Michael,
Go pick up a rap album and you'll see they often sample and "mix" from other performers - usually with permission but sometimes without. If I take a song with samples in it like Tone Loc's "Wild THANG" samples Van Halen's Janie's Cryin. Then, I took Tone Loc's song and slowed it down and changed a word or two, then released it saying "Hey, this is my new song MILD Thing". I'd really be seen as a putz and a poser in the Rap world. The producers and record company who defended me would be seen as 2-bit companies that respected Rap artists wouldn't want to be affiliated with.

And so it is with you defending the behavior of PPXSKins and Lonnie. It also suggests you don't comprehend what this whole skinning idea is all about. It's not playing to the LOWEST common denominator. You want the best. Why you would ever let your affiliate host skins that cheapen your company image is beyond me.

At one stage a certain person was 'porting' Pixtudio's images/skins/icons to be used with the Opera Web Browser.

As an Admin for Pixtudio.com I contacted this person explaining he was in breach of Pixtudio's copyright.  He claimed English comprehension as his excuse and did nothing.

Subsequently I contacted Opera [the company] and explained the situation.  They immediately removed the 'problem' works from their site.  Their reasoning was that it is particularly bad form [publicity] to ostracise the very community you need to attract to assist in the promotion and betterment of their product.

It made good commercial sense to respect the rights of the artists who provide the skins for your program.  It is a symbiotic relationship, not dissociative.

Well-managed companies such as Stardock.com fully understand this symbiosis, hence this site [Wincusto]....and one darn good reason for that is that FrogBoy is also a skinner and knows both sides of the situation.

Now, any skinnable software company who fails to adequately support/assist/promote its product's skinners is likely to be less successful commercially than it would otherwise be.

Cutting off one's nose to spite one's face is rarely a good idea....

Uh..I guess I get that sort of. Kind of like Juni's relationship with Snoopsoft right..interconnected..but really on the down low

no. yesh .... what hes saying is screw with the real skinners and they will bail on the site and leave that company and site out to dry .. in the end all sites that support rippers, die out due to the lack of real skinners building stuff....got it now ?

>>Uh..I guess I get that sort of. Kind of like Juni's >>relationship with Snoopsoft right..interconnected..

No, not in any way interconnected, I did Dashboards default skin (for free). Other than that, I'm not affiliated with Snoopsoft in any way.

I skin programs I like using myself, as I am sure any other skinner does too. If I had taken to PPX I would have been making PPX skins. I'm still considering starting to use Windowblinds again and maybe skinning that - but if I remember correctly it is quite timeconsuming (must be even more so now that it has evolved since I last did skins for it).

"And so it is with you defending the behavior of PPXSKins and Lonnie. It also suggests you don't comprehend what this whole skinning idea is all about. It's not playing to the LOWEST common denominator. You want the best. Why you would ever let your affiliate host skins that cheapen your company image is beyond me."

I am defending all of you, believe it or not. Remember, I am not a skinner so I do not live by the same hypocrisies. There is no middle ground for me. Like I said, all my skins are 100% legit. I take nothing from other websites and purchase graphics out right. There is no borrowing. That is one reason in the beginning I got a little offended because I go to all this work and I have these people with blatantly borrowed images questioning my integrity, honor and ethics. I was baffled as to why people who live in glass houses were throwing rocks. Come on, Lonnies images look like Juni's because they got them from the same place. Example, MyPDA, http://specials.msn.com/msn9/new/default.HTM Do it for yourself, if I cut the House graphic for example, resize to 90 pixels in height (proportional), the image lays perfectly over the skins done by Lonnie and Juni. Since I am not a skinner and not a hypocrit I only defend PPXSkins.com's decision because where do you stop? If Lonnie gets it, so does Juni and about 99% of the other skinners. You got to be fair about it or the whole thing. Unless you are talking about playing favorites and then you get into being a hypocrit again and integrity issues arise again.

BUT I am realistic and willing to compromise and go along with what others accept. Doesn't mean I have to do what they accept or even say it is right.

