On a lighter note...   there are some great and talented artists out there who create wonderful and original Vista style themes...such as JJ Ying, whom I admire very much. Thankyou to all those great artists who provide wonderful and original Vista style themes for us to use...you are the guys who make this site what it should be...dedicated to riginal and wonderful ideas that are executed with imagination and Skill.  

Yeah, I can finally comment again, Admin shut me down to "visitor" for a while.

I don't mind Vista clones (I use WhiteFlame by Kaye Irene), I just want one that is immaculate and an exact copies instead of hundreds of these bad rips that have bugs and don't look very nice. All the themes have one very nice thing about them, can't they all work together and put all the good together?

P.S. Sorry for stealing your avatar Master Apprentice Cavan1, I'm using my own now.

The_Mugger

Do you expect Microsoft to daily scan each graphic website to look for infringements on what they have quite obviously made as a moral point and then request everytime that it be removed?

In a word, YES.

To properly enforce one's claim to Intellectual Copyright one cannot play favourites, that means any and ALL sites hosting questionable content must be approached with equal diligence ....something that has NOT been the case with this/these particular 'issues'.

To be specific, Microsoft requested by name one skin be removed.  It was.

In 2000 Apple requested one specific skin be removed [before Wincustomize.com].  It was.

If an OS company were to post an edict to each and every public/private skinning site to remove any and all imagery in any way originating from/related to their OS retrospectively and hence forth it would be complied with.

Apple 'might' do that....to its own detriment.

Microsoft won't.  It would be silly to even want to.

The thing about copyright is that once the rights have been allowed to erode over time then legally the 'horse has bolted' - you can forget the barn door.

Microsoft's request relating to just one skin throughout the history of skinning is clear testament to where they TOO see where the 'horse is at'...

Apparently Tycus you have been away...these vista clones of everything have invaded everywhere.

oh no., sry but i was talking about Wincustomize and not of other sites..

this sort of thing CAN'T happen here. i've admired wincustomize for NOT allowing this sort of thing. if more skin submissions is what you want, this is not the way to go about it. by allowing this, wincustomize will quite simply alienate it's established artists. allowing these skins fosters the idea that it is okay to steal/mod someone else's work and post it as your own. if wincustomize is going to sell-out like DA has, i may as well cancell my subscription now.

WinCustomize will accept Vista-skins as long as Microsoft is not enforcing their rights. deviantART is full of these skins now.  As long as someone isn't taking someone else's skin and modify it it's allowed. OS "ports" are allowed on WC.

People like OS skins.  We went through the exact same thing when Windows XP was coming out. This too shall pass.

In a word, YES. To properly enforce one's claim to Intellectual Copyright one cannot play favourites, that means any and ALL sites hosting questionable content must be approached with equal diligence ....something that has NOT been the case with this/these particular 'issues'. To be specific, Microsoft requested by name one skin be removed. It was. In 2000 Apple requested one specific skin be removed [before Wincustomize.com]. It was. If an OS company were to post an edict to each and every public/private skinning site to remove any and all imagery in any way originating from/related to their OS retrospectively and hence forth it would be complied with. Apple 'might' do that....to its own detriment. Microsoft won't. It would be silly to even want to. The thing about copyright is that once the rights have been allowed to erode over time then legally the 'horse has bolted' - you can forget the barn door. Microsoft's request relating to just one skin throughout the history of skinning is clear testament to where they TOO see where the 'horse is at'...

Well said.

Here's the thing about intellectual property and the net: It is up to the copyright holder to protect their stuff.

WinCustomize will go out of its way to try to protect copyright holders. No other site of this kind on the net is as proactive as we are.

But at the same time, WinCustomize is a business.  And people want this stuff and other sites, that now dwarf WinCustomize in traffic (like deviantART -- we used to get more traffic than dA, now they get 100X as much as us) are full of this stuff.

Case in point of something that won't happen again:

In 2001, Stardock figured out how to allow users to use .msstyles without having to patch any system DLLs. This was before any such patches existed. 

Microsoft did the same thing they recently did with Kol's skin. They asked us to A) Not support msstyles in WindowBlinds and Not support msstyles on WinCustomize.com.

We complied with that.  And where did that get us? Little start-ups like TGT Soft and ThemeXP and deviantART ate our lunch.  The entire msstyle "market" could have been with Stardock. We could have had SkinStudio supporting msstyles and WinCustomize being the place to get them.  But we went along with Microsoft's request.  Did Microsoft ever go after TGT Soft or ThemeXP or deviantART? Nope.

That won't happen again. You can bet under Vista we'll support any sort of msstyles or other mods to the OS regardless of what Microsoft thinks if any other site has them. That goes for Vista skins.

That won't happen again. You can bet under Vista we'll support any sort of msstyles or other mods to the OS regardless of what Microsoft thinks if any other site has them. That goes for Vista skins.

Could you be a little more clear Brad? I'm not sure I understood what you were getting at.   

"But at the same time, WinCustomize is a business. And people want this stuff and other sites, that now dwarf WinCustomize in traffic (like deviantART -- we used to get more traffic than dA, now they get 100X as much as us) are full of this stuff. "

I do not challenge your assertions on the need to run WC as a business and agree that copyright enforcement by the copyright holder is required which Microsoft has ceratinly not done recently.

However, the amazing growth of DA was not caused by the kind of skins they carry or don't carry but by the decision to turn the site into an art/social community rather than a "skinning site". I think they are a poor example to use in this case.

What i think is that when Vista is released and we have all upgraded to it, we will start skinning it to look like something else any way!!!Nobody will want it to look like Vista!

in my own oppinion........, i hate almost all skins that use Windows logo

P.S. Sorry for stealing your avatar Master Apprentice Cavan1, I'm using my own now.

Thanks.

in my own oppinion........, i hate almost all skins that use Windows logo

Ok everybody, Win logo on everything just for TYCUS

It be more fun if everyone just changed their nick to Tycus

Lets give it a try
Sir B. would become Sir T.
Cavan1 (C1 for short) would become TYCUS1 ( T1 )

Hey that works for me

...

just call me Sir T {-=Tycus=-}