Customize.Ru - time to complain/act
Hosting 'our' skins without consent is a Copyright issue
Thursday, June 21, 2007 by Jafo | Discussion: Community
Skinners.....pop on over to....
http://www.best-skins.net/themes_windowblinds.html
There you will find all manner of Windowblinds skins [just for starters - other skinnables are there, too].
It's not a 100% guarantee that ALL are there without consent...but highly likely at least MOST are.
The authors whose works are ripped [distributed without author's consent] include....[in no particular order, just going through the list] ->
Adni18
treetog
Mike Bryant
Tom and Dee
Martinsh
Daniel
Apocalypse_67
Cliff
'Unknown' <--- [yeah, good one]
Danillook [sp] 
Mike Bryant [again]
Velvet_skin
JJ.Ying
Ian Black
Shawn Taylor
Martnish
Javier
The Skins Factory
Michael Branot [typo]
JJ.Ying [again]
.....and that's the first 4 pages....[there are 12]
To 'convince' Customize.Ru to remove any/all that have no consent to be there....or to convince the site's ISP to 'have something done about them and/or the site itself a wee bit of action/effort is needed.
Any author/skinner who has an issue with any of his/her works being on that site unlawfully needs to post here a link to each work that needs removal....
And...
To email the site ISP with a request and include the link needing to be removed.
The Email addy is.... [email protected] [It's an US ISP]
If you post the links-of-issue here I'll also be emailing requests.
Each link will require an individual email. I expect the resulting 'flood' will prompt some form of action....
Koop [Larry Kuperman] is Stardock's man-on-the-job in matters such as Warez/Property issues pertaining to Stardock.com, however this problem with the skins impacts directly on the skin authors themselves and hence is best handled by their direct IP owner. [Copyright holder].
Now, as with any issue pertaining to property rights management, by far the BEST course of action is to specifically be POLITE and cool-headed with any communications/requests.
So,
We ask only two things of you all here.....
1. Please don't flood this thread with comments of 'those bastards', etc., just leave it clear for the matter at hand, namely the reclaimation of OUR ownership/control of OUR property.....by the listing of names and links of people affected.
and
2. Keep all communications civil. {I have dealt professionally with various 'Authorities' for over 30 years.... Councils, Planners, Administrative Appeals Tribunals, all sorts of 'fun' Archie things.....and know for a fact that IRATE gets you nowhere....real fast. [my fave letter closure is "I await your favourable reply"]....
This is all something the 'older' skinners will have already experienced from time to time.
Of course, if ANY of these skins are actually there WITH author's consent.....PLEASE, make note of that here too....
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Reply #42 Saturday, June 23, 2007 10:16 AM
How difficult of a task is this going to be? Is it a good sign that some of the links are dead?
Reply #43 Saturday, June 23, 2007 10:59 AM
Never easy....but no good fight ever is.
The ideal outcome is the ISP outlaws the site totally rather than altering content/whatever.
Jafo continues with emails ...
Reply #44 Saturday, June 23, 2007 2:06 PM
Thanks Jafo and all SD/WC team
Reply #45 Saturday, June 23, 2007 2:27 PM
Reply #47 Saturday, June 23, 2007 8:50 PM
Paul,
The offending domain has been shut down.
PING customize.ru (205.234.222.108) 56(84) bytes of data.
--- customize.ru ping statistics ---
4 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 2999ms
Regards,
Darrell
Ticket Details
===================
Ticket ID: MWE-338237
Department: HostForWeb Abuse
Priority: Low
Status: Closed
Reply #48 Saturday, June 23, 2007 9:19 PM
But was there anything for sale at this website?
Or was it they just give everything away free.
In the past few weeks we have been tracking some hackers from Russia.
Which have been more than just offering stolen copyrights. [those that where]
We have also found they use a lot of stuff to gain access to peoples computers.
To take control! I hope no - one has downloaded and installed any of the skins.
You may find out about it later...
SGT
Reply #49 Saturday, June 23, 2007 9:51 PM
Shelby....I don't recall anything being 'sold'....but premium skins and warez software was hosted on the site, as well as 'general' skins [freeware].
As with any warez, it's a 'safe' bet you get MORE than what you expect....in the form of trojans, etc....
Reply #53 Sunday, June 24, 2007 12:16 PM
Reply #55 Monday, June 25, 2007 3:48 AM
Keep up the good work! People who steal suck.
Reply #56 Monday, June 25, 2007 8:26 PM
Jafo would like to take the credit for the current [permanent?] results.......
But....
That goes to Koop.
What we did as a group, though was to annoy the 'powers that be' just enough that Larry was ably to finally administer the coup de gras [Koop de gras, perhaps].....
Reply #57 Monday, June 25, 2007 8:45 PM
I would like to think that the site is down for the count, if so, all who helped deserve to take part of the credit.
Reply #58 Monday, June 25, 2007 10:47 PM
someone put that in the skinners motto thread
Reply #60 Tuesday, June 26, 2007 11:13 AM
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Reply #41 Saturday, June 23, 2007 10:01 AM
Not quite....some of the links are dead.
It's time to deal with others...