Has anyone seen this? adni18 ripped again or deja vu?

Hmmm...it does look similar to Nikos's work

I came here to post an almost identical subject, and it seems you beat me to it. In general, a *lot* of skins have looked a lot like adni18's work lately.

If you are going to emulate someone, why not the MASTER. Just do not rip him off.

Just the general look and feel is reminiscent of one of adni's skins.

You guys have apparently have little idea how difficult it is to come up with a WB skin that doesn't remind someone of someone else's skins/style.

Obviously I'm not defending ripping, just stating that you should do some investigation (match up bitmaps & pixels) before making accusations.

I totally agree with you Davad70. There are only so many things you can do with some components, and most everyone is inspired by someone else's style. I'm not saying any of what I've seen is an outright rip. I'm just saying some of them look *so* similar they stand out more for that reason then they do for the theme itself.

I am watching out this latest phenomenon with people who are copying my skins, specially the "Ambient". It is not that it doesn't bother me, but I didn't want to start accusing people.
I suspect that the guy madeinmedellin and Archila are the same person.
The term "Adniesk" has a positive effect, but also a negative one, which is bothering me.

I guess that some Admin will pay some attention to this case.

Thank you jarget and Mark Smitka for reporting this

well, madeinmedellin, AAAA and Arcila are all the same person.

The overall look reminds me Adni18 style, but look, for us to remove a skin we need to know wich skin he is ripping, just tell me the name of the skin and I promisse I will look at it closely and if it is a rip case, I will remove imediatly, you bet!

this looks like a not bad skin, but too many people quit trying too fight with each other " RIP RIP HE STEALING SOMEONES WORK RIP RIP "

email admins on WC or the authors to find out, dont make a public scene out of this :/

It just ends up like mad slagging fight sooner or later

Aw, me sorry V_F

V_F next time I will go stealth mode.

Stealth mode????

Good one.

At any case it seems that it is much like andi's work but I do think she made it using there own pixel. Hard to tell.

one o'clock rip, two o'clock rip, three o'clock rip, we're gonna rip, we're gonna rip, we're gonna rip around the rip

Heh. Go Elvis.

Anyway, ripping... adni18... great skins and frankly, if someone's ripping, admin will let it rip. So you needn't worry. However, I think it's flattering to have someone emulate your work as long as the source is quoted.

I am wondering, if one uses the same paintprogram and the same size of the bitmap of an original skin, and you recolour the bitmap you can speak of ripping? Especially when you are encouraged, and you want to make your own skin, to look at how other people did it. I am no expert but I can imagine a whole lot can turn into lookalikes...People see certain idea's and want them to implement in their skins too. The only thing you can do is say thanks for idea such and such from skin such and such...Just for giving the credit for an idea...I haven't seen it on that level though.

If this Arcila person was exiled, why are they allowed back under an alias?? Just wondering...

Good question, Fuzzy Logic. I wondered too. As I recall Arcila wasn't just ripping skins (if my memory serves, it was more than just a case of the skins resembling adni's skins), this person also was using an alias and then posting comments of support to himself!!! ! It was blatant. So this isn't someone who is simply inspired by someone else's work and just doesn't have the courtesy or sensibility to give attribution. That's why I'm surprised to see this person back, frankly.

sig101, couldn't Arcila just sign up again under a different name?

maidenmedellin is arcilla. That is not in doubt. When arcilla was exiled he had submitted skins that used bitmaps from adni's skins with some recoloring on them, also some pixtudio images. I compared the images, and creation dates and it was obvious he was using adni's work without permission. A letter was sent to him regarding the specific evidence and explaining how it was wrong to do this. That's when we discovered a serious communication problem with him.
His native tongue is Spanish and he uses a worthless translator. The reply I got was unintelligible but seemed like he was accusing Nikos of using his graphics or that it was a coincidence they looked similar but they were different colors. At any rate, it was impossible to communicate with him. We exiled him and all his work.

When he started posting again it was under a different name. We exiled that account as well. Then he came back as madeinmedellin with skins that didn't seem to share any graphics. Since we had still not managed to have a real conversation, we allowed him to post as long as the skins were not using graphics from adni's or anyone else's work. It seemed that maybe he had gotten the message.

