WindowBlinds 7 is pretty well protected.  As someone who hunts down pirates on a weekly basis, I can say with certain that pirates don't like WB7. 

Otherwise it really doesn't matter for master skins, you can have a legit copy of WB and still pirate a master skin.

This is true, however those that are willing to shell out the $$ for Windowblinds are less likely to pirate the master skins.

You're never going to stop it completely. I just see encrypting skins or using a My Colors type solution as a total failure/inconvienience for legit users waiting to happen. If the blinds REQUIRE WB7 to run then it would go a long way in the deterence battle.

Yes...me throwing ideas around doesn't make it happen....just makes it thunk about.

There may be other ways to ultimately handle the issues...;)

Indeed.  We need to decide if we will implement a system, whats the best way to do so and if we will open it up to other SD apps as well as WindowBlinds such as protecting master video dreams.

There are two sides of this.  Protecting WB is obviously important (as thats how we make money!), but protecting the content is also important.

Putting the content in a new protected format that required a new version of WB (say 7.2) to run would allow us to tighten up both things at once.  Otherwise we can improve WB protection by 100 times and it isn't going to help master skin piracy when the pirates will simply use WB 7.1.

Any system would not require an additional app so it isn't the same as the MyColors solution.  WindowBlinds would just handle it all itself.

Now you know I NEVER said to create new and wonderful reasons to dl the warez in the wild..

You are right on it doesn't make the POLICE guilty by association

as they get that authority by becoming Police...

just like if you found Crack on the Street and you said oh I better pick this up so no kids find it and take it..

so he/she take it to the Police to turn it in.. can you guess who will be going to jail. if you picked the guy/girl who took it to the cops your right

well here in the USA  Missouri and Kansas can't say about the other States.

and all he/she was doing was tring to do was the right thang...

Boom headshot.

People aren't going to like my response but whatever, i'm only being real.  There is NO way to resolve this issue, you just need to suck it up and move on.  YES they are stealing your work, YES you worked hard to earn that money, but that's the way the internet goes, the quicker you realize this and accept it the easier it will be.  I'm not saying what they are doing is right, but honest people will still purchase your skins, and if your skin is not selling as much as you thought it might, then pirates are not to blame for that.  This is one of many sites that will come and go, if you manage to somehow by the grace of god shut this site down, another will pop up in it's place, as i said, that's how the internet works.   Do not take this the wrong way, but skinners are the small fish in the world of pirating, you should be lucky that you only found one small site that not a whole lot of people visit, rather than software venders who have their software pirated all over the place.  This doesn't mean you don't work as hard to make your product, it just means that you "technically" speaking, aren't as important to pirates as big named software.

With that said, the topic of somehow encrypting the skins comes up, and in my opinion there is no way to do this whilst keeping everyone happy.  So you encrypt the skins, does that mean that you couldn't open them in skin studio any longer?  If that's the case then you are probably looking at more backlash for that then pirating itself, because while there are many skins that i like to use, some elements of the skin i like to edit myself because I dislike it or it's bugged etc.. the list goes on.  But taking away the ability to edit something as i see fit, without the intent to distribute would cause major concern for windowblinds purchasers.

I'm not trying to be an ass, and rain on everyone's "i hate piracy" parade, but i'm sure skinners like vstyler and essorant etc make a nice profit from skins at wincustomize, enough so that they keep pumping out quality skins every other week.  If you feel that your skin is suffering in sales because of pirating than you are dilusional, and need to place blame on something other than pirates because the honest to god truth is that people that download pirated skins, were NEVER going to purchase them to begin with, that's how leechers work.  It's understandable to be upset, but its not going to change anything, this is just how things work.

@bubbabyte

Sometimes it's better to keep your thoughts inside your head. 

@G3mpi3

Maybe you should as well if you can't handle the truth.

An encrypted skin can still be modified in SkinStudio, you just can't modify the graphics.  So margins, text colours etc can all still be changed.

Yes, while what bubbabyte says may not be what a lot of people want to hear, he does speak the truth.  The harder you try to protect something on the internet, the harder pirates and cracksters will fight to undo encryptions, keys, etc.  To some pirates it's like a red rag  to a bull... and when you've got all these protectionisms in place, the people it inconveniences and pisses of the most are legitimate paying customers.

Hmmm, maybe the 'doomsday' type trojan being sent down the wire to crash these pirate sites isn't such a bad idea after all... and if anyone has a problem with it being taking the law into their own hands, fight to make it legal to destroy illicit sites.... and have a court appointed hacker to do the dirty deed... if it's that distasteful.

As bad as it is but bubbabyte is right. And after a time they can crack every protection one can implement.

Thank you.  I'm not trying to disrespect anyone or step on any toes, i'm just being honest.  I just think people are getting too invested in fighting a losing battle.  I'm sure there are MANY ways to try to prevent piracy, but in the end there are going to be alot more legitimate customers that are unhappy, so is it worth it?  Regardless of how many sites are giving away your hard work, there is one thing that will always be true, pirates like free stuff.  What this means is that regardless if you charge $5 or .2 cents, the people that pirate your work were NEVER going to pay for it anyway, because no matter how great you or anyone thinks it is, there are always free alternatives.  This is why i think encryption and other methods are useless, because skinners are not losing sales, they were never gonna get those sales to begin with.

