I sure hope this person won't be allowed to upload here anymore. I swear for the life of me, I can't understand the stupidity. I think with all but the one wall of hers not verified as ripped, we can assume it and all of her work is.

Well the 43 yr old Mrs aliansa here & aliansa
danilo rudolfo henn 43 yr old Male/Brazil at deviant art must have identity problems..

I agree clwoods...To be so blatant about it too....I don't even skin but it burns my you know...

When you see the compliments this person gets, and how many downloads of these walls. Just thought of this....Here you get noted for # of downloads etc.....These authors are losing out on that if its something they do on Deviantart

It's My Secret

I appreciate your looking into this

It was a totally by accident - I really was looking for a beige wall to work on a widget and stumbled across that Robot Love wall in my folders . I save everything - thats why it looked familiar.

I still think this person just doesnt get the concept that just stating where they got the original from makes it ok to distribute modified work.

It seems that the mods are no longer following this thread so I will try to change the title to get their attention.

Links on this thread may still access the works at this stage...but they [the walls] were all removed....we are following...

I will remove the links here as well...as that will be where any dls are coming from...

There's no need to be renaming the thread [it actually only confuses any follow-up].

It is my understanding that if you base your work off of someone elses work, you have to get their permission to upload it, and once permission is granted, you need to upload it as a zip file with the permission.txt file inside the zip. Thats how it works from what I recall..

It is my understanding that if you base your work off of someone elses work, you have to get their permission to upload it, and once permission is granted, you need to upload it as a zip file with the permission.txt file inside the zip. Thats how it works from what I recall..

Yep...

Thanks and Sorry Jafo, I thought that the mods may think we were just gabbing on this thread

It's My Secret

thought that the mods may think we were just gabbing on this thread

OMG - that never happens here

I forget how many walls this person had put up in the wall section that were RIps but I think it was at least 5 or more. At WC they are " Mrs.aliansa On DA they are Aliansa the SA being South America. They are male . He/she routinely takes the Artwork of others and makes a wallpaper and calls it his. The walls were removed from WC after we posted several links to several different Artists at DA. I notified one of the Artists at DA about her Art being at WC - it was removed by the time I heard from her. This was our correspondence:
To: ~ValentinaKallias
Date: Jan 31, 2007, 2:01:21 PM

This person is uploading wallpapers that seem familar to me - on one they stated the original Art was yours...but I'm wondering if you even know they are using your work - normally Wincustomize requires written permission to use others art..unless you are this person on Wincustomize and are uploading your own work..if so, I apologise for bothering you. They used your " Romance " image.
This is the link to the wall at wincustomize where they used your Art.

http://fairyy.wincustomize.com/skins.aspx?skinid=30103&libid=8

----------
ValentinaKallias said the following:

hey:-)

thanks a lot honey ! Nom I didnt give permission to be used... wierd...

I will go see what I can do about and again, thank you !

Val
*************************************************************************
What I failed to do was tell her that they also use the same name at DA. The Ripped walls are still in this persons Gallery At DA

WWW Link
aliansa
# Status: Member
# Photo Manipulator
# Male/Brazil
# Offline for 7h 50m 36s
# Deviant since Apr 15, 2006, 9:02 PM
This is one of the walls removed from WC - the same wall you see that VallentinaKallias states she did not give permission to use her art - and even though his/her walls were removed from WC - he still thinks its ok to have them on his site at DA.

My question is ......why is this person still allowed to upload anything to WC ?
It just seems that if a person has been told its not ok to take others work without permission yet they do not remove them from other skinning sites....am I supposed to believe the newest upload is actually their work ? Or more importantly , should they be allowed to upload anything when there are so many questionable circumstances ?

PS: yes - I have notified VallentinaKallias about this mans DA site that her art is still in his gallery this AM.

I agree & ask the same question. I also believe that it is insulting to artists to allow a known abuser to be allowed to continue to upload...period. And the past behavior of a person is indicative of future behavior unless they have made every attempt to rectify the situation.

