I cant give the name of the site obviosly, but im sick to death of trying to get rid of this site and trying to deal with
the people who own the sites where the download links are found to disable downloading master skins.
yes, just about every master skin is on this site, why cant we shut this place down?
and why are people on that site asking ME to leave and not vice versa. I registered on that site just so I could
make a stand and say something about my fire starter skin being on that site, and other master skins as well.
But all ive recieved back is comments like
: well its free so why should we buy it?
:maybe you should leave the site, your getting too upset over this
: oh im poor so i cant afford to buy it.
: my skin isnt good enough to be sold as a master skin, thats why its being porned off free on that sight
: and last, shutting down that site wont give me any sales at wincustomize.
Nothing but arrogance, nice hey? Acording to them, its just tuff toblerones and we just have to put up with it,
the site they say is open to everyone, and maybe I should download stuff too? no thanks. im not that kind
of person.
Can we PLEASE have something done about this site?
Kitty.
I hope it doesn't go the MyColors route. In case folks have forgotten, it's impossible to get MyColors and Windowblinds to work together correctly. Also, MyColors and WB don't update well together on Impulse.
Sorry if this throws a wet blanket.
Perhaps I'm wrong and this problem has been solved (in secret).
Me thinks, if they won't play nice, then don't play nice either. In other words, if they won't remove the rips, send 'em a trojan that brings their site down like a house of cards on a rickety table... as WG suggested... hack the bastards.
Yeah, I know... stooping to their level, blah, blah, blah, but wtf are you supposed to do when they have no respect. Seems to me, the time has passed for turning the other cheek and all that crap... so dispense with the niceties and off with the gloves.
How many Masters will give up graphics to anyone wanting to make a skin, even just for personal use only?
Most of them are quite reasonable and know the people who make the matching skins.
See....that's why 'we' like the idea of declaring 'criminality' for IP...same as all those 'accepted' crimes that people are happy to see governments/Law/Police act upon.
There's nothing 'civil' in IP theft and Piracy.
And it's not 'just' corporations [greedy or otherwise] that are hurt/affected by such sites.
Instead...it's people you know/respect/like.
Government instigated/endorsed trade sanctions against countries/entities that ignore the issue or flatly refuse to pursue the crooks taking sanctuary within their borders/sphere of control.
Legal recourse...not DOS attacks.
More power [kudos] to those countries who DO chase them....
yep
so when can we have the encoding thing done? Is Neil going to work on it for us? I dont mind paying a small fee either, like Ross suggested....
I know this is gonna sound gay, but this is an awsome step forward for wincustomize if this coding goes ahead.
It sounds good BUT the hackers will still find it and just remove them.
the none hackers would be caught but, then the none hackres that know how to hide
their IP addres wouldn't...
and we know the Pirates are here..
Just follow my lead and Make crapy stuff that no one wants to download. Anti-Pirated .....
Oh, wait that would only work if you don't have the talent to make good skins WP, etc..
Some tips that might help
if your skin, WP, Etc. is on a Pirate site before it is uploaded here or on your other site(s) it's a good call that someone(s) that was helping you with it
(testing, making other skins, etc. off it) would be a Pirate of interest.
Upload your Art to one site at a time wait 2 to 5 days and check the Pirated site too see if it is there... if one is there day one and lets just say you sold 3
you know it has to be one of those 3.
it's just a thought.. I know it's out there, but is it..
ROFLMAO!!! I'm going to be chuckling about this for the next few days...thanks DC, I needed a laugh.
I know how to 'sign' a skin/image to identify it again.
The 'pain in the bum' bit is that each reworkable distributed skin needs to be 'treated' individually....and the Skinner would have to keep a database record of who got which 'version'.
If the skin IS distributed the very real potential to track its source/origin might just be enough 'deterent' to stem the tide.
k10w3, hope you didn't bump your head Rolling on the Floor either way Glad I got you too ROF (A.K.A. Roll on the floor)
So Jafo, the Master Skins etc. are not uploaded to the site (Like WC) they are coming straight from the Artiest?
that is something I wouldnt mind doing at all, it would be worth the effort.
This is just an idea....I only thunk it up today.
The system would be....people would buy the Master skin as usual....with Wincustomize.com handling the process...but the only skins accessible would be locked [not able to be 'tweaked' as regular skinners like to do].
That isn't going to affect MOST users - as most wouldn't be 'tweaking' as the process is beyond most people's ability/interest/need.
If a buyer is also a skinner...eg wishing to 'port' a skin to an alternate proggy...or fiddle with the original [beyond the scope of the WB options] he/she would request a 'watermarked' but non-encrypted copy from the Master direct [providing evidence of purchase so as not to get it for nix].
