Should Stardock pay royalties to theme artists?


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Besides that Microsoft doesn't even support skinning, they even made it 'impossible' with the digital signature thing.

And they did that for a good reason. They don't want to do the support work Stardock does for example for bad skin design and therefore strange problems. BTW, i still think there is no small amount of people that switched to XP for it's skinning possibilities.

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I think a little kickback from Stardock would encourage more people to design skins for the WB platform.

What about all the advantages You get on Wincustomize like unlimited downloads, promotions and so on ? But this whole thing nevertheless is search for help where no help is needed. The Windowblinds community is different and I can't understand why someone having little to no relations to it should judge about it... I really hope more busy WB skinners will speak up here.

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@schmoove: As c242 said, Stardock 'hires' skinners to bundle work with the download. I'm sure agreements had to be reached for that to happen. The skinners either agreed to let them for free, or I'm sure a fee was arranged.

Stardock are a company offering a program that allows you to skin windows. They don't make money from skinners who make skins, well at least not directly (of course decent skins promote the software). Remember, the user base was started way before Mstyles came along. Also, they are trying to offer more from their skinning engine than MS can ever do, for the main reason of adding value and flexibility to the package. This in turn gives better flexibility to the skinner.

As to SkinStudio, it's a complicated app to create, and personally I wouldn't want to give it out for free (though there is a free version) after the amount of work that has gone into it.

If skinners want to charge for there work, no matter the platform, then they can. No one is stopping them.

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If skinners want to charge for there work, no matter the platform, then they can. No one is stopping them.

So Stardock puts no limit on skinners at all? They are allowed to create and sell their own skins if they wish to? If so, why is anyone complaining? Just make your skins and sell them. That is your "royalty" or whatever. Seems simple, or am I missing something obvious?

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Stardock are a company offering a program that allows you to skin windows. They don't make money from skinners who make skins, well at least not directly (of course decent skins promote the software). Remember, the user base was started way before Mstyles came along. Also, they are trying to offer more from their skinning engine than MS can ever do, for the main reason of adding value and flexibility to the package. This in turn gives better flexibility to the skinner.

Bit of an understatement there. WindowBlinds exists because of the good skins available for it.

Anyways, I agree they offer an good package and charging for that is more then logical. Though as they depend on the generosity of talented skinners, I would find it more then fair if they would give their development tools away for free, instead of charging for it. As something to say "thank you". Same goes for TGTSoft ofcourse (they maybe even worse then Stardock in this case).

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Bearded Kirklander there are just always a lot of people whining and expect everyone to pay them money even if they don't deserve. No one would want to buy his skins that's why he would like stardock to pay him for it...

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You get the developer tools for a fair price!!! it's bundled in the object desktop package with every program you need and it's a cheap! Included in that price are lots of programs, and unlimited access to wincustomize. It's all made to make the piracy hell more difficult and Stardock deserves some respect!

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So Stardock puts no limit on skinners at all? They are allowed to create and sell their own skins if they wish to? If so, why is anyone complaining? Just make your skins and sell them. That is your "royalty" or whatever. Seems simple, or am I missing something obvious?

I am gonna release a new theme in a few weeks... would you be willing to pay for it? Say $5 or something?

For an individual it is very very hard to sell themes (msstyle or wb, doesn't matter). Look what Pixstudio has to do to sell themes, they skin lots of apps to build a suite, just the WB theme only doesn't sell probably.

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I am gonna release a new theme in a few weeks... would you be willing to pay for it? Say $5 or something?

For an individual it is very very hard to sell themes (msstyle or wb, doesn't matter). Look what Pixstudio has to do to sell themes, they skin lots of apps to build a suite, just the WB theme only doesn't sell probably.

That's the free market economy. If your goods can't compete, then that is not the fault of StarDock.

If you made say a 10 skin bundle, each of the skins unique and complete, not just color variations and sold it for $9.99, that would probably sell great if they were quality skins. $4.99 for 5 skins would be fine too. I'd pay a buck a skin no sweat, if I was into skins. $5 for one skin is like $5 for one MP3. Apple found the sweet spot of $1.00 per track. Seems about right for simple things like skins. If you wrote a whole program though, that might be worth say $29.99 or something. Depends. WinZip was, and so was WinRar. As for difficulty, just throw up a web page, sign up for PayPal and you are set, right? Or you could take email orders and ship when payment is received. You could release them as shareware too. There are lots of options if you really want to get going on it. No excuse for sitting back and complaining when there are so many ways you can actually do it.

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I am gonna release a new theme in a few weeks... would you be willing to pay for it? Say $5 or something?

