts in the sense of linking to them etc and having them hosted under my main forum URL.

I'll look into what format to rewrite my URLs with too, I read an article somewhere about Google recognising either a dash(-) or an underscore as a character or whatever it was. I've got a lot of extremely diverse content, not for anything to do with SEO it's just that I've written a 'theory of everything' as it's known in physics and I happen to be into a lot of diverse things so my board topics reflect this.

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