That way...the public use skin is encrypted and 'safe' and the non-encrypted [and less common] copies can be traced if/when someone wants to be a mug.
If it's do-able it will certainly put a dent in the current 'trade'...
I was thinking about this. One way to solve this problem would be to have a master skin compiler which would encrypt the configuration files (without them the theme is useless, just a bunch of graphics) when making a master skin.
WB would decrypt the config files in memory only. If a user makes changes to a master skin (and WB knows it's a master skin because the configuration file was encrypted to begin with), the resulting configuration file would be encrypted with the same key used for the original master theme before being saved to disk. Only a user with a valid key installed on his computer would thus be able to use the modified theme(s).
An obvious problem is what happens if the key is leaked together with the master skin (and it will), but that is the same problem faced by all copy protection mechanisms. At least you would be able to indentify users who leaked particular master themes to warez sites, and later versions of WB could blacklist that particular key.
Another problem is that including the encryption algorithm in WB to allow for modified skins (even when using public/private keys) would make it a lot easier for hackers to create keygens simply by reverse engineering WB. On the other hand, are users in that site sophisticated enough for this?
After all, no protection is unbreakable - you can only hope you made it so difficult, convoluted and boring that the vast majority of wanna-be hackers will give up before they succeed in cracking it.
Ah, ah, Jafo, we posted nearly at the same time!
Good idea too.
Jafo,
Don't get me wrong it's sound like I good ideal.. But yes you know me by now I have too put that BUT in it...
so how would the artist know who is Pirating their art without becoming a Pirate them selfs cause they would have to
download it to see the Watermark... and their skin WB, etc. might be in with a Download of lets say 10 other Artistes and lets say he/she don't know.
the other Artists.
the artist downloads it don't they uplaod it at the same time? if so they just helped lets say 100 to a 1,000 more people still
someone eleses art.
I'm just tring to look at you Ideal from every angle because I do think it sounds good... but if you don't have anyone other then YES men, saying it's
good and not pionting the other angles, out then it's dead...
regular skinners tweak other skinner skins, for what purpose? I can see looking under the hood to see how something was made but... it's just hard to imagine say Kitty tweaking one of John's blinds, or visa versa, for any reason.
I assume that most "regular" skinners are using their own skins, maybe I'm incorrect and I'm only speaking from my own experience.
Some people like moving or changing the start buttons....taskbar all sorts of things. It's a matter of personal preference. Just another part of customizing.
I always have to tweak the coding of the window frames for my blinds to work properly because my laptop is stupid. Also, I've updated several different (older) skins to be windows 7 compatible.
Skinners do their own thing....even if it's someone else's to start with.
I don't mean skin users...I mean skinners.
Lots of people will buy a Model T Ford [or did]...but only 'some' will put a small-block V8 in it and chop and channel, etc.
DC...now you are simply over-analyzing it. The intent of all this is to prevent the piracy from the outset - not to create new and wonderful reasons to dl the warez in the wild.
But 'when' it's found out there...[by whom-ever] it can be traced.
The act of 'catching it' isn't an issue.
Last year or so I pretended to be an idiot-child wanting a cracked ver of Windowblinds from a genuine idiot-child.... because a certain person called Neil was curious as to whether it was a new 'release' or one he already had record of.
Doing so doesn't make me a warez junkie/pirate.... just the same as [today's news] that arrest of 3 guys in Melbourne who were accessing child porn doesn't make the police investigators guilty by association.
@ Jafo re #55......
Now how did I know you were going to say that!!!
And in an ideal world, politicians would be prosecuted and jailed for breaking election promises (and we're gonna hear a few of those over then next few weeks), but it just ain't gonna happen, is it!!!
Oh, and where else did I see support/endorsement for my argument that nobody else is responsible for pursuing copyright holders rights???.... Um, that's right....
... and when that fails.. he/she engages the services of a copyright lawyer and together they pursue the matter in the civil courts. That way it keeps (otherwise distracted) law enforcement officers on the ground, where they should be... in the service of public safety, otherwise, anarchy reigns.
Oh, and let's not construe this as me not caring about master skinners IP. I do, and I sincerely hope this matter can satisfactorily be resolved in their favour, real pronto like. Sure, what I said before was flippant, and perhaps encouraging one to take the law into one's own hands, but sometimes you gotta fight fire with....um, a stick or three of gelignite.
Um, has anyone given thought to better protection on Windowblinds itself? After all, if they don't have a working copy of Windowblinds then they will not be using any skins at all now will they...
That's only one side of the coin...
Bit like fitting locks on a car.....but not on a petrol bowser.
excuse me, my comment was directed towards windowblinds only and I didn't take into account those other talented people that skin other things.
It's not something that can just be done instantly. It will need to be discussed and decided upon.
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