Chinese I believe. At least that's what the 'about' in English says (down on the bottom)

here's the contact page: WWW Link

He is giving credit to the owners, so don't be so paranoid. Instead look to yourself and consider the fact that posting personal information is an criminal act in the country where I am living, even if this information is freely available... So posting the name and function and email of the owner of the website instead of looking who posted the wallpapers is illegal AND is saying more about you then about him...

But I will get flamed probly, so don't bother, I know: saying anything bad about Stardock or one of it's slaves (I mean memebers offcourse, where did that come from...) will get you banned, deleted or worse ignored!

The information quoted is freely available on the internet and is in the public domain, and so does not come under the Data Protection Act. Neither is it stored in a 'relevent filing system'.

It's not paranoid to show concern about a breech of copyright law and act upon that law. It's taking care of people's rights. It is my right not to have my work distributed without my permission - to ignore that right is theft, pure and simple...

Flamed, banned, deleted or ignored - no, treated as clueless maybe...   

the point is not just credit.. its control.... I offered my walls and skins up to WC users for personal use .. to support WC and it future. now without my permission this author has decided to take my stuff and offer it on his own site .. taking away traffic from my site as well as, taking away my ability to decide how my Intelectual property is distributed...hes not just hosting a site with links back to WC.. but offering the files himself.. this detracts from my ability as the Author to control my product....until this post I had no idea my walls were being offered there....



no flames here but.. i will say its pretty smug to defend his actions while at the same time bashing us for being upset...IM no slave and willingly offer my stuff to sites as long as they ask...but thats the POINT..... ASKING. it's called consideration..

why you seem to be on the attack is beyond me ..

Everyone has the right to treat his/her OWN property rights with disdain or indifference.

No-one has the right to treat others' in that way.

YOU may consider the giving of credit sufficient for YOUR peace of mind, but others definitely do not.

This is not about 'paranoia', it is about preventing the erosion of your property rights.

mschleisner ... the difference between Wincustomize.com and Topdownloads.net is that with the former the OWNER of the artwork is submitting it themselves for display/distribution and the act of so-doing indicates consent for its distribution. With the latter a person or persons unknown has TAKEN your artwork and has reposted it on a site outside of your control and consent. You should NOT now be forced to jump through hoops to have the work removed....it should NEVER have been posted there in the first place.

Here's a quite valid hypothetical.

You upload your works for public [free] download. You become rich and famous and realise you want to now charge for your works. You subsequently delete/remove them from all the sites you uploaded them to....and instead post them for sale elsewhere. No-one buys them. You then discover they are being distributed elsewhere freely....on a site you were unaware of.

This is why you CANNOT be lackadaisical with your property and its protection.

Whatever commercial success sites such as topdownloads.net may be enjoying is purely because of content they have no legal permission to be distributing.

At no time did I [or clearly very many others] consent to the commercial profiteering of our works by an unknown third party.

In contrast, we ALL did just that with our submissions to Wincustomize.com, and Deviantart.com, and all the other LEGITIMATE public art/skinning sites.

If an artist openly goes on record [through inaction] of failing to protect his own copyright it can come back to bite him in any future litigation against similar issues....

what I find real amusing is that by reading the descriptions of my work, I know that he did'nt steal my work from this site. I do know which site it was and will be contacting the admin there. The other thing thats funny is that there are only logon screens and bootskins and the descriptions say that they have wallpapers to match, but when you search for the walls-there aren't any to be found.

It will be Deviantart.com...

The whole thing made sense to me until I read comment by Mrs mschleisner. That's when I realize I was in the Dark. Most of the files here are not worth downloading. Sometimes I write nice comments to encourage new skinners to better themselves, but would not download their works unless they pay me to do so. If it's not from the masters, then I don't want it. Copyright is very important and should be respected. But some so-called skinners should not worry about some stuff their created - When your work is out there, your name is out there and that's good. They should instead secretly pay sites to host their works for them and give them free of charge. Nice and Clear!

I see why this site gets mad because when people can go elsewhere for the same free stuff here, the fewer visitors they get. They're the one with something to lose. No one said their premium work was being posted as well. Truth is a skinner has the right to ask for their works to be removed at once from here and elsewhere.

Last but not least I would be a hypocrite to blame the skinners who want their free work remove from the site anyway. I don't like sharing my work - I'm a teaser! I have the gene of the true master in me. I'm the creator of Reactor windowblinds based on TSF rector player ( I made it rain), I'm the creator of the most beautiful Windows Media 11 windowblinds ever created (The ultimate one), I’m the creator who used to work on Mike Bryant works and make it rain. But skinners such as Vstyler, JJ Ying took me out of business. They made it rain harder than I do - They make it flood.

Don’t like me? I still think I’m beautiful. The matter fact, my mom just told me I’m beautiful.


  

There is no discrimination regarding 'quality' in the eyes of copyright law.

'This site' isn't getting 'mad', its members whose works are being redistributed without consent are.