For an individual it is very very hard to sell themes (msstyle or wb, doesn't matter). Look what Pixstudio has to do to sell themes, they skin lots of apps to build a suite, just the WB theme only doesn't sell probably.

If you think it's hard to make a complete package then you don't deserve money for your skins no matter how popular they are, people are only willing to pay for complete original packages. if you don't want to put more work to it than just the fun of creating skin you should not get any money, ofcourse there are some people willing to pay 5$ for your skin if it is good even if you don't offer full package but you have the wrong attitude.

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I just gave an example.

I'm not going to charge for the themes I make or the software I wrote (I've written various freeware applications where other people charge you at least $30 for). I do it for the fun, not for the money. So please don't make me look like I am a greedy ****** who just wants to make some easy money..... because you are far far from the truth. If that was the case I was probably selling drugs to underaged kids now.....

The fact that I don't get a dime for my work this way is not the problem. The problem with the skins is that you in a way generate money for other people, while it is still your work. Again I don't really have a problem with it, but I still think it is a weird situation.... and that was the whole issue of this thread.

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An artist I know recently decided to quit making themes because he basically decided he didnt want to continue having certain companies make money off his work. My question for you all is do you think a company who charges yearly subscriptions to use its software should be required to pay royalties to all the themers whose work said software is using? In certain aspects this would be like itunes distributing artist songs without paying the artists, yet making money off a subscription to their song distribution.

What do you guys think?

Personal pov:

I dont see why royalties should be paid, its the artists choice to submit their work.

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I just gave an example.

I'm not going to charge for the themes I make or the software I wrote (I've written various freeware applications where other people charge you at least $30 for). I do it for the fun, not for the money. So please don't make me look like I am a greedy ****** who just wants to make some easy money..... because you are far far from the truth.

The fact that I don't get a dime for my work this way is not the problem. The problem with the skins is that you in a way generate money for other people, while it is still your work. Again I don't really have a problem with it, but I still think it is a weird situation.... and that was the whole issue of this thread.

I see your point sorta. But like with FireFox, people who are fans of it promote it all the time to other people, either by word of mouth, or maybe even making themes too. The entire FireFox movement benefits from that, right? Someone is benefiting. Maybe not financially, but somehow. Should FireFox have any obligation because of that? WindowBlinds is a product. If you choose to purchase and use and support that product, it is not incumbent upon them to do anything for anybody if they don't want to. Skinners are getting noteriety out of the thing, right? Why isn't that enough? Nobody is forcing them to do the work. They get the benefit of having their name and product associated with StarDock. Like a bike repairman with a Huffy sign on his window saying "We repair Huffy Bikes". He benefits from their name. Game modders do the same thing and some of them get hired on by the companies too. Onslaught was a MOD for UT2004 originally and Epic bought the project because it was so much better than other mods out there for the game. If your product sets itself apart, you can make money off of it. It's not like skinners don't get anything out of the deal, after all.

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I see your point sorta.  But like with FireFox, people who are fans of it promote it all the time to other people, either by word of mouth, or maybe even making themes too.  The entire FireFox movement benefits from that, right?  Someone is benefiting.  Maybe not financially, but somehow.  Should FireFox have any obligation because of that?  WindowBlinds is a product.  If you choose to purchase and use and support that product, it is not incumbent upon them to do anything for anybody if they don't want to.  Skinners are getting noteriety out of the thing, right?  Why isn't that enough?  Nobody is forcing them to do the work.  They get the benefit of having their name and product associated with StarDock.  Like a bike repairman with a Huffy sign on his window saying "We repair Huffy Bikes".  He benefits from their name.  Game modders do the same thing and some of them get hired on by the companies too.  Onslaught was a MOD for UT2004 originally and Epic bought the project because it was so much better than other mods out there for the game.  If your product sets itself apart, you can make money off of it.  It's not like skinners don't get anything out of the deal, after all.

I agree with that partly.

First of all FireFox is freeware, so yes they benefit from the attention and maybe even from the skins people make for it..... but not financially (well maybe on some level, by getting more funds for development or something). Same goes for Winamp. Winamp became so popular partly because of the skinning. There are thousands of skins that helped Winamp become popular. Compare it to QCD (which might even be a better player), QCD hasn't got many skins and especially not many that are carefully constructed. QCD isn't nearly as popular as Winamp... so I think skins do sometimes make a difference.

Again Winamp is free, so the it is the same as with FireFox.

WindowBlinds on the other hand is not free, and the development tools aren't either. So the situation is a little bit different. Your free work makes them popular and make them sell more of their software. That is what I think is the difference.

