No Accusations Being Made But...

Definitely not his. But the mods won't like you posting a link. Better to PM a mod.

Help me to understand what is wrong with posting a link, especially when I was not making any accusations. The link is public for anyone to discover.  

Jafo has old friendships over at dA - their Admins.

Probably be a good idea to pm him. 

 

Anyone wanting appeal to their better natures should send a DMCA notice to dA Admin:

SAMPLE DMCA TAKE DOWN NOTICE

My name is INSERT NAME and I am the INSERT TITLE of INSERT COMPANY NAME.  A website that your company hosts (according to WHOIS information) is infringing on at least one copyright owned by my company.

An article was copied onto your servers without permission. The original ARTICLE/PHOTO, to which we own the exclusive copyrights, can be found at:

PROVIDE WEBSITE URL

The unauthorized and infringing copy can be found at:

PROVIDE WEBSITE URL

This letter is official notification under Section 512(c) of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (”DMCA”), and I seek the removal of the aforementioned infringing material from your servers. I request that you immediately notify the infringer of this notice and inform them of their duty to remove the infringing material immediately, and notify them to cease any further posting of infringing material to your server in the future.

Please also be advised that law requires you, as a service provider, to remove or disable access to the infringing materials upon receiving this notice. Under US law a service provider, such as yourself, enjoys immunity from a copyright lawsuit provided that you act with deliberate speed to investigate and rectify ongoing copyright infringement. If service providers do not investigate and remove or disable the infringing material this immunity is lost. Therefore, in order for you to remain immune from a copyright infringement action you will need to investigate and ultimately remove or otherwise disable the infringing material from your servers with all due speed should the direct infringer, your client, not comply immediately.

I am providing this notice in good faith and with the reasonable belief that rights my company owns are being infringed. Under penalty of perjury I certify that the information contained in the notification is both true and accurate, and I have the authority to act on behalf of the owner of the copyright(s) involved.

Should you wish to discuss this with me please contact me directly.

Thank you.

/s/YOUR NAME

Address
City, State Zip
Phone
E-mail

Great suggestion Doc. Thanks.

In this case I don't see what is wrong with a link, since those cursors are from many skinners, not just one. So hopefully they can see that their cursors are being uploaded by someone else... or maybe Jafo has the time to go through them all.  Probably he can get further then even the owner of the cursor.

That is what I thought too. I sent Jafo a pm also.

It would be up to the individual cursor maker to submit a request for take down/removal from the site hosting the rips.

I agree. anyone can report a submission using these options problem content, misplaced deviation, permission issues, mature tag needed, my intellectual property, etc, but nothing directly related to rips of someone else's work. That is why I made this thread so those who are affected can pursue it if they wish.

That covers it right there.

and I believe I have pointed out before,,,,,,,dA is a cesspool.

I don't think the guy realizes what he is doing or has done.  His comment on some of the cursors is as follows 

"no lo he creado ha claro"

which translates to 

"I have not created it has clear"

roughly.

I don't think he knows or understands that he can't 'share' other peoples work in this manner. I'm not defending what he did and they need to come down, but this 'could' be some innocent kid just trying to fit in or make a name without realizing he's doing it illegally. Just sayin'. Or it could be a total ass who deosn't care. IS there anyone here who speaks Spanish that could contact him?

I know the mods used to remove links to stolen skins. Maybe the rules have changed.

I don't see an issue with a general notification of 'possible issue'.

It's all about the wording.  Outright accusations of wrong-doing is where there is always the potential for libel/defamation.... particularly when it can be a simple case of dual/alternate nicks/avatars for the same person.

If it's about 1 potential issue affecting one person....better to contact that person directly.

In this case it appears that the problem my be with several authors...;)

The problem is, some of those authors are no longer around to defend themselves, so I sent an email to their policy abuse address and have to see what happens I guess. They can clearly see they are not the work of the submitter by screenshots, etc., so common sense would tell you they would remove them.

