New version of StyleXP claims to be able to use encrypted IP themes
Tuesday, July 20, 2004 by MSethWeisberg | Discussion: WinCustomize Talk
Don't know if anyone has seen this yet, but tgtsoft released ver 2.11 on Friday that claims it's icontraslate program can now read IP encrypted themes.
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MindlessPuppet
Reply #42 Tuesday, July 20, 2004 10:12 PM
Reply #42 Tuesday, July 20, 2004 10:12 PM
Tell me that they can't create .iptheme through their software at least.
Frogboy
Reply #43 Tuesday, July 20, 2004 10:29 PM
Reply #43 Tuesday, July 20, 2004 10:29 PM
I don't think they can create any "icon sets" from scratch with it.
MSethWeisberg
Reply #44 Tuesday, July 20, 2004 10:33 PM
Reply #44 Tuesday, July 20, 2004 10:33 PM
At least what they have done is legal. While I don't personally agree with it, it's nice to know that Stardock/TGTsoft have settled their differences.
MindlessPuppet
Reply #45 Tuesday, July 20, 2004 10:36 PM
Reply #45 Tuesday, July 20, 2004 10:36 PM
Couldn't they argue the same thing about wba's and such too, I mean once a WBA is extracted all the pieces are open resources.
kona0197
Reply #46 Tuesday, July 20, 2004 11:35 PM
Honestly I don't see it that way. They are still cracking the encryption so they are still up to no good.
Reply #46 Tuesday, July 20, 2004 11:35 PM
| At least what they have done is legal. While I don't personally agree with it, it's nice to know that Stardock/TGTsoft have settled their differences. |
Honestly I don't see it that way. They are still cracking the encryption so they are still up to no good.
Kevin_C
Reply #47 Wednesday, July 21, 2004 8:01 AM
Reply #47 Wednesday, July 21, 2004 8:01 AM
I personally feel that TGTSoft are a bunch of thugs.. Hopefully some of the people that pay them for StyleXP will wake up and realize that the program IS NOT zero footprint. Recently I actually spoke with a person here at work who uses StyleXP and he gave me practically verbatim the marketing message from tgtsoft.com as the reason he uses the program. It was really funny to listen to an intelligent person blindly repeat that message like he knew it to be a fact. When I questioned him about whether he knew that his themes were simply running under the cover of one of the svchost.exe processes and probably using 20MB+ of memory, he seemed really surprised. I'm going to show him WB and everything it can do and see if maybe we can convert one more from the dark side. 
On a related note I was browsing the ThemeXP forums yesterday and it seems there are quite a few people who are really ticked about the spyware packed skins..
[Message Edited]
On a related note I was browsing the ThemeXP forums yesterday and it seems there are quite a few people who are really ticked about the spyware packed skins..
[Message Edited]
IPlural
Reply #48 Wednesday, July 21, 2004 8:10 AM
No, cracking the existing encryption was not legal in the least.
They have license to make use of themes without the encryption created before it was applied. They did not buy license to break the encryption and Stardock was not ordered to sell or gift them the encryption scheme.
But, as stated before, it will be left alone and over looked.
They also do not have any Rights to host, wrap, or in any other way make use of anyones IP Themes that does not give them specific premission if a disclaimer is added to the Theme.
Something along the lines that only the Author is allowed to upload to sites of their choice to host the Theme. Anyone else posting them is breaking the eula for the Theme and must delete it.
How you would enforce it, I could not tell you at this point. But if you host all your work on say WinCustomize and only WinC. People would have to come here for it or share it p2p and not post it at TGT.
That is a personal choice....
Reply #48 Wednesday, July 21, 2004 8:10 AM
| At least what they have done is legal. |
No, cracking the existing encryption was not legal in the least.
They have license to make use of themes without the encryption created before it was applied. They did not buy license to break the encryption and Stardock was not ordered to sell or gift them the encryption scheme.
But, as stated before, it will be left alone and over looked.
