WOW - Jafo excelled himself. All 4 in one hit on Wincustomize !
I have uploaded this one

"The Louvre"

It works.

I have not included the wallpaper in the upload because sadly the photgrapher even though royalty free, has not bothered replying. Soooo - I have put it here if anyone downloads itand wants the other famous paintings on their desktop when/if it is approved [right click/save] I tested this on 12 different wallpapers of The Louvre all with different settings: Day/night/sunset/inside-out etc and all work.
Cheers

And another "Blue Butterfly"

This works with any Blue butterfly wallpaper I tried well. I use this one a lot personally because it has such a peaceful "Feel good" look about it.
I was pretty happy I got the cuckoon for the trash to change color from standard monarch color to blue depending on wheteher full or empty - trivial but for me, nice

And "coupla" others to add to the feelgood thingee
Purples work quite nicely too with it

Anyone that downloads Butterfly when it is available in Wincustomize, here is a wallpaper made just for the theme [left click to expand, then right click - save]
cheers

You may close this thread if you wish Jorge.

I have officially as of today joined Mackerson, a person I have now been accused of ripping off.

http://prnt.sc/cykfcv
I painstakingly spent a LOT of time doin complete designs in the Louvre which was originally "ART", one image at a time.
Call me over-sensitive or over-reacting, I don't give a shit. I am however too OLD for this shit.
I only ever wanted to do them for myself and that is now EXACTLY what i will be doing when the mood grabs me.


here is the LAST one uploaded to close the book completely redone in menu and docks. If people want to try and own layouts next I will piss myself laughing.

CIAO I'm outta here I have WAYYYYY better things to do.

Got a PM from Jafo and also just read the latest messages in the thread you started at WC.

Look, I totally understand how things work when you've just started skinning: we (those who make themes/skins) all went through it.

Nearly everybody starts by making variations on existing themes made by other people, until they figure out how everything works. At that point they usually start making 100% original themes.

One thing you have to understand as a beginner, however, is that established skinners closely protect their own work. And even if the original author is no longer around, the others will do that for him. This is actually a good thing and is especially evident at Wincustomize (I believe DeviantArt has a bit more 'relaxed' rules), where they even are more pro-active than reactive about it.

It's been like this forever. When a skinner wants to do a 'port' of a theme (say, port a WindowBlinds theme to Winstep) they will never do it without asking for permission from the original author first.

There is no denying that the bitmaps for the NextSTART *menus* in the Louvre theme are an exact copy of the menu bitmaps in the Harmony theme, only re-colored. The Winstep Harmony theme was made by Mackerson, and is in itself a port of the WindowBlinds theme of the same name originally made by Vstyler.

So, to use (even if re-colored) that same exact shape for the menus, you would have had to ask Vstyler's permission first. The alternative is to change the original bitmaps enough that, even if they still resemble the originals a bit, they are not an exact copy. And even then you should credit the original author as the 'inspiration' for the idea.

I understand how this all may seem waaaaay too serious for someone who is just starting such as yourself, but that is the way things roll when you want to publish themes at Wincustomize.

I hope you can understand too why skinner's defend their own work (and the work of others) so fiercely. Some of those people actually make graphics/skins for a living (or at least to generate some extra income), and you can just imagine how they would feel if people were simply allowed to rip off work that took them weeks to do with no consequences.



And so you should. But it's also natural to want to share the things we create (that's how Winstep started too).

You just have to be careful with how you do it so as not to hurt others: if you're making a theme that is based on a theme made by someone else (even if only parts of it), you MUST ask for permission from the original author first. And if he says no, does not reply or is no longer around, you have to take it in the gut and refrain from publishing your variation (or at least change it so it no longer uses that other person's work).

If it makes you feel any better: many years ago, even before Wincustomize was born, the web site of choice for skinners was Skinz.org. One day there was a huge scandal with the company sponsoring Skinz.org's bandwidth bill, eFront, which prompted the site admins to abandon the site and most skin authors to remove their creations from Skinz.org.