And it us the community of Wincustomize that report these RIPs so why add to our burden to continue to allow these people to upload.

You couldn't pay me enough to trust anything that this person uploads, but most users of this site are not aware of any issues but would not knowingly use RIPs.

Are we scared of hurting their feelings...are their contribution's so important that they need to be *permitted some leeway?

And what are the Rules on banning someone? And yes each case is different but what are the basics?

And if they are continually allowed to upload what is the sense of us reporting RIPS?

It's My Secret

That is my question. It seems Ripping isn't a big deal anymore.

I try to stick by the rules, always. But its getting harder each day to try to be a productive member here when I have no continuity ...I need structure and rules. Someone please tell me just what the rules are anymore cos hellifino .

Ripping is taken very seriously.  We deal with rips and the like just about everyday but it's not always made public.  Appropriate action is taken through various means, and the best way to deal with a ripping situation is to directly let a mod or admin know about it. 

I don't think the problem is in the rules, but in the interpretation and consistency with which they are sometimes enforced. Then you have the problem of people who just never bother to read them at all.

I agree, that there should be a limit on certain abuses of the site, even if it were to begin with a temporary suspension for a said length of time followed by banning should the abuse continue afterwards. But, I imagine the mods and admin's have their hands pretty full as it is?

I've been growing tired of a lot of the drama and don't know quite what to do about it. I know I have contributed to it in the past and have worked hard to be as constructive as I can be in my comments (when I'm not pulling skinhits leg) as I can and to be more helpful where I can be. But there seems to be different interpretations of this and that rule and some fires seem to get much more fuel than they need heeped upon them before they can be extinguished and the damage minimized.

I want to be part of the community but don't feel I can contribute or really have a place or chance to as the drama seems to take over so often.

Island Dog would you tell us what qualifies for someone being banned from uploading material? And I don't mean from the site permanently.

It's My Secret

In general, we try and give people the benefit of the doubt and an opportunity to make ammends when they're nabbed posting ripped work.

The first step is never to exile.  The first step is to email the user letting them know the problem and watching them more closely for a while to make sure they've corrected their wicked ways.  In some cases, this works and the person settles down to become a member of the community.  In some cases, they didn't know what they did was necessarily wrong.  These are the people we try to help back to the "path of good" so to speak

In this user's case, their walls were all removed and they were warned.  Since then, all that's left are a few screenshots and now a DX Theme.  Our DX section moderator, who is a long-time DX themer and very aware of the body of work out there, did not hear any warning bells go off on that particular theme indicating it might be ripped.  It has been taken down due to concerns over the wall shown in the preview, however that wall was not present in the theme itself.

Is there criteria for someone being banned from uploading material?  Well, there are no hard and fast rules as each case is different.  It depends on the sheer volume of work ripped, and whether or not the user heeds warnings once caught.  Generally, they have to show pretty serious disregard for warnings and other artists work.  We had a user just this week who was ripping large portions of work already posted to WinCustomize (and only at WinCustomize) and blatantly declaring it as his.  That is one of the extreme cases and resulted in all of his work being rejected outright.  He's been warned and if he continues, it will result in a site ban.

Also keep in mind that different moderators cover different submission queues.  A ripper in the wallpaper section may slip past in WindowBlinds since different people cover each of those.  So one moderator may not necessarily be aware of a particular user.  We receive hundreds of submissions per week from just about as many users sometimes, so things will slip through the cracks.

The rules remain the same, but we're not perfect, and when the moderation team gets overloaded, mistakes will happen, things will slip through the cracks.  We are doing the best we can, and we do very much care about protecting IP and the work of our artists and users, and appreciate people reporting rips.  We can only see and be aware of so much, so the community's ongoing help is absolutely essential to us.