They also do not have any Rights to host, wrap, or in any other way make use of anyones IP Themes that does not give them specific premission if a disclaimer is added to the Theme.
Something along the lines that only the Author is allowed to upload to sites of their choice to host the Theme. Anyone else posting them is breaking the eula for the Theme and must delete it.
How you would enforce it, I could not tell you at this point. But if you host all your work on say WinCustomize and only WinC. People would have to come here for it or share it p2p and not post it at TGT.
That is a personal choice....
Jafo
Reply #49 Wednesday, July 21, 2004 8:16 AM
Reply #49 Wednesday, July 21, 2004 8:16 AM
| or share it p2p |
Technically that is 'distribution', not 'personal use' and is thus also likely to be against copyright......
MindlessPuppet
Reply #50 Wednesday, July 21, 2004 8:29 AM
Heh, since copyrights have worked O' so well for movies, music, and programs
Reply #50 Wednesday, July 21, 2004 8:29 AM
| Technically that is 'distribution', not 'personal use' and is thus also likely to be against copyright...... |
Heh, since copyrights have worked O' so well for movies, music, and programs
Jafo
Reply #51 Wednesday, July 21, 2004 8:34 AM
Reply #51 Wednesday, July 21, 2004 8:34 AM
All a matter of who finds the desire to chase their rights.
Personally, someone screwing with me and mine will be fed their gonads on a plate.
This isn't personal opinion....it is personal resolution.
IPlural
Reply #52 Wednesday, July 21, 2004 9:40 AM
ayuh...
Pushing only happens, is fun, or seems to hold return for so long but once to the point of crossing that line there is not anything or anyone to stand in the way.
It all boils down to the price. Not what you will gain but what you are willing to pay.
Personally I think people got that old saying screwed up and in turn confused themselves.
Everything does in fact have a price of exactly what you are willing to pay. Money, mind, body, soul or life, is it worth it.
I think that is why so many out there are so shocked by the actions of some when they claim they acted to extream.
You call the Dance you will pay the money man.
Oh and 99.9% of the people out there are the big Frog in their pond, for them, it is when they step outside their pond that they screw up because they run into exactly whom it is they thought they were.
Reply #52 Wednesday, July 21, 2004 9:40 AM
| This isn't personal opinion....it is personal resolution. |
ayuh...
Pushing only happens, is fun, or seems to hold return for so long but once to the point of crossing that line there is not anything or anyone to stand in the way.
It all boils down to the price. Not what you will gain but what you are willing to pay.
Personally I think people got that old saying screwed up and in turn confused themselves.
Everything does in fact have a price of exactly what you are willing to pay. Money, mind, body, soul or life, is it worth it.
I think that is why so many out there are so shocked by the actions of some when they claim they acted to extream.
You call the Dance you will pay the money man.
Oh and 99.9% of the people out there are the big Frog in their pond, for them, it is when they step outside their pond that they screw up because they run into exactly whom it is they thought they were.
IPlural
Reply #53 Wednesday, July 21, 2004 9:54 AM
Reply #53 Wednesday, July 21, 2004 9:54 AM
Ha, on a side note...
I got in trouble for giving out my address and cell number in #stardock one night to some butt wipe who was coming in from Tampa right across the bay that was talking trash. I was all excited when my phone rang thinking "Cool, just the person I've been looking for to work on a little stress relief" but it turned out to be an OP telling me it was a No No
some people ruin all the fun..
I got in trouble for giving out my address and cell number in #stardock one night to some butt wipe who was coming in from Tampa right across the bay that was talking trash. I was all excited when my phone rang thinking "Cool, just the person I've been looking for to work on a little stress relief" but it turned out to be an OP telling me it was a No No
some people ruin all the fun..
joetheblow
Reply #54 Wednesday, July 21, 2004 10:19 AM
all I can say is damn... I really hate having to go to lawyers and stuff, but when you have too, you have too. This sounds like a lawyer thing to me.
