No, don't bother Phoon... I am not gonna go down that road even, I am OUT of this.

Wikipedia uses Creative Commons. Have you ever "asked permission" to use it? You grant permission automatically by choosing the license. If you don't choose the license, then there is no permission granted, and no one can use/steal your stuff as per normal.

Thank you, guys. I figured that by now (the year 2019) most technologically savvy artists, content developers would already understand what "open source" means.

There are very few top notch skinners still here, as opposed to a few years ago. I can understand them being protective of their work.  But we should be more open to discussion of such things, rather than to start war over it.  

-I Don't think I said anything Offensive, However I f you indeed were offended by something I wrote, It was not my intention at all, and - of course I am sorry about that   

I have one question. I have many WB skins. I have changed a few graphics into a few of them.

I would never post any of them since I really don't know how to even start to make my own.

? Am I doing anything that's not proper? These altered skins are for my own pleasure.

Not a problem S J N.

We all started somewhere or we would not be here now. We have all asked plenty of questions along the way. Thats how we have all learned. We must keep others interested in skinning. There needs to somebody to carry the torch when we are gone.

Just sayin.........

I hop over to DeviantArt and look at skins compatible with that free skinning program and guess what I see? Creative Commons licensed themes everywhere. They're also all much better looking, better at keeping up with current design trends than anything free or paid that I can find on WinCustomize. The majority of the stuff I see on WinCustomize looks straight out of the year 2002 when 3D on desktop UIs was still the flashy new thing and 12 years olds liked to crank it up to 12 by slapping those silly eye bleeding skins on their desktop to make their computer look "cool". It's like you people have been living in a bubble here, completely unaware of the trends happening out there, thinking your stuff and your way of doing things are still relevant in this year of 2019. You guys need a reality check.

You're here rambling about all the time you spend on your skins and that it's unreasonable to expect any of you to agree to derivatives on your work because of the time and efforts you put into them. I spend days on inventing and modeling practical objects and tools for 3D printing and printing them several times as I iterate through designs, then once I'm done, I share those models under a CC BY-NC-SA licence on Thingiverse. I get a kick out of my stuff getting lots of downloads because it means I've had a good idea and that I've created something that is useful and helpful to people. When someone derives my work, I have a look at it and get inspiration from it to improve my own design if I feel I can do it even better, or let them take over the design if I can't do better. Sometimes people ask for variations with different measurements, which I happily provide when possible. THIS is the major trend right now and there is a reason this is the trend. Why don't you go and have a look at Thingiverse, so you can get a taste of what it's like when people who don't have a distorted sense of the value of their work and an ego to stroke create stuff and put it out there for everyone to use for free and to derive work from. It's great. Creative juices flow. Everyone benefits. Hell, even Autodesk has seen the light in that matter. They provide Fusion360 for free for startups and hobbyists.

Nor will it help the poor and needy that I support. 

Djeypegs no one is asking you to be here. You can always go to DeviantArt install the Uxtheme patcher and use those skins. There are thousands of them that all look the same. This is a different kind of website everything here is monitored, unlike DeviantArt where nothing is monitored. Half the walls there I have seen on other sites. Skins from other authors are changed slightly and they call them their own without asking permission or even mentioning the original author.

You could always install SkinStudio and create your own skin. The skinners here know SkinStudio inside and out and it still takes them weeks to create a skin. So do they deserve a little cash in there pocket for there time? Why not? Just because people complain about doesn't mean it's going to change. Deal with it or go somewhere else.

Well, bully for them.  Last time I saw a subscription price for Revit it was around 7000 AUD PER YEAR ....so good old Autodesk can actually afford to give out a freebie or two.

Here's a hint.  You are NOT the first to whine about the commercial aspect of Skinning....nor will you be the last, and what you do or don't do with your 3D printing play is immaterial.

The holier-than-thou attitude isn't welcome.

If you really must....take a trip to Sim-Outhouse.com and search uploads under my nick.  There are 'one or two'.... all took months to perfect....and all are freely accessible.

Meanwhile...if you knew anything about Skinning and its history you'd also find/know that many of the truly competent commercial digital graphic artists had their origins in the community you so clearly deride.

An example.... https://www.artstation.com/dangeruss