Thats all I really wanted . I know you can't be everywhere and I know the moderator of the DX Themes is always on the ball. But He can't be everywhere either , Im sure he didn't even know any of the past history of the walls being ripped. I agree that no one should be banned right away. But this person was told by several of us that you need permission to use others Art. He doesn't respond to comments at WC . But he does reply at DA quite a bit. He could of made the DX Theme - but you see my point ? Its hard to accept this as his work when he still has loads of walls in his DA Gallery that I know are not his. He made no attempt to remove them...so he must not feel that using others work is wrong. I don't go out of my way looking for Rips - but when you look at a lot of skins and walls like I do - they pop out at you.
Thanks for replying - I just needed to be reassured that the rules are still intact.

Thank you Zoomba, that clears things up. I appreciate your quick response.

It's My Secret

Once again I will ask ..how many times does a person get their work removed for Ripping and still be allowed to upload yet again and again more rips ?

Since this post was written - the questionable DX Theme that was removed for questionable wall was reuploaded 3 days ago but it was renamed and recoloured red. Its very easy to take a DX Theme and unzip the contents into a folder to get a closer look at the entire contents. The Theme itself proved to contain everyones graphics imaginable. The Start menu and task bar among other graphics were from Navigatsios Soho WB. I saw graphics from Questins theme, Q's , Gefs etc etc.The biggest tip off that it was a rip was when you moused over icons - objects etc , none of the tool tip messages matched at all. They obviously were from the Theme he ripped . He claimed in the details " Permissions included " There were NO permissions included at all. The Theme was removed.
Now 3 days later yet another uploaded Theme from the same person. Just looking at this Complex theme I would know that its doubtful he made it.
I left him this message on his Theme:

Well once again - here you are with yet another upload after 5 Ripped walls and 2 DX Themes have been removed from WC. The latest removal ( 3 days ago) - a recolored version of the DX Theme that was removed last week. And I guess this time this is supposed to be your work?
1) WHAT RESOLUTION is it for ?? You do not state it until after a person is in the middle of installing it and then its too late we find its for 1152 resolution only !

2) YOUR name is printed on the start panel. Why ? If you made this graphic why is YOUR name appearing on the start panel on my computer? I have never seen a DX Theme maker not have the Users name appear on the start menu - who wants to use a Theme with your name on the start panel?

3) Once again I see files with other peoples names on them after I extracted all the files - lovely62's weather widget with Richard Mohlers Vista Outlook (light) background has been used to replace Lovely62's background. Where is your Permission ? The Theme that was removed 3 days ago - I saw many files with others names on them - Quentin, Q's ,Gefs ,the start menu and task bar among other graphics were from Navigatsio's Soho blind - and there was NO permission included in that Zip either - hence the removal. The biggest tip that it was a rip was the all the mouse over tool tips didnt match any of the graphics at all. Because you are just replacing bits and pieces. This is an insult to people that spend 2 weeks making a DX Theme and you just think its ok to help yourself to their work.

You continue to have the walls that were removed from WC as proven Rips appear on your DA site - I guess you thinks its just OK to do this...and its not.

So again I ask..how many chances does a visitor from Brazil get to keep uploading Rips before they are stopped ?

It seems much of the concern/s over this particular issue relates to on-going happenings [or not happenings] on a site outside of the WC Mods' control.

We can do no more there than anyone else, namely report 'violation' issues and hope it/they are attended to by DA.

We deal pretty effectively with such issues here, but, as is the same with accusations of warez use [simply for posted outmoded WB details people are thus accused of theft even when there is absolutely NO indication of product source/history], people MUST be presumed either innocent or ignorant as a first.

There has been [in the past] more than one instance of 'my God...he's a ripper' when all it was was same person...2 different nicks...2 different sites.

As and when 'evidence' stacks up one way or another those at fault can/will be dealt with.

In the meantime, public accusation can often be a very poor choice, as it is better to maybe miss the guilty than to accuse the innocent.

Re specifics....it'll be looked at more closely....