Here's a thought....

Pain in the bum but.....

ALL Master WB skins are sold "protected"....and cannot be altered/tweaked.

Buyers who wish to tweak it can contact the Master and obtain a second 'unprotected' copy directly from him/her via email.

The Master 'marks' each version emailed out differently...in a way only he/she can determine  [digital signing in the hidden bits of a Jpeg, etc].

Then...

The tweaker can tweak....

But if the tweaker also attempts to Pirate/distribute ... the version distributed can be traced to that person.

Then....that person gets a visit.

DCMA removals are not respected in Turkey Island Dog, where this website originates. They do not even know what that is.  This is an international ring of thieves so to speak, Turkey, the Netherlands, fake addresses in the U.S., fake names, protected WHOIS information so you cannot contact anyone, etc.  If you type in the .com domain name of this site, it goes to a Turkish language site.  If you type in the .info domain it goes to an English site.  If you type in the .net domain it forwards to the same English site also.  This is probably a useless battle unfortunately, but I am giving them hell anyway!  I have sent multiple emails to different addresses, but of course no one answers.

Oh, and another problem that I think may occur is that the people that own the website, also own the file distribution services.  They give two download links for each illegal download, and both of their "Contact Us" pages are identical and provide you with the exact same auto-reply.

I dunno, but why not Post these skins in a password protected archive (Like PGP Encrypted) and you cant use it without the password for the archive....then maybe it'd slow them down a bit if they had to BUY the password or key......just an idea

Because it would be useless effort in that it is the people or persons buying these skins who are the ones giving them out to the illegal sites in the first place.

that sounds like a great step forward and a good solution to help us protect what we make here. I hope Neil can help us.

This sounds like  good idea! Protected and still able to create stuff for it.

I agree!

Many sites such as this, don't actually host the downloads, they post the links to the downloads to sites such as rapidshare, mediafire, etc.

They have a depositfiles link for the Prowler skin.  The DMCA can be sent to - http://depositfiles.com/en/abuse_copyr.html

Obviously some sites are DMCA friendly, and some are not.  All you can do is try.

I would love to be able to encrypt my skins. I would even pay a small yearly fee, to do so. Something to think about Stardock...

This will always be a never ending battle. Half the planet cares about the artist, the other half doesn't (They just think of them selves).

Some will even buy the skin and give it away free, just to make friends, in the community their in. For ever "one" iI stop, there's 20 more I don't know about. It's an endless job.

As for the encrypted images, I agree, if you want to make skins, there is no problem requesting the images from the author. Plain and simple.

Sounds like a good idea to me.

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.