WWD has been infiltreated by a bunch of noobs that have stolen our skin and teamtag. i want these people banned from all servers until they get removed their licenses for lfs. OR the LFS crew sort out this ridicoulous problem.. They claim to have bought my teamskin online. I HAVE never approved to that....

they are reported to the LFS crew several times by several WWD members today.

we hope this gets sorted soon.


6 HOURS MAKING TEAMSKIN NO POINT IF THEY CAN DOWNLOAD USABLE VERSION..................................

Eh, Jakg has an idea when it comes to that, I recall.

Make an insulting skin that has like "I am a skin stealing twat" or something, and upload it using the same name... since LFS World downloads based on a latest date, it'll download that and everyone will see them driving around with that xD

Quote from S14 DRIFT :

Make an insulting skin that has like "I am a skin stealing twat" or something, and upload it using the same name... since LFS World downloads based on a latest date, it'll download that and everyone will see them driving around with that xD

xD

I love your way of thinking (your = Jakg's :P)

"his way of thinking"? It's my bloody idea!

EDIT - http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?p=379904#post379904

Thankyou for finding it Jack

I was of course refering to your idea, I just lost the post

Quote from Jakg :

"his way of thinking"? It's my bloody idea!

EDIT - http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?p=379904#post379904

LOL

So i have already send a emial to lfs crew. when they contact me back i will report the 3-4 people insulting WWD and takin a piss on what we say.. Stops here. insulting skin aint worth it. Private skin = a private skin...... High res downloaded aint suppose to be visible other than ingame or?????? why can they use a personal uploaded skin as it was their own.....

There is nothing you/anyone can really do. No server bans will be given (unless you ban them from your own, if you have any) no licences will be removed.

Hi-res skins are still downloaded, all you need is a .dds plugin to view them or convert them to jpg.

Privates skins are meaningless to those who don't respect the idea, it's more of a gentlemen’s agreement.

Hello GlobB3n,

garph basically has said it all. We will never ban someone for stealing skins. Skins after being downloaded are saved to your computer and anyone with a bit of search capabilities can figure out how to convert the dds file to a jpg as was previously explained.
It's a fact of life in LFS that skins can be used by others and there is little that we or anyone can do about it. The best approach therefore in general is to keep your nerve and ask kindly of the 'offender' would stop using your skin.

(ps this post is instead of a mail reply)

Taken from old thread.

Quote :

They aren't stealing it. You are G-I-V-I-N-G it to them. You are uploading it to a service who's sole purpose is to DISTRIBUTE IT.

The connection between stealing a physical item and this is beyond stupid. I'm trying very hard not to berate you more than necessary, but you are making it oh so very hard. I know you probably wont understand this concept, but I'll explain it anyway.

Taking a physical item from someone DEPRIVES them of said item. They LOSE something, they leave with LESS than they started with. In the case of content, they aren't STEALING it...stealing indicated theft, theft indicates loss. You have LOST nothing. You still have your skin, therefore, they are not, in fact, stealing it. Its the same with the music industry. At least though, with music, they can claim a loss, because they lost the sale. You aren't selling anything, so you have no argument. Also, Last I checked, there is no way to upload a license with the image, so you can't even claim copyright infringement. While you legally hold the copyright, without a license, it falls under "fair use" and therefor, they can use it.

As for not knowing what I'm talking about... Nope, I don't skin cars for LFS. The texture mapping is horrendous at best. I've got about 10 cars I've done...only 2 uploaded to lfsworld because the others are incomplete. As games go, the mapping of the models is very bad. A 25 pixel square on the hood is generally not the same size on the model as a 25 pixel square on the door. That's a HUGE no-no when it comes to serious modeling/texturing. Frankly, I don't feel the need to waste my time trying to work around it.