Reply #54 Wednesday, July 21, 2004 10:19 AM
| #16 by Frogboy - 7/20/2004 8:52:27 PM As part of the lawsuit settlement, TGT Soft has agreed to license IconPackager's .iptheme format.However, we don't have to help them dencrypt the format. But they did apparently crack the encryption. So we'll have to decide what to do (if anything) about that.Style XP isn't as popular as it used to be and we believe it's icon features are pretty weak. So I'm not sure how many people would actually use it for that feature.We're open to your feedback though. |
all I can say is damn... I really hate having to go to lawyers and stuff, but when you have too, you have too. This sounds like a lawyer thing to me.
Apocalypse_67
Reply #55 Wednesday, July 21, 2004 4:02 PM
Reply #55 Wednesday, July 21, 2004 4:02 PM
Ok, let me see if I got this right.
They (TGT Soft) found a way to crack the IP format encription. Now their users can make use of the icon packs, BUT!! if their users want to create a pack of their own it has to be under .iptheme format?? So they are going to need IconPackager??
If so, why would anyone pay for a program that needs the purchase of another program to create something to be used by the 1st program when the 2nd program can do it all??
They (TGT Soft) found a way to crack the IP format encription. Now their users can make use of the icon packs, BUT!! if their users want to create a pack of their own it has to be under .iptheme format?? So they are going to need IconPackager??
If so, why would anyone pay for a program that needs the purchase of another program to create something to be used by the 1st program when the 2nd program can do it all??
Frogboy
Reply #57 Wednesday, July 21, 2004 4:48 PM
Reply #57 Wednesday, July 21, 2004 4:48 PM
Apoc: That's why we're not exactly sweating it. We got what we wanted, they licensed the format. It's not the TGT Soft's of the world we worry about. It's the big companies. We can't let people use our formats without our permission or else we lose a heck of a lot of our intellectual property.
As for "0 footprint"
Phar0e
Reply #58 Wednesday, July 21, 2004 4:57 PM
Reply #58 Wednesday, July 21, 2004 4:57 PM
well, er, there doin pretty good on the "handles" end of things 
joetheblow
Reply #59 Wednesday, July 21, 2004 6:18 PM
Reply #59 Wednesday, July 21, 2004 6:18 PM
Yeh, 41 handles. seems pretty good. But the memory is far higher than zero.
Michael Ficarra
Reply #60 Wednesday, July 21, 2004 10:57 PM
Reply #60 Wednesday, July 21, 2004 10:57 PM
speaking of the subject, lookee here
http://www.unsanity.com/haxies/mightymouse/
...claims on the front page it can import cursorXP themes from wincustomize... when I make a cursorXP them, I want it used ONLY for cursorXP users, the way I intended it to be
[Message Edited]
http://www.unsanity.com/haxies/mightymouse/
...claims on the front page it can import cursorXP themes from wincustomize... when I make a cursorXP them, I want it used ONLY for cursorXP users, the way I intended it to be
[Message Edited]
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Reply #41 Tuesday, July 20, 2004 10:08 PM
There will be more of an announcement soon but in brief:
TGT Soft wanted Style XP to read in IconPackager files (for obvious reasons).
We told them they would have to license the .iptheme format.
They filed a lawsuit asking for the courts to give a declatory judgement stating that they could use the IconPackager .iptheme format without our permission (and subsequently argued that .iptheme isn't a format and can't be protected).
We settled out of course in which they licensed the .iptheme format. The exact terms of confidential (i.e. what we got in return I can't disclose).
However, we don't have to provide them with the means of encryption. My personal opinion is that if they can crack the .iptheme encryption then good for them. It's up to us to decide whether we should change the encryption or do something else.
Style XP does now include in its about dialog that it licensed the IconPackager format and .iptheme files are displayed as Iconpackager files rather than simply "icon files" generically.
We look at our formats like skinners see their skins. You need the creator's permisison before you can use it for commercial purposes.
This doesn't give them the right to re-distribute icon packages. The icons belong to the icon author and can only be at places they've given permission for.