They know Neil...jafo has talked to me...I'm thru stinkin' up the place.

Instead of trolling on everything I type as soon as you read it, read through the rest of my posts.  You might see my final statement on the matter.  Objective standard.  Please. 

Masters....all being 'Masters'...are all of equal 'status'...naturally...

But within the Master status complexity...there are Masters of the Cursor....Masters of the Dream....Masters of the Wallpaper.....Masters of DX.....Masters of the Community (which they all should be).....guiolympic placegetter Masters.....Masters of Windowblinds....etc..whatever their speciality...quite a different mix of skills developed over varying numbers of years.

...within Masters of Windowblinds....there are different skillsets...not just 'sizes of portfolios'....blind freddie can see that....it's a result of them all being individuals.... as well as Masters...some have been at it many years longer....some have the opportunity to work on it full-time..others as a hobby...an..obsessive hobby!....skinners have different flairs for design...but they have all worked hard at perfecting their craft and their style and bought something unique to the community and the mods attention....

I would hope all Masters continue to improve and strive for greater skills and forward thinking designs....not just rest on their laurels that they have all achieved this Master status, that they are seeming to be told, automatically makes their skills the same....'cause it ain't so...there's always going be someone better than you are...to hopefully inspire you to improve...

I understand where you're coming from Manni....just probably could have been better worded to get your meaning across....it's only practical to want to seek opinions from people who have been skinning longer term...on a full-time basis, to get their take on things....and perhaps how
it has affected them and their sales over time...and what they think the repercussions might be of any blind protecting ecryptions as they surely have had a longer period of time to get to know their customers and their needs...

nothing wrong with having 'elders' at any level...that's natural.....and shouldn't be looked upon as 'different classes'....

Thanks Doc!  I also just spent time sending emails to all their advertisers that I could find that did not appear to be illegal themselves telling them about their ads or links appearing on an illegal file sharing site and gave them the pertinent info. Hah!

Well said syd.  I can't articulate my thoughts that well, but that pretty much sums it up for me.

Well, my actions are finally having some results, I actually got an email from the administration at that site asking for links to the copyrighted material, which I provided after hours of typing. I sent them almost 50 links of the stuff I knew alone!  Kitty, I included skins by you, Adni18, vStyler, myself and I.R. Brainiac in the list, as well as a general comment about all Stardock and The Skins Factory copyrighted material, and gave them the user names of the biggest offenders on their site also. I also told them that basically everything on their site was copyrighted and illegal, but I doubt if that will have much impact. We shall see!

Did you mention the skins by me, or should I write my own mail, Tom?

Translation:

Sorry, but you will probably need to contact them yourself, I mentioned to them that every skin on their site was in fact copyrighted though.

Wrong name!  Oops!  Sorry Tim!

Since when did Tim turn into Karen?

Karen? Well my sister's name is Karin, so close enough.

Anyway, I asked because I saw that you wrote a comment on my skin Stratos on that site, but you didn't mention my name in post #187.

I was just back on the site in question and mine and many others have been removed

We still have a ways to go, though. Still plenty of premium skins by essorant (His name is Tim too ), Adni, Z71 and Mikeb still up.

Thanks for your dedication to the cause, Vamps and LS. I plan to do my part too 

Way to go folks. 

Good to hear the site is taking the problem seriously.