However, I do spend around 10-15 hours a week contributing to various open-source development projects. All free, all open source, and all GPL licensed (anyone can copy, modify, and redistribute any code I create at their leisure, as long as they leave my license info in the file). Frankly, I think that content creators who try to keep anyone from using their content, or only allow its use with restrictive terms, are greedy, self-serving, poor examples of humanity. Theres a time and a place to make money off of content creation, when its offered as a service, ok. Development shops, software developers, and artists that actually provide their skills as paid services are fine. People who do it for a hobby, put it out there for anyone (generally more of a "bragging" type thing) and bitch when someone uses it that they don't like are quite despicable.

If you don't want someone to use your skin, don't give it to them. Simple as that. Your argument is juvenile and defensive, which means it should hardly be taken seriously. By putting your skin on lfsworld.com, you are, in-fact, GIVING it to everyone you race with, and you are doing so without license or restriction. If you don't like it, don't upload it. If you create skins because you like it, then keep them to yourself. But thats not really it, you want everyone to see it, you want the attention, you have the need to feel recognition for your work, and that's perfectly ok, thats normal behavior in every aspect. However, unless LFS integrates some sort of license system or encryption setup, anything you upload is considered "fair use" material, and that means people can use, modify, and redistribute. The only thing they can do that would be marginally illegal, would be to profit from it...and thats still a very gray line.

Nuff said Imo.

OK lfs just got Lame too me. ( i take this back )

everyone can join team anyways if they want. LFS became crap to me now.

LFS crew u have to fix this or it will never be a team game. as soon people get to know this proper they will all use any skin. im downloading lfs team skins for the most serious teams in lfs. see how they think about it. Im out of WWD just so u all know it........

As a few others have said - make a new one, in pink with 'I'm a noob who steals skins' on it, and upload it with the same name. The stealer will still see the original stolen skin as what they see is taken from their skins folder and so they'll be none the wiser, but anyone else racing will see the new, downloaded one from LFSworld.

Quote from GlobB3n :

im downloading lfs team skins for the most serious teams in lfs. see how they think about it.

Great attitude.

I guess they will all stop playing LFS since it became crap to them.

The idiot have uploaded the skin i removed..... With same name as mine.... SO what the **** can i do? i had to change name of skin to make sure its my personal one and not like said above........


LFS really have to fix these issues.

A PERSONAL SKIN IS A PERSONAL SKIN. LFS MAKERS U SUCK AT THIS

I love LFS too much too stop.

Im not gonna stop play lfs... But this is a PROPER BUG by my opinion

Hope u take a look at see what kinda of a problem this is.....

Skin Stealers and fake tag users are :


jonny211984
Liam_Of_Stockton
hoggy2k8


These are Now Wanted banned or Remove from all Known WWD Servers.

To see the proper WWD crew go to our WEBSITE in a few days website is under update.....

Still a bug that needs sorting out. But they get banned from known WWD servers if they try again. so i dont have to meet them atleast =)

The easiest way to screw over the potential thieves is to give the skin a name that's just a random stream of letters and numbers (dkd81n.dds), or otherwise hard to read and search for, or make it completely unrelated to your team. That way they won't know (a) who the skin is downloading from, or (b) which one it is they're looking for in their folder.

But since it's an unprotected file format, there's no way to stop people using it if they want to.

It was discussed before that it'd be nice if there was a way of LFS automatically deleting "private" flagged skins when that player left the game, but I don't know how practical it would be.
Obviously even that method would still allow people to grab it while you were logged in, but it would make life a little harder for the lazy ones.

The other method is to regularly update your team skins, thereby making most of the stolen ones obsolete.

i am using Jakgs way since my thread which is linked above, works good because the stealer is a good brake for all the others
WORKS and PWNED

The only way to prevent skin stealing would be an own fileformat where the skin is in and a list of LFS usernames who are allowed to use them (like an encrypted ZIP or RAR archive)

hmm, personally, I think this is a bit silly - if others use your skins, then take it as a compliment. If you want to keep original, keep updating the skins and use a cryptic filename as already suggested (or make a distinctive but crap skin like mine that noone else will want to use .

That said, maybe now that everyone has a unique ID, it might be possible for the devs to use some sort of lightweight encryption to bind a skin to a username ? something for S3 perhaps...
(Maybe charge for a skin protection service that includes encryption and the option to report someone who uploads a copy of your skin ?)