Of course I only did any type of looking on this matter after Lonnie decided to be an idiot about everything. I do not condone his actions in the least but he has answered every single argument with something else. My position became is if he isn't left alone he will just ruin it for everyone, because the evidence is there, no one is right. Why give Lonnie any more fuel to take it out on all of you?

I will still continue to link to these sites that contain skins that have "borrowed" images but more then likely I will launch a skinning area again at PPX3k.com. Where skins are submitted and scrutinized for "borrowed" images. In my opionion, people who could hold up to the scrutiny would be what you call "real skinners" (someone else's words). Personally, I see you all as real skinners, just some are a little more misguided and ill-intentioned then others.

At one stage a certain person was 'porting' Pixtudio's images/skins/icons to be used with the Opera Web Browser.

the BIG difference (at least for me) is that the Pixtudio images are originals.
Juni on the other hand has stolen the images from Microsoft. after that a guy with even less creativity copies them. it´s rip of a rip and hardly worth all the uproar.
with dozens (if not hundreds) of Aqua rips for WindowBlinds/msstyle, it´s hard to imagine why there should be only one Longhorn rip for Pocket PCs.

it´s rip of a rip and hardly worth all the uproar.

moshi...the whole issue of porting is an old and well traversed one.

The problem arises when someone ports from a port....it all gets very THIRD hand that way.

When determining who [if anyone] has copied a skin from whom....[not referring to OS imagery used by one skinner to create a related item] the difference is that the 'copy' may use the same CONCEPT of OS-imagery use as another skinner which means the latter's use is a COPY of the earlier work, though BOTH use 'borrowed' images.

Sure it's 'grey area', but here is a clear and simple example......

I create a Photoshop icon......from a Paintshop Pro image......

it's NQR as it's an inappropriate use in anyone's reasoning.

Joe Dickhead also uses a PhP image as a PSP icon......equally 'wrong', but also borrowing [polite word] from my innovation/creativity of using such an image.

Joe Dickhead is doubly damned....he has used an 'iffy' image association, AND he stole the idea of doing so from me.

Porting will ALWAYS be a problem.....the first BeOS theme was  brilliant [though most definitely 'illegal']....the second was just likely to be a cheap rip-off of the first .....and there-in lies the rub.

OS emulation in skinning has NEVER been sanctioned by the OS manufacturers....but a gentleman's agreement applies that it is not a 'bad thing' [tm] to engage in.

Copies of such, however end up in our sphere of influence....and needs must be discriminated against if shown to be copied in concept or execution.

Now that's not bad for a guy who is totally sozzled.....I can still string a coherent sentence together......better than some....

well ... some people say that skinning is getting more mature (due to the reason that some people sell skins and others buy them). shouldn´t the rules get more "real life" then? the thaught of Juni sueing the other guy and trying to convince the judge that he stole the images first and therefore has some kind of copyright on them is hilarious.

sure, that "Lonnie the skinner" individual is lame as f**k and probably has some personality problems when he calls himself "Luni".

"innovation/creativity of using such an image." - that´s the point. there is very little, if any, innovation or creativity in doing so. sure not enough to be worth protected imho. you can not put something lame as an os port on the same level as something creative or innovative as the Pixtudio images.

btw: "gentleman´s agreement" is nothing but a polite word for hypocrisy and has no meaning in real life. try to explain somebody without bias why it should be ok to steal from one company (Microsoft in this case) but not from the other (Pixtudio).

No, not in any way interconnected, I did Dashboards default skin (for free). Other than that, I'm not affiliated with Snoopsoft in any way.

Riiiiiight..Last time I checked snoopsoft's site, your name was ALL over that, with links to your now defunct site.

"With all new skins designed by Juni"

Yeah, you're not linked at all.. Lonnie the Skinner looks for the money lining Juni's bed.

the thaught of Juni sueing the other guy and trying to convince the judge that he stole the images first and therefore has some kind of copyright on them is hilarious.

moshi.....that is not the issue.....if I was the first to come up with the idea of a red sky and another person borrowed that....the latter could not argue that God invented the sky first.....not when I was the first to paint it red.

This isn't about ideals and absolutes....it's about the immediacy of copied interpretation.