Ok, this has nothing to do with this particular issue, but I would like your (everybody's) opinion on something:

Those who have been around long enough will still remember Skinz.org. Skinz.org was, at the time, THE site to go for skins, themes, etc, much like Wincustomize/DeviantArt are today. Skinz.org was owned/monetized by a company called eFront who paid the bandwidth bills, moderators, etc, in exchange for advertising revenue... When the dot com bubble burst and advertisement revenue dried up, eFront stopped paying Skinz.org bills, there was a huge scandal due to some nasty personal ICQ logs of eFront's boss Sam Jain being leaked, people started removing their skins from the site, etc...

The fall of Skinz.org paved the way to Wincustomize, which was created in part to fill the hole left by Skinz.org demise, etc... but I digress...

Just before Skinz.org final demise, Shoggot (the main admin at Skinz.org) allowed me/Winstep to download by FTP all the hundreds of NextSTART/Winstep skins that were hosted there. The idea was to save those skins from oblivion in case Skinz.org went offline.

Unfortunately - and for obvious reasons - this access did not include the database, only the skin's zip files and screenshots. I therefore had no way to connect skin authors to their creations.

In part because of this, and in part because Winstep at the time did not have the resources to host its own Winstep themes site, all those hundreds of skins (and some were really, really good, even for the time) were lost forever. Most of the original authors were no longer reachable or around to upload them to Wincustomize.

This was something that made me really sad, and something I agonized over for a long time. All that amazing artwork lost forever, even though I personally had all of those themes.

Now, imagine that I did have the resources to save them by creating a Winstep themes gallery and that I was able to connect skins to authors.

What should I have done in terms of the skins/themes of authors that were no longer reachable and therefore could no longer give their permission to host their Winstep skins at Winstep.net instead of Skinz.org?

Jorge....yes those were 'fun' times....;)

Unfortunately....whatever themes/skins that were 'saved' from eFront and skinz.org....if you cannot find the authors...are dead to the world.

We all uploaded to skinz.org just as we do here [and other community sites still aroung/long gone]... The author uploads and maintains rights wholly.

If there were a specific [by the author] request/release that they were free for others to redistribute on their behalf then they could be 'rehosted' elsewhere.

But otherwise they are simply 'gone' .... and need to remain so.... just as the site is effectively 'gone' and the authors likewise.

 

You could always post screenshots...info...whatever...in the hope the original authors find them and pass on the 'release'... but otherwise they are lost.

You could always give em to the guy at DA...........                

Hang onto them and if you don't mind doing the work you can publish screenshots like Jafo said under unknown authors. Perhaps some will be seen by the author or someone who knows them who can get in touch so permission to upload can be given. It is the second best option however if people can see screenshots it is better than nothing and the work is not truly lost, especially if you keep them backed up. 

This is what I have a hard time 'getting'.

I mean, try for a second to understand my reasoning too - and please feel free to explain where it's wrong:

I think the problem of re-distributing a skin/theme is twofold: first, the true author loses control over that theme since it is uploaded under someone else's account, so he cannot modify or delete it at will. Second, whomever redistributes the skin/theme might try to make it pass as if it was his own work. Both are the obvious no-no's.

But what if you also take this into consideration: *if* (and it is a big if, I know) Winstep had its own themes gallery at the time, then most if not all of those NextSTART themes would in all probability (can't say for sure, of course) have been uploaded to that Winstep gallery as well.

Second, since the assumption for my question is that I would be able to connect each theme to its author (which I can't, so this is just an argument for argument's sake), each theme would thus credit the real author.

So this would not be a case of someone else taking credit for another's work (i.e.; a rip) - which leaves the second argument: the skinners sacred right to exercise control over their own creations.

Since I would have been able to link themes to authors, an account would be pre-created for each author, and would be sitting there waiting for the author to take ownership. Once the author did, he would be able to do whatever he wanted with his own themes, including deleting them all if he felt so inclined.

In other words, this in no way would deny the right an author has to control his own creations, nor would it fail to give credit where credit is due.