I'm not trying to disrespect vampothika, I don't know her from a hole in the ground and she may be the nicest person in the world.  But when it comes to skinning, if the skins aren't selling as much as you might have thought they would sell, you can't blame that on pirating because as i said, those people were never going to purchase to begin with.  Sure it sucks to have your work put out there for free, but it comes with the territory.  I'm not saying your skins aren't worth money, so please don't think i'm hating on you, this is just a general argument that if you make something of quality, whether its a skin/software etc.. honest people WILL buy it.  For example, would you blame piracy for lack of sales of Windows Vista?  Of course not, people who wanted it, bought it, and people that pirated it, were never going to buy it anyway.  Now windows 7 comes out and breaks records with sales, even though it is JUST as piratable as vista and anything before it, because it is a quality product.

Exactly.  Why waste time trying to avoid piracy, when those people were never going to support you anyway.  People seem to have this distorted reality that if we somehow block people from downloading it, they are all going to buy it, and that's just not realistic. 

Just because one has to pay for the skin should not deter the ability to change an image in it for ones own personal use.

Sorry Bubbabyte, there's a lot of truth to what your saying, and I agree with most of it. My previous statement was rude, unnecessary, and inconsiderate. With that said, I wouldn't say this site is "one of many which will come and go." When I read that, I threw a fit like a little girl and cried and ran into my room and locked the door.

In all seriousness though, the mods and community at this site support one another, and in that way I believe wincustomize is unique. Maybe we can't completely resolve this problem, but we can certainly attempt to reduce it's damages/effects.

As someone whose skins do NOT sell well I can say that any lost sales do hurt.But Bubbabyte makes a good point,most of those people would NEVER buy a skin so I havnt lost much there.

I know why  my skins dont sell well...they are odd and only appeal to a select group of people.(people with superior taste)

The risk of alienating the good people to stop the fun of the bad people in my opinion has rarely paid off for any copy protection scheme.

I dont know how the image encryption scheme works but I am extremely leary of image degradation for the end user.I had a similar problem with SKS degrading images with its frame builder.

I dont want this to sound like I'm Neil-bashing because Neil has been listening to all my emails and has been slowly squashing any bugs that come up.I just think making WB even more complicated might not be the best idea.I dont want real customers afraid to buy a masterskin.That would hurt sales more than pirating I think.

If the end user isnt going to suffer and it will protect sales then do it...I need the money...really...badly.

As far as skinmodifying goes...we all rely to some degree being able to tell a user with a problem how to open SKS and fix it.No skin is EVER perfect for all users.

Any supplementary skin makers we should always provide whatever they need...psd's,free WB,etc..

Handing someone a 5$ blind is cheap compared to the completeness they add to a skin.They always thank me for the free blind when its me that should be thanking them...and if I have ever Not thanked one of them...they should cuss me.

I need the end user to be able to

substitute an image if he needs to

substitute a text file if needed

Its about customization...the end user should have the right to make it work how they want...if the protection scheme dosnt bugger that up then maybe it can work.

You read it wrong, when i said the site is one of many which will come and go i was referring to the pirating site in question, not this site.  If you manage to shut down that ONE pirating site, another will pop up within days if not sooner, that's the way of the internet, just research any bittorrent site that was taken down.  I never questioned the reputation of this site.

I understand what you're saying  Brainiac, and i hope you didn't take offense to what i was saying.  I'm in no way saying people that don't sell skins aren't talented.  I just simply meant that if you are making skins for a "specific" audience such as yourself, and they don't sell as much as you thought, it's not the fault of piracy, so in turn you have a choice to either continue to please your audience and the people that have supported you or to go "mainstream" and try to please a wider audience.  I was never implying that you, vampothika or anyone else didn't have talent, so i hope you understand that.

And i completely agree with your comments about skin modifying, the end user needs to have that option because no skin is perfect for every user, so blocking the ability to modify existing skins would be a huge problem for paying customers imo.

I knew exactly what you meant Bubba...part of the problem also is...skins just dont sell terrifically well under the best of circumstances.

Its a luxury...with a limited audience.

So protection is a two edged sword.Its important because EVERY sale is important...and its dangerous because your customer base isnt large enough afford irritating your good folks.

My solution in the meantime is to make my next skin so cool that people drool.

I'm not saying she shouldn't be upset or emotional about it.  If she or any other skinner feels the need to try and do something about it, by all means go for it.  But it reality, it's not going to make a difference.  I'm not saying don't do it, i'm saying if you do it, the end result will be the same, it's inevitable and can't really be stopped.  So i don't really understand the point of getting all bent out of shape about something that you really can't change.  You can try and try again, but the fight is futile no matter how you look at it.

Ah, makes sense. Thanks for specifying.