sig101....re #32....I scrutinized the skins extremely closely and at great length. My conclusion resulted in m0rphium's work being made public again ofter initial withdrawal.
**********************
If one took on face value m0rphium's claim that he had never seen Abracadabra to be influenced by it, then that, along with the STRONG dissimilarities meant we were obliged to do so.
If, however, this claim was found to be a little short of the truth then the work would/could be seen in a different light.
What transpired was a number of people took offense to the alleged coincidental similarity and said so.
I, as a site admin, was not overly impressed with some of the accusatory comment, but conversely I was also less than happy about m0rphium's responses when the skin was first withdrawn. Posting 'WHERE THE F**K IS MY SKIN?' on every new WB skin in the list was not appropriate, particularly considering dialogue had already been opened to him privately via email.
His subsequent departure is testimony to one of two scenarios.....either maintaining the stance of 'innocent coincidence' perhaps fallaciously was proving too difficult,
or,
He was compelled to depart through what may have been an unwarranted attack on his reputation and person.
Personally I'm willing to imagine that m0rphium DID get quite distant inspiration from a prior skin, not a 'rip' as such and, had he perhaps understood that people would be likely to take umbrage with that, he could have approached the original artist for 'permission' for the inspiration, stated such in its comments and nipped it all in the bud.
Officially, we all, as members of the skinning community are going to have to take a close look at what, how and why we do/respond to issues such as this.
As more and more works are created, chances increase for both unhappy coincidences and historical inspiration. Their handling needs to be 'with care'...