I have to live with the arcane concept of 'fair use' and 'fan art' which is not a universally applied sub-set of the copyright law, but is in effect in the US.

Morons will argue that God owns all copyrights but that, too is idiocy.

What is deemed 'acceptable' in the majority of skinning sites is that the use of OS images is 'OK' as the skins are an enhancement/adjunct to that OS.

What is NOT ok is a second person making use of those same images in the same creative way as the first person.  The first person's creative input/originality is being plagiarised by the second person....and that is deemed 'ripping'.

God knows how this can be explained to you, personally, as a bolt from the almighty would fall on deaf ears, but without getting all esoteric and hypothetical and idealist, the reality is that if you are NOT the first person to use an MS icon as a bookend then you are the second and therefore most likely have copied the first.

Get it?

but then i could also steal some images from Pixtudio and be the first to create an msstyle or (if mstyle is to close as format to WindowBlinds) a layout in a print magazine with them. i would be an innovator as Juni then, all other thiefs would be evil rippers as "Luni".

Microsoft is a real company and not some higher entity as God (at least not yet). they even sell skins, wallpapers and icons in their so-called PlusPack.

When the call came out looking for a skinner to do the default skin for Dashboard... it was clearly stated that the only thing Snoopsoft had to offer the skinner was bragging rights. I imagine having a link in this circumstance are those bragging rights. Secondly any skinner had a chance to create it not just Juni... this has evolved into a very vague discussion. Moshi its called parody however one can not use the actual images IMO. create the work your self. The only OS maker to get upset appears to be Apple, If they thought about it they would realize that parody creates interest in their product, I believe MS has realised this and also makes use of skinners skills! Michael you continue to say Lonny/Luni got his images from the same place, when in fact its obvious he simply made a few quick edits. Flip horizontally and resize run a filtre or two.

I have to live with the arcane concept of 'fair use' and 'fan art' which is not a universally applied sub-set of the copyright law, but is in effect in the US.

yes, but that would allow both rippers (first and second) to distribute their rips and is therefore irrelevant.

What is deemed 'acceptable' in the majority of skinning sites is that the use of OS images is 'OK' as the skins are an enhancement/adjunct to that OS.

which is also irrelevant outside the skinning world.

God knows how this can be explained to you, personally,

maybe She will explain me that on Epiphany. we usually talk about more important issues though.

moshi.....the whole concept of porting an OS is different to copying a private individual's images.

Don't give me this crap....you are not that stupid to see the difference.

If one accepts 'porting' of an OS...eg to create a MS version of Linux....or a Linux version of Windows....via their respective GUI shells....it's a different issue to grabbing the Mona Lisa and calling it a WinAMP skin.

Give me a break....I'm not in the best mood to split hairs with the argumentative.

"you are not that stupid to see the difference."

that was a Freudian. there is not that much of a difference, it´s both lame and boring. but yeah that difference exists for me as well, i often said that´s it´s fine for me if you want to steal from companies, file-share or distribute warez (that $20 shareware font is still distributed in a well known author´s skin here - nearly 15,000 downloads => $ 300,000 damage ) or whatever. i don´t really care.

but when people want to copyright rips it gets weird sorry, but i just see that from a real life perspective.

i might close this with a quote from William Bart:

BB: Not designers that matter, no. What is the point of plagiarizing Aqua? Apple has every right to protect their intellectual property, as far as I'm concerned. Inspired by Aqua, that's a different story... but these are direct ripoffs, not 'inspired' pieces. The vast majority use pixels captured either directly from OSX or from screenshots. Zero originality = zero sympathy, at least as I see it. A lot of wasted effort for what? Exercise?

http://www.teknidermy.com/issue4/iviewbart.html

What is NOT ok is a second person making use of those same images in the same creative way as the first person. The first person's creative input/originality is being plagiarised by the second person....and that is deemed 'ripping'.

So because Juni stole those images first, then that makes it ok. Well, we better call Microsoft to take down those images off their MSN site, cause obviously Juni has them copyright, cause obviously he must, using them in both his Pocket MSN and myPDA skin.

Lonnie the Skinner...being deliberately obtuse is wasting your breath....and your audience's interest.