I guess that this would still be open to abuse by dedicated hackers, but at least it would stop casual skin borrowers or folks who don't realize that some players will blow their top and have a forum tantrum if another uses their skin.

You can't protect them though - they're only DDS or JPGs. Anyone with an image editing package can open them.
The only non-file method I can think of would involve storing the skins in memory, but that would kill off people with older systems.
Or create a custom encrypted file type, but the hassle associated with that probably outweighs the benefits.

The best thing to do is change the name of your main skins, then upload joke skins in the place of the originals, that way they will drive around with skins like Jakg's. Most people in LFS are nice enough to either not use team skins, or ask if they can do so. I have been asked before, and if I have to say no I usually offer to make them a similar version or their own team skins.

Quote from S14 DRIFT :

Taken from old thread.

Quote:
They aren't stealing it. You are G-I-V-I-N-G it to them. You are uploading it to a service who's sole purpose is to DISTRIBUTE IT.

The connection between stealing a physical item and this is beyond stupid. I'm trying very hard not to berate you more than necessary, but you are making it oh so very hard. I know you probably wont understand this concept, but I'll explain it anyway.

Taking a physical item from someone DEPRIVES them of said item. They LOSE something, they leave with LESS than they started with. In the case of content, they aren't STEALING it...stealing indicated theft, theft indicates loss. You have LOST nothing. You still have your skin, therefore, they are not, in fact, stealing it. Its the same with the music industry. At least though, with music, they can claim a loss, because they lost the sale. You aren't selling anything, so you have no argument. Also, Last I checked, there is no way to upload a license with the image, so you can't even claim copyright infringement. While you legally hold the copyright, without a license, it falls under "fair use" and therefor, they can use it.

As for not knowing what I'm talking about... Nope, I don't skin cars for LFS. The texture mapping is horrendous at best. I've got about 10 cars I've done...only 2 uploaded to lfsworld because the others are incomplete. As games go, the mapping of the models is very bad. A 25 pixel square on the hood is generally not the same size on the model as a 25 pixel square on the door. That's a HUGE no-no when it comes to serious modeling/texturing. Frankly, I don't feel the need to waste my time trying to work around it.

However, I do spend around 10-15 hours a week contributing to various open-source development projects. All free, all open source, and all GPL licensed (anyone can copy, modify, and redistribute any code I create at their leisure, as long as they leave my license info in the file). Frankly, I think that content creators who try to keep anyone from using their content, or only allow its use with restrictive terms, are greedy, self-serving, poor examples of humanity. Theres a time and a place to make money off of content creation, when its offered as a service, ok. Development shops, software developers, and artists that actually provide their skills as paid services are fine. People who do it for a hobby, put it out there for anyone (generally more of a "bragging" type thing) and bitch when someone uses it that they don't like are quite despicable.

If you don't want someone to use your skin, don't give it to them. Simple as that. Your argument is juvenile and defensive, which means it should hardly be taken seriously. By putting your skin on lfsworld.com, you are, in-fact, GIVING it to everyone you race with, and you are doing so without license or restriction. If you don't like it, don't upload it. If you create skins because you like it, then keep them to yourself. But thats not really it, you want everyone to see it, you want the attention, you have the need to feel recognition for your work, and that's perfectly ok, thats normal behavior in every aspect. However, unless LFS integrates some sort of license system or encryption setup, anything you upload is considered "fair use" material, and that means people can use, modify, and redistribute. The only thing they can do that would be marginally illegal, would be to profit from it...and thats still a very gray line.


Nuff said Imo.

so you cant steel music because its broadcasted trough the air?
every picture,photho, drawing or other artistic work is automatic copyrighted ( search the internet)
when i upload a skin i don't give permission to use for themselves but only to show my car properly
if i post it here on the forum than its public (unless i say its privat)
can't hepl it if they abuse this but that dosn't make it right (as with copying music ,photo's ....)
and its not the end of the world

It's a totaly different story with music...... if you read the above you'd have understood. People don't make money by 'selling' or 'making' their skins, so you cannot compare.