Wincustomize.com does not limit or restrict artists' rights as to where they may or may not also post content which they choose to post here [except in the specific case of contest rules from time to time].  Most infact DO post to other sites as well.

Too often this issue is misunderstood by those who have little or no history with artwork and its protection.

There is content searchable on topdownloads.net via 'Digital Blasphemy', yet DB has written and specific limitations on content redistribution, namely 'thou shalt NOT'.

People upload here and elsewhere for others' personal use and enjoyment.  Public redistribution [freely OR for associated profit] is not 'personal use'.....

 

All but 1 of the 7 of my walls I had them remove could only have been taken from WC. The 1 is here and at SA, guess they didn't like the walls I have at DA. lol

my walls are only featured here and at SA.. so they came from one of them....

Helder's [Nuvem] are most likely from Devart.  Perhaps this thread should be passed on to all the skinning sites...

Kinda how I felt. Still, I prefer to control where they get posted.

Isn't there some higher authority which controls/monitors such dubious activity (the offering of peoples work to others illegally) on the internet?
It's a bit of a nooby question I know ,but I find it incredible that people such as yourselves have to do their own policing.
I mean if my apartment was robbed tonight it would be like me having to take the responsibility to track down and arrest the burglars.Clearly this is not the case and I find it a strange state of affairs that you guys have to do all this leg work to protect your intellectual ownership.As well as being time consuming for you it also puts you in contact with some really dodgy barstewards.  

Thanks Paul

Jafo,Directly or indirectly, I have been using the internet for about 30 years now, I do understand the difference between someone taking your work and without permission and using it, again if you offer it for free it's your own fault if someone takes it. If you stand on the corner and give out dollar bills and they give it to someone else, if you give money to a charity and they pay to have their grass cut, if you give it to the church and they have the floors waxed, whatever, you can ask them not to do it, do they have to listen? The amount of non-members does increase the chance that your work or the work of anyone here will be taken and used for whatever they want. We can ask that they remove the work, will it not show up in some other country,you bet it will. Topdownloads.net took it and will return what they took but it will not stop them from taking. We all know the internet is full of people who take. I know of hackers who will take whatever program they want whenever they want for free. There is little we can do until the internet becomes a purchase only place where nothing is free. I doubt that will happen with the people out there who have the knowledge to take what they want and do what they want with it. Sorry but the fact is lately we have seen much of this site taken and reposted other places. They know where the good stuff is and they want it. Police it if you want but don't be shocked if you spend hours everyday trying to get what you post back, it will just get posted someplace else. Good Luck with that. If you create something great, someone will take it and use it and trust me, hackers have the power to take anything they want, not pay for it and use it. We are all at risk of our stuff being taken here in this land known as the internet.  

mschleisner ...the last site within our crosshairs re stolen content has had its account suspended.

Yes, it takes a shitload of time and effort to protect OUR property, but no degree of comparative futility argument is going to sway GOOD INTENTIONS.

It is actually not the 'taking' that is an issue here.....since we are freely GIVING.

The issue is with that site's REDISTRIBUTION, something it has no legal right to be doing.

 

Welcome to the world of the online Artist ....

Never a dull moment eh?   

You're comparing apples to oranges here. Handing out free currency is not at all the same thing. What if I wanted to take that dollar and make copies of it and distribute those copies for free for whomever would like a copy? Is that not illegal? Sure a person can do whatever they want with that dollar but there's still laws and terms of use that a person must abide by when using that dollar.

You did not create that dollar yourself. Unless contractually, you have no right to tell anyone what to do with a dollar you give them. It's currency. This is art. Intellectual property that an individual created. Individuals that have a right to control how their property is distributed, and whether it's free or not has nothing to do with it. When you register here you agree to the terms of those distribution methods and what you may do with the content you download. No one is handing out free dollars here and saying do whatever you wish with them.

For a better example than your free dollar from the street corner, look at music. You can download free promotional singles from stores like iTunes. However if you were to download those same songs illegally over an unauthorized download service it's just as illegal as downloading any other song from the unauthorized service. Download a bunch of iTunes free promotional singles then see what Apple has to say when you want to start up a site of your own offering all those singles for free from you as an alternative to iTunes. They're not going to look the other way and let you do whatever you want (violating the terms of use that you agreed to) with that content just because it was offered for free.

There are plenty of very good reasons control is established over intellectual property. If you ignore one site stealing work, what's to stop another site from stealing your work from that one? And so on and so on until the internet is so saturated with yours and others unauthorized copies, credited or not, that your work is no longer yours and nothing you created is as it was intended.

mschleisner, its like saying those:

"It's not my fault I stole from house - the door was open and I saw cool stuff there."

"It's her fault for being *, because she dressed like she wanted it!"

You shouldn't do it just because it's easy to do. It's still a violation of copyright laws.

I have Just posted it over at skinnalicious

Thanks, Ma'am....

Good advertising...  

I still can't find anything I've ever submitted hosted elsewhere without permission