Just before this happened, I was given access to all the hundreds of NextSTART themes stored there, and was given permission by a site admin to download them all via FTP to my hard drive.

As much as it pained me, I was never able to put them back online (this time hosted at Winstep.net) because of the fact that those themes were not mine to handle.

Even though most authors of those early NextSTART skins would probably not mind me making them available at Winstep.net, there is a chance that *some might*. And, given that, this became an all or nothing proposition - either I went to trouble of locating and contacting the original authors of *all the hundreds of themes* and ask them for permission (and I didn't have access to Skinz.org database, so I had nobody's email addresses), or I simply had to give up on the idea of putting them online again.

I sadly was forced to chose the latter given the circumstances. I still have them all on my hard drive, some of them amazing themes, now lost forever.

Here are the last gel docks - now the theme is totally mine and other than a rounded menu and angled nexus base no fricking squares. One day I will clean up the edges... one day
I am done Jorge.

It is not worth the dramas.
being protective about one's work is fine
IF IT IS FOR SALE - I worked for Murdoch and two other fortune 500 companies when my children were little. I know what a pro Graphic artist is and how much they get paid. When the people moaning are in that league then I will stop laughing at them and farting in their general direction.
If it's not for sale, then do what i am doing, keep it to myself and let others get their OWN Karma don't bring it upon themeselves.
Thanks for all of your assistance and tolerance I do appreciate it.

I am done. I won't stop skinning but not for others.

BTW I have six themes made from photographs of hand done oil paintings. I never posted them and won't because they are mine and my mothers. One of them had limited prints so even while I certainly own them, ethically I truly did it for me.
besides, it's cheaper to use acryllics these days, oils are too expensive for what they are nowadays.

Anyway back to my main profession.....
-here's the last one but it won't be available in this form only what's up now. I can look at this and see immediately the squiggly gel I could easily do vertically instead of horizontally as a menu and it woul look better and do the shelf identically and that's easy peezy, but to be honest, I can no longer be bothered Jorge.
Ciao

Look, I talked to Jafo. He and the other moderators there are only doing what they have always done.

It's the rules of the place: if you are going to be using someone else's work, in full or in part, just get consent from the original author first, then include a permissions.txt file in the theme crediting the original author and add a statement in the description of the theme that consent was given by 'whom-ever'.

You shouldn't be upset because of this.

Yes, I know you are still experimenting and all, but to upload the themes to Wincustomize you really do need to follow those simple rules.

Notice that nobody there was upset with you, they know you only just started and that you are full of enthusiasm, and were therefore just trying to explain how things work. They recognized you have talent and that you had perhaps just overlooked that one graphic.

On the other hand, guys who actually - systematically and knowingly - plagiarize the work of others don't last long there. Even big time famous skinners - especially them! - will get roasted if they are caught doing anything like that. Believe me, I've seen it happen and it's not pretty.

Mind you, we're not talking about wallpapers here - there are plenty of free-to-use wallpapers out there - but the actual themes. You just have to be careful with those.

Jorge lets just speak as two people that have lived a little while longer than a young man...
If we were hypothetically sitting face to face in a room with them in a meeting, what you have just said is like telling me what they did not say to "me" when they had more than ample opportunity. It's not like Jafo could not message me because he has.
while I appreciate that you are also full of enthusiasm i have been painting in oils for a very long time.

The Graphic arts world in digital is very different to real artists. Most of the amazing 3D and digital artists i have met could not paint or sculpt well enough to pass High School art.
I am "ok" at the digital. I do not do it to please others because I have lived the life of a creative person seeing no money one month and 10K the next then 500 then nada then a few thousand... so I have struuggled in music for the art.

So when I see people moaning about "DESKTOPS" that they say they created by hand, a real artist would say "Show me the charcoal, pencil or paint sketches".
I taught myself the digital and the programs no training whatsoever. All done from being an actual musician who paints for REAL.

