Difference between ignorance and knowingly doing it

It takes a little while to understand the rules of Copyright and the appreciation of an artist's rights to keep what is his...his.

I recently had someone claim all so knowingly that a GNU licence means you can do what you like.  

And yes, it does...provided the original creator/artist released his work under it.  In other words...the only way a third party can take that artist's work as his own...and do as he pleases...is if that original work came bundled with a copy of the GNU licence itself.  The original person must release the rights....someone else cannot assume them.

And besides....that had absolutely no bearing on a skin...the GNU was designed for open source Linux distribution/development.

Re your comment...yes, the computer industry is rife with stolen IP ....just ask Apple where they got their name from.  That's a good start.

In the world of skinning the rule is....when in doubt...ask.  If no reply....shelve it.

If consent is given for a derivative work...include a copy of same for verification.

Graphic art on computers has been around since before there was a GUI, as has skinning.  Nothing has changed in that time...;)

I know it sounds like breaking something beautiful which great graphics can be down to its lowest common denominator, but truly the graphics everyone are so cautious with in copyright and copying and what is copying and what is not have gone a little over the top.

For example in music, if someone actually went back and was say from the family line of Muddy waters, BB King, Freddie King and then went through every blues written since, the courts would be full of lawsuits.

- graphic art digitally is a bunch of 0's and 1's relegated via pixels to render something we see  every day with our retina and cortex/ eyes

We take it for granted. Show me one true great graphic artist that can truthfully say they never saw a work by Michelangelo, DaVinci, Monet, Van Gogh, Picasso or any of the masters and then and only then you will see something truly original. This is because not one single artist living or dead influenced them. Only the sights and sounds they have been exposed to.

So there is a line and people choose to draw that line. It's not a bad thing I simply think that the line between influence and plagiarism is often very thin.

Yes, it is....no question.

In the past 'tricks' were used, similar to metadata only harder to notice that could demonstrate actual theft, not 'influence'.   The simplest one is to hide pixels with a specific colour-shift which, when brightened/darkened would reveal an otherwise invisible 'signature'.

When the Moderators here see an issue it's typically blindingly obvious, like that the 'original Stairway to heaven' was just raised a semitone...;)

Oh....and before we enter that discussion about 'theft' and that nothing 'material' was taken let's just remind ourselves that skinning sites [in particular] have been around for almost 20 years....and that it is a VERY OLD ARGUMENT - always expounded by proponents of Napster, etc [yes, THAT old]...;)

So there has to be some inside information going on here. I do believe I know what it's about but that's not the point.

Someone tell me with the title of this thread and anything said in it how this belongs on a "skinning" thread?

OK in relation to Skinning.

Where is the line drawn?

Sure there are rules and regulations, some even I was not aware of through ignorance of not knowing "where" the line is drawn. 

There are so many schools of thought and philosophy on this, too many to mention, but the point being, that the line is sometimes drawn immovably when it should be flexible and vice-versa sometimes.

So lets be semantic hypothetically:

John Doe creates a skin called "Idiosyncratic innuendos". Joe Blo dowloads it and three weeks later releases a skin called " Natural implications".

It might be a different color, shape and style but there is no doubt the original idea has been copied even though the graphics are different and the title reworded.

Have they copied it? No and Yes.  You can go down and drill down further where one school believes if it is not broken do not fix it, but that too has far too many implications that can be stretched beyond reasonable acceptability.

Skinning and copying or skinning and influence or skinning and ripping off. ALL very close. At least I know where the lines are now.

I too did Winamp skins 20 years ago. I think the AKAI one is still out there somewhere? Who knows, I do not use Winamp anymore, VLC is simpler and faster. Yeah I can skin it and have but I use it 'coz it be fast

Several of us here did too.  I still use one of mine....a 2.9x vintage.  I also know of the originator of Winamp skinning....the bloke who reverse-engineered what was a particularly ugly [garish] GUI.... Fly7e.

I have chased Nullsoft for being slow [read useless] at protecting IP and was called a 'clusterfuck' for the privilege.

If you need to ask whether a skin is 'too closely inspired' just ask.

Generally over the years we could recognize a skinner's style from a mile away....eg treetog / Pixtudio.

Any time a person wants to make use of another work, in whole or in part....the rule is to seek permission first if you intend to re-upload it.  Almost always the answer will be 'yes' ...but the question MUST be asked.

....re those early Winamp skins I was [in]famous for coding the transparencies by hand....manually setting pixel co-ordinates....the most complex was over 8000 ...;)

Ask jcRabbit - you know the early Winstep ones I first put here? all done pixel by pixel much like the pain you experienced and shared with winamp - I think that might well be the main reason I remebered how to do top down testing when I had no skinning editor - ALL by hand the whole lot. Since I have stabilised windows 8.1 to accept both 9.5 and 16.9 to run in tandem without requiring reinstalls every 24hrs of 16.9 getting corrupted, I can do them at 500% the speed with an actual editor designed for it [not that anyone noticed]

cool - The Winamp days were fun though. In retrospect it was because "it was there" I think lol

Youtful vigor. Nowadays I'd probably put in the too-hard bin. Big Kudos for hand tansparency. Opaqueness was not really functional the way it is now in the late 80's and 90's

Just one final, and salient point.

Whenever a work is derivative, whether wholly or in part, permission MUST be sought and received and notice of same included with any submission to Wincustomize.com.

It's simple.  Even fits into one sentence.

I get it but if you see not only the forums of Winstep, but also the informationpdf, it includes using the templates in part or in whole as a foundation. So that's a little grey. especially when you buy something saying just that. 

Don't get me wrong, I get your point and several other's have too. I have work that is so original both in ear candy and graphically i have no idea where to display it. I think I may need to do a display [actually painted and actually recorded with the ear candy and no machines ]

Cheers

The intent is that is a 'starting point' from which to create your own.

That does not mean getting the Mona Lisa as a 'starting point' and cutting out the face and inserting your own....whilst the rest of the canvas is still Da Vinci's.

There's [usually] nothing wrong with reverse-engineering an existing skin [or theme] to see what makes it tick....and then from there understand how to do your own.

When you feel you MUST incorporate someone else's graphics/details just chase up consent first.  It's done quite often, and acceptable when the correct procedure is followed....;)

Not to point fingers, but the Louvre Winstep theme you posted includes what appears to be recolored graphics from the Harmony Winstep.  Is there permission? It isn't in the download.

mcakerson probably isn't around these days and he had to get permission from vStyler to use the graphics.

Just a point. 

Seeing as everyone is pointing before asking

Link 1 manually done no copy:

http://prnt.sc/cykfcv

Link 2 ewdrawn though similar and my own wood textures:

http://prnt.sc/cykfpy

Which part? the transparent menu that every man and his dog does?

I do not even think it is the same size?

WOW - I do not know what to say now. I have better things to do though than this because it's just a hobby aof MANY. 

I wasn't accusing you. I was pointing out the idea of IP. Even if you made an exact replica of someone else's graphics, is it not stealing the idea, as pointed out above?

This was just my input on the topic of IP. I thought that was the point of this thread?

I wouldn't go getting bent outta shape here if I were you. You have talent and maybe just overlooked this one graphic.

Again, not accusing you of anything. Just responding to the topic.

I made the same mistake once, and was alerted to the oversight by the author of the graphics I used.    

I'm going to close this thread now.  It's getting old.

The reality is that the Start Menu panel frames are identical and had not been swapped out for something original.