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.