I will say this again because I have sold my art [paintings] for REAL money in the past. If there is nothing for sale and people are saying it's for free and they don't want people to borrow, plagiarise or even steal as some clandestine PM said... Then don't fricking put it up for people to take, sell the fricking thing. THEN if it gets stolen moan like a bitch justifiably. I stand by what i said - I fart in their general direction laughably.

I TRULY have better things to do Jorge and so do you than debate the merits of borrowing, copying and ownership in digital environment where nothing truly cannot be hacked..
On a positive and creative note - If you want some CD's EMAIL me [not here] a snail mail addy and I'll send you a couple. I paid for them out of hard earned dollars and sold them. One of them was nominated Jazz CD of the year for whatever that's worth...
Cheers

A

Doesn't really matter, does it? It's still art. The medium in which you express your art is irrelevant.



This is where you are dead wrong.

Let me give you a practical example which has nothing to do with themes: there is a free version of the Winstep Nexus dock.

Because it's free does that mean that others should be allowed to copy it, plagiarize, distribute it, claim ownership, modify it, do whatever they want with my own IP? The IP I have spent years of blood, sweat and tears working on?!

Of course not!

The free version exists because it serves a purpose. In this case it's to get the Winstep name out there (marketing) and also to create a need in the people using it so that - hopefully - they will want to upgrade to one of the more feature-complete - and paid - versions.

So, whenever someone distributes something for free, whatever it is, it serves a purpose. What that purpose is varies from person to person but there is one thing that always remains the same: that 'something' only exists in that specific form because someone invested time and energy creating it.

Ultimately, everything that is sold or given has the same common origin: the willingness of one or more persons to invest their time and energy in creating or doing something.

This applies to digital goods as well as physical stuff, which is also why the argument that it's ok to pirate digital goods because nothing is really being stolen (nothing physical, that is) is complete and utter bullshit. For a table to exist, someone must have spent their time and energy carving it. For the wood used in the table to exist in a usable form someone must have spent their time and energy cutting a tree down.

So, whenever you are paying for something, whatever that is, you are not really paying for the object per se, but for the time, know-how and energy invested into creating it.

But I digress... the point is: just because I'm giving something away for free, it does not mean that I want my work copied or abused - unless *I* specifically say it's ok. Otherwise, I have the right to bitch, because someone is indeed stealing something from me, be that know-how, time, energy, whatever.

This is why even Open Source software has many different types of licenses. Some allow you to modify the work, others only allow you to use it for free but with no modifications allowed, others allow you to use it for free only for personal use but you have to pay for commercial use, etc...

Ultimately it's the creator of the work that decides how *his* work can be used, regardless of it being sold or made available for free...

Ah but that is where copyright comes in... signing your work like I do with a painting in the bottom corner or protecting it if you are going to decide "how" it is going to be distributed yes?

Don't sign it, don't mmoan is my take. Your work is signed in the about section of all your apps so it is protected. the people that are moaning lets be honest - signed it? yes? no? If they did, fine, if not... In the legal world - tough bikkies.

Copyright is automatic, and you don't actually need a copyright notice:

"As of January 1, 1978, under U.S. copyright law, a work is automatically protected by copyright when it is created. Specifically, “A work is created when it is “fixed” in a copy or phonorecord for the first time."

Anyway, it doesn't really matter. Even if it was not legally wrong, it would be ethically wrong.

Bottomline: If it ain't yours, it ain't yours.

Jorge - This is interesting the USA thinks its own laws rule the world and Internet copyright - bad news - they don't. Don't believe me, ask the www consortium which might be able to answer that for free or a lawyer. Internet law vs laws of: USA, UK, European, australian, NZ or any law for that matter is irrelevant with Internet copyright law.
check it for yourself.

That's why so many people get away with stuff they should never have.