I began my life as a skinner, porting and modding mac themes to windows. Taking a ready made theme and adapting it is possibly the easiest way to learn how to skin and theme. It was for me. One of the main factors in doing this was permission. You need permission from the original author to be able to officially release it to the public. Getting permission can be difficult, especially trying to contact someone.

With each theme you mod/create and release, you learn and get to recieve critique to help guide you in the right directions. I want to try and steer the customisation and deskmodding community in this direction by introducing a new concept: Blanket Permission.

PROPOSAL AND WHY

We have all seen and know about stock images but it is something this community is lacking. ^LawrenceDeDark implimented an unrestricted stock useage group and it's growing all the time. How much do you think this community would grow and new work be produced if people were able to use elements from other peoples skins/themes, mod other peoples skins/themes/icons, port from mac to windows or windows to mac, create a matching skin/theme for another app based on someone elses work or just be directly inspired to create a variant of something, all without trying to get permission or worrying about copyright when releasing?

WHAT NEXT

I hearby propose a group for just this, where skinners/themers allow their work to be used in the manner stated above. So how would it work? You would effectively be releasing under a Creative Commons license. For those who don't know what it is, you are allowing people to use, copy, and share your work while giving you credit. Offering your work under a Creative Commons license does not mean giving up your copyright. It means offering some of your rights to any member of the public but only on certain conditions. You can select your terms when releasing anything here on DA.

This new group I would call SkinSwingers. You would be allowing your skins to be used in a swinger type of fashion and the name also sounds like a kind of slang for testicles, simply because skinners/themers are the nuts in my opinion lol Each person that joins the group will be given a psd badge of the group to put their name on and place in their, say, webcam box or dev ID, to show people you are part of this movement. You can then create a folder in your gallery and place the work in it that you are allowing to be used in this manner or you can state that your entire gallery is open to this. The badge can also be placed on the preview of your released work to show people it can be used in the ways I've already described.


I myself will be creating a folder in my gallery for just this purpose. I want to encourge new artists and show them that this community is pulling together to help. By letting others use my work, I am helping people to learn, seeing my work in new ways and ultimately reaching a wider audience. It is time that the NFR (not for release) culture stops, to which I am also guilty, and that skinning, theming and deskmodding is put back into it's rightful place. Deviantart was originally created for customisation. Let's keep the passion going!


Any questions or concerns you have, please raise them. This is long overdue but really needed. It's time the community takes a step in a new direction, a one that will surely see it grow

Who is with me???????