Right on Dave, sup you get some sleep finally? Was that one yours? I'm not trying to escalate it, just chatting and defending my point of view till I'm blue in the face. For some reason that seems like escalating it, or flaming to these people, we know each other Dave this isn't flaming...You make a good point with the family stuff, I'm right there with you. I shot P5 a quick message about it, I'm trying to be nice and not take it there yet. Really I just want it removed, it's not like anyone here plans to kick me or any of these others that got ripped off some compensation. Honestly the most we can hope for in situations like this is the removal, and we eat the damages yet again...   Thanks Wincustomize!

I've been here a long time and there's no where else on the internet takes copyright more seriously. The admins here put in a tireless effort in protecting everyone's rights. This what they will be doing right now: a complete investigation of the origins of any upload involved. Including ascertaining who the original copyright holder is, whether this site's rules have been broken (there are some specific to dreams), and the terms and conditions of the site from which they originate.

Making inflamatory posts and making an ass of yourself on the forum doesn't help. Let the admins do their job, in private; they are very good at what they do.

i find my work stolen here to

this is user that take my work:

Ausvet

can someone tell me if the users who submit here media to download earn eny money for submiting things here?

i know that they are distributed for free

but when i register here i saw an option to sign up to better account with price about 19$ i think that give user unlimited acces to files that are here on the site

so the owners of this site earn money when people with this better accounts download this clips

Hey Dave you know allot about this stuff they are saying they are a "Stardock.corp] is a Gold Partner to Microsoft" so do you still, or currently have any contacts at Microsoft? They basically are giving me run around in PM, I'm done with dealing with this. So do we pass these guys off to sites that legally host our work or contact microsoft, or both? Hit me up via email.

Brian, having gone through this before with other sites, I am waiting a full business day before I escalate this.  I have reported the incident to all of the sites where I sell my work.  I have reported it to the Business Software Alliance (BSA) through their "report piracy" online form.  I have also reported copyright violations to Blizzard, Paramount Pictures and other agencies whose copyrights are being sold here.  It's already been posted on the web forums of many artist organizations to have artists come here and search for their works.

It's important to note that if they do not remove your items in a timely fashion, they can be liable for up to 10 times the value of EACH copyright violation times the number of downloads.  I added up the downloads for all of my items and it's nearly 15,000 downloads.  That's over $3.5 million if a jury/judge ruled in my favor.

And yes, their Microsoft preferred status can be revoked if they are willingly violating copyrights and promoting piracy. Microsoft will kick them to the curb real fast rather than be associated with that.

However, I'm gonna be patient and see what happens in the next 16 hours.  If the items haven't all been removed then I'll escalate the issue through other means.  Let's give them a chance to resolve this themselves.

As before, not speaking for Stardock.

The mods have to confirm that what you say is actually true.  You could be claiming copyrights on other peoples work too.  Usually this would be handled via a DMCA takedown request in the US as that means you are legally stating the works in question are your own (with legal liabilities if it is not the case) and it also offers the other party the ability to disagree and get the works put back up, but in return they open themselves up to lawsuits.

As I mentioned earlier, your posts have come outside work hours (9am to 5pm EST).  Your first post appears to be after 6pm Thursday which is why nothing will happen until after 9am EST when the paid employees of Stardock get into the office.  The internet may be a global thing, but the staff who actually run the site do not work 24 hours a day - not yet at least!

You can be sure that copyrights are taken very seriously around here.  For many of us thats how we earn our living and we all know the pain of discovering someone is giving your work away for free.  If you look around the forums you will see just such a thread from last week where a pirate site (outside the US so impossible to take down) was giving away premium content developed by some of the artists here.  In this case nobody was aware that the uploader was not the copyright holder.

weird thread, where's the other post?

anyway, looking at profiles, dnavarrojr, radek_pl and EternalSpline all created memberships within 24 hours of each other and here they are, seemingly in collusion, making similar noises.

hmmm..........?

We all found out about the theft of our copyrighted material yesterday from a member here who posted the information on an artist related web site.  So, here we all are to defend our rights...  What's so strange about that?

I have received one e-mail about "Flower Power".  Any other works please send me the names/links and I will have them taken care of.

Issues of copyright abuse/violation are required to be taken up directly with The Administrators and/or Moderators of Wincustomize.com IN PRIVATE.

Public accusation is often erroneous and can lead to issues of libel, hence all communication is to be kept out of the public domain.

When someone finds his/her works unlawfully on this site [just as with any other site] the very first information that is required in order to resolve the situation is actual clarity of THREE things.

1.  The claimed unlawfully used item/s in question [link].

2. The claimed original artists' work [link]

3. Terms of use of the source site of the author's distribution [link].

Without any one of those items it is painfully obvious that no action can be taken.

On [private] receipt of all three of those 'items' action can be taken, and will be.

No-one is being given a run-around.  It is simple reality that without a target or a source just saying 'User A has pinched my stuff....take it down" means absolutely nothing...in reality or in Law.

What stuff?  Where? From whom?  How was the 'stuff' obtained?  How has its specific use violated your IP - relative to the source site?

The Wincustomize Admins/Mods are good...but they are not magicians.