Which leaves... what? What argument against doing something like this? I still think this would be a better option than the alternative, which is a permanent loss of all that artwork (which the author did intend to share in the first place, or he would not have put it on a public place).

Yep....your option is 'better', but still won't conform with the tenets of copyright.

It is not impossible to have a scenario where an artist WANTED to distribute via skinz.org specifically [for whatever reason] but perhaps [in the case of your proggy] had some issue where he did NOT want them hosted on your site [clash of personalities maybe].

In that case making the assumption he'd be OK with them being rehosted with you would be totally wrong.

Whether or not you provide account info and credits still doesn't make up for the reality that the artist did not specifically consent to the rehosting/relocation.

I can recall people spitting a dummy over associated advertising on a site that hosted their works.... and the time some of us were approached by a Japanese publication [magazine] doing a feature on GUI skinning... only to find they were into soft porn as well.... many were upset.

I still have the mag somewhere...;)

Only the author can give the rights to the distribution [and location] of copies of his works.  <------ That's 'Copyright' ...;)

For redneck's sake!  Can you tell me what "spitting a dummy" means?

Throwing a tantrum ...JAFOCHECK

 

It's evocative....when a baby spits its dummy it's about to start crying, etc ....[chucking a wobbly]....

Slang can be such fun....;)

 

                 

 

 

I can't believe the reply I got from my notifying DeviartArt (now I know what the Deviant part means):

____________________________

damphyr (DeviantArt)

Mar 30, 4:44 PM

Thank you for contacting us, Thomas.

Copyright infringement is a serious matter and our Copyright Policy appears as a link at the bottom of most pages on DeviantArt.com.

We accept copyright claims only from the copyright owner of the original work, typically the artist responsible for the original work that you feel may have been copied or adapted by another deviant. The original artist has the opportunity to file a "DMCA Takedown Notice" which we will then review.

We cannot act on copyright claims made by people who are not the copyright owner, however well intentioned. This is because in many cases the copyright owner does not want to enforce their copyright in the particular circumstances that are involved or the person making the copy may have permission.

You may wish to contact the original artist on your own, inform them about the Copyright Policy and point them to the process of filing a DMCA Takedown Notice. These are the two links you may wish to use in your note:
http://about.deviantart.com/policy/copyright/
http://help.deviantart.com/dmca

We hope you found this answer helpful and thank you for your concern and willingness to call this matter to our attention. We value your membership and participation in DeviantArt.

___________________________

 

So I replied:

Idiotic procedures like this is again one of the reasons I quit your site. Use some brains, even the submitter says they are not his work in the description and you can see in the screenshots he used you can see the original authors name! Don't bother to reply, it would be a waste trying to convince me that your ridiculous interpretation of DCMA procedures are your only choice. Some of the original authors aren't even around any more, so they cannot be contacted! Use some brains!

I am going to post your reply, and mine back to you, on the thread discussing this issue on WinCustomize, and I sure hope more users quit your site.

___________________________

 

What a bunch of idiots! 

Thomas, I know you're not going to like me saying this, but DA are correct in their interpretation of this. Only the author (or some legal representative) can/should request a DMCA takedown of his own work.

Otherwise, imagine this: you see someone submitting work that isn't theirs (and they even admit it) but *you* can no longer contact the original author. Unknown to you, the original author might have actually given the submitter permission to re-distribute his work. If DA were to act on your complain, they might actually be going against the wishes of the original author.

So, the only way to be sure is to only accept DMCA notices from the author himself. In this DMCA notice the author must identify himself and state under penalty of perjury that the work is his own. If he is lying, the other party can file a DMCA counterclaim and even take him to court for perjury. This thus offers some kind of protection for both parties.

So, in this case all you can/should do is contact one or more of the original authors to let them know of what is going on. Up to them to then file a DMCA take down notice or not.

I understand what you are saying Jorge, but there is no way of contacting many of the original authors any more. In this case, DA is wrong in my opinion, they should use common sense.