I am curious if there would be a demand for a possible option to use a similar system for master theme protection as is currently used for some MyColors themes?

The downside would be the users would be unable to modify the graphics themselves other than using the recolouring and texturing features built into WindowBlinds.

Problem with download links is a lot are servers in other countries and I know the site in question... I reported them to WC about a year ago....even went as far as contacting the Web Sherriff and the sever is located where DCMA,etc. means nothing...

Damn, These asshole Pirates

the one Vampothika menchened earlier but now I don't see it's name any more

has.  

Alloy Updated Jul 20, 2010 by Z71

posted on that site...

not even 1 day and Stolen..

I'm sure that was obtained from Ross' site directly. I saw it up on that site earlier today (before it was approved here on WC)

Edit

Yeah that would be a double edged sword...good for the creator bad for skinning. And since I hate MyColors that would end any Master skins I'd buy. This really sucks that nothing can be done about those people.

It's times like these I wish I had some hacking skills...I'd be all over that place like a bad politician messing things up before they kicked me out. 

Sad to say ...shit happens....I'd bet its not the only site out there giving away all the master  and stardock skins.  I know one master skin thats been downloaded 10 times more than its been sold.

Yes Please Neil, if my colours has it, I dont see why master skins cant have it, afterall stardock takes half of the profits from master skins,

so it should be in stardocks interest to do so.

Not everyone has their own site ID, i dont, and im sure not every master skinner has one.

I am sorry for my late reply to some personal Pm's but im awake now, its 5.45 am in the morning here.

Lightstar has done a bloody sensational job helping me with this. thankyou matee, you effing ROCK.

we need to do more here to protect our master skins,

The problem with this Kitty is you would lose sales as well doing it this way. As much as I like skins I hate MyColors since you can't make other stuff from the skin and I just hate the way MyColors messes up my machine. What we need a good pitbull hacker!

RomanDA

 and SVIZ are needed then.

I definitely agree but I would hate to lose the ability to tweak master skins that I purchase.......for some reason or another, I've had to actually fix some issues I had with master skins, not to mention I like tweaking them to my liking. This protection plan limits users like me, who actually pay for skins.

Maybe we should try thinking of another way to protect them. Things get kind of complicated because master skins are sold on other sites besides wincustomize. Argh I don't know what the answer is. Maybe we could flood the pirating site with fake master skins which are just empty .wba files?   

yeah if we could protect them and still be able to tweak them, that would be awsome.

Nice to see Stardock (Neil) is suggesting a way to protect these from being ripped.

Perhaps a registration system like the one used on the Dreams that Stardock Designs sold as Master skins could be used. That along with encrypted graphics would help a great deal.

I'm not a programmer so I'm not sure if it could be done, but it's definitely in Stardock's best interest to protect the Master skins from being ripped.

Solve this problem - new wincustomize community contest??

Don't copyright laws protect this stuff....if not what's the point of the law then? Maybe we need to do it the old fashioned way and show up at their doorstep with bats.

Not all countries respect copyright laws, such as this one.  This is why so many of them are based in these countries.  

so then, can something be done to protect our master skins, like a registration code or something that can only be used on one ip address?

I don't know what the technical aspects are of what can be done to protect them.  Neil would know far more about what would be feasible and cost effective, if any.

Right now, I would suggest getting the download links (rapidshare, mediafire, etc.) and sending them DMCA removals.

Neil....

The solution "might" be to provide the system as an option [to the uploader].... so there would be two 'classes' of Master skin....one that was protected and thus 'safe' from abuse and another option [for the Master] of leaving it as is....maybe more popular to tweakers...but also exposed to potential piracy.