We look very closely at his posts and so far I haven't seen any direct copies, but I could be wrong. I haven't had the time to search through the library again to try to find which skins his images could be lifted from. If anyone knows of any direct comparisons please let us know and we'll take another, closer look.

Meanwhile, there is no doubt that his style is a copy of adni18. Nikos' work is some of the most popular around and is a very recognizable style. Unfortunately, imitating a style is not enough to be kicked out. Lots of skins get made that could be said to be similar in one way or another to someone else's work. In this case the similarity is blatantly obvious, especially with the history of using adni's graphics and layout before.

To me, I would not bother downloading his skins because they are just a copy of the beautiful work adni does. The original is always better than the copy. adni's talent and prolific body of work will never be challenged by a beginner's attempts to copy his WB style.

LeCrayon wrote:
>I am wondering, if one uses the same
>paintprogram and the same size of the bitmap
>of an original skin, and you recolour the
>bitmap you can speak of ripping?

I have done that to themes for my own use, as I'm sure many folks have. It's a great way, and an easy way to get started learning. I have zero skills as a graphic/digital artist, so I used existing apps for tweaking. But - I never uploaded any of them, nor would I even consider it. The only skin I ever created that I uploaded was a re-work of "DeviantBlinds", and I got permission from everyone whose art I utilized (I combined elements from a few different themes). I also made it clear in the text that accompanied the skin that it wasn't my original work, and gave credit. I don't most people have a problem with that where permission is obtained, and credit given. After all, to be so good that you inspire others is a pretty cool thing. I know I'll never get to that point.

DavidK: ...Unfortunately, imitating a style is not enough to be kicked out...

You may not consider copying someone's style to be 'illegal' as such, but it is certainly immoral and disgraceful. Anyone with even a slight thread of decency would know this is wrong. You can argue about detail all you want but wrong is still wrong.

And I'm sure there's an English speaker out there with excellent Spanish who would be willing to help get the message through to Arcila.

The closer a skinner's style or a particular skin is to the 'standard' OS the more likely that 'similar' skins will appear from others.
They need not necessarily be 'rips' however...eg, BeOS skins all look like BeOS...it's then a matter of everyone arriving at the same 'port'...[hehe a 'pun'].

This becomes a 'problem' when skinner no.2 actually uses graphics from skinner no.1....THEN it's a 'rip' and will be removed.
Similarities of 'style' can occur purely through the limitations of the skin's format or application.

After all, all those WB skins with the buttons on the top-right are 'similar' because they all have their buttons on the top-right....see what I mean?...

Admins needs to just Permanently Excile this dude.
He might just be using the I don't speak English routine. I'm a Mexican\American and I've run across alot of people like that in my life. I'm not racist, and I hope I'm not coming off that way, it's just some people can be selfish. And I know some people say that some can be negative on these boards and that is not my intention. I just call em like I see em. Dang I could be wrong, but it sure doesn't seem that way. Oh and unfortunately my Spanish is very limited to be a translator. D'OH

Keep The Peace Man.



jarget

Hmmm difficult terrain. Maybe you should call it "Adniism". The first real trend in WB? As in cubism, impressionism....

Jafo: After all, all those WB skins with the buttons on the top-right are 'similar' because they all have their buttons on the top-right....see what I mean?...

Yeah, but they're not all the same shape as, and use the same gradient as, adnis...

There's a big difference between a style being similar and being identical.

As I said before, even if it isn't a rip issue, there's certainly a moral issue here.

Fuzzy....but 'if' you have fairly typical position, shape,AND gradient you get 'similar' results but they just may be coincidental.

If it were shown that a 'similar' skin pre-dated one of Adni's, where would we be then?

The only proper solution is to investigate closely each case as it arises and try to determine whether it really IS a rip or just an unfortunate similarity.

This is strictly 'general' comments, not referring to any specific case/situation.

It's not a problem of 'morality' as you put it, unless there really IS intent to deceive, whatever....