That whole royalties thing, is partly a good idea, but it is hard (if not impossible) to execute. That is why I think you shouldn't ask creators for money if the only thing they do is help you become popular and make money.

Like you said, nobody is forced. Though the topic started with the royalties suggestion and while the idea might not be usable, the thought behind it isn't that weird.

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Schmoove people like you make the world perfect, never ever do anything if it can help others.

Although different opinions that one and a few of Your other comments was totally uncalled for. It would be nice if You had something constructive to say.

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There is a free version of SkinStudio, it just doesn't allow you to create colour masks or import widgets from other skins. Which in itself isn't a great problem thanks to the whole skin being based on code. You can just add code in later once you have the basic skin created. So in this way SkinStudio is like Winamp. If you want more features, you pay for them. Simple.

I'm sure not everyone who submits to Wincustomize for example uses the standard or pro release. Sometimes judging by the quality of the skins I can guarantee that ;) but thats another argument.

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I'm going to have to jump in with the SkinStudio comment. I do think it would be a better idea if Stardock made SkinStudio Pro free. Yeah, you can download a free version of it, but then you suffer a delay on startup and the program is crippled. This is a free market economy and Stardock can do whatever it damn well pleases. But asking a person to design skins to make you more money and charging them for the development tools is a bit strange. Sure, skinners can sell their skins, but we all know it doesn't work that way in this industry. But I guess that's how it works with capitalism. Find a niche, blow it up, make lots of money.

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Just a few of things:

1) Stardock regularly hires skin authors to make skins that it gives away for free. I think last year Stardock spent around $40,000 paying various skin authors. In 2004 it'll be even higher.

2) The GUI Olympics, currently going on now (which makes this whole discussion really ironic) has over $15,000 in cash and prizes.

3) Stardock runs and pays for WinCustomize.com which allows skinners to distribute their skins. There's no spyware, no pop up ads, no in your face marketing. Just a nice clean place to distribute your skins.

4) Stardock works with top skin authors to let them sell their skins as premium skins. [Look here] Some skin authors are able to make a living doing this.

5) Stardock has helped get skinners featured in magazines (Wired, PC Magazine, etc.). We try to highlight the people who are actively skinning (look at how much of WinCustomize.com is dedicated towards promoting the most popular PEOPLE and compare that to other sites).

In short, Stardock tries to give back to the community and tries its best to reward its top skin authors with new opportunities that come up. Big companies come to us asking for graphics designers on a regular basis and we send them to the skin authors we know. Consider this fact: The skin authors who are able to make a full time living from skinning are predominantly WindowBlinds skinners. Why is that?

There are all kinds of problems with the whole "giving a kick back to skinners" concept. For instance, who determines how much each skin author should get? Is it quality or quantity? Who determines quality?

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I'm going to have to jump in with the SkinStudio comment. I do think it would be a better idea if Stardock made SkinStudio Pro free. Yeah, you can download a free version of it, but then you suffer a delay on startup and the program is crippled. This is a free market economy and Stardock can do whatever it damn well pleases. But asking a person to design skins to make you more money and charging them for the development tools is a bit strange. Sure, skinners can sell their skins, but we all know it doesn't work that way in this industry. But I guess that's how it works with capitalism. Find a niche, blow it up, make lots of money.

This is incorrect.

SkinStudio IS free. The fact that SkinStudio Pro exists doesn't make SkinStudio "crippled".

SkinStudio Pro includes support for Windows Media Player skinning and importing pieces from other skins. The free version is easily the most powerful, feature rich skin creation application available on any platform by far.

SkinStudio is free because Stardock doesn't feel it should be charging people to create skins for its software. And so it doesn't.

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leedogg man what's wrong with you? If anyone wants money he can sell his themes, stardock only distributes skins that have been uploaded and with permission. Just look at Pixtutio, they sell many of their skins.

I've only read the first page of this thread and I won't bother to read any more, your post hit the nail right on the head and was what I would have posted after reading the first post except you already did ;-)

If a skinner wants to sell his skins he is more than welcome to do so, as you've said PixStudio sells their skins. If a skinner does not want to sell them he can distribute them freely, just the same as with music since he wanted to use that analogy, some musicians give away their music and some sell their music, it's all a matter of what you want to do and why should Stardock pay people that don't want to be paid ?

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this is so stupid and childish. all of this because somebody got mad, took his ball, and went home. the skinner is question did indeed make nice skins. i've used many of them myself. but to get angry and remove the skins from download sites so that nobody who doesn't have them at present can get them in the future? come on!! let's grow up a bit. i think the last time i took my baseball and went home was when i was 7 or 8. and why are you guys ragging on stardock? the skinner in question only made one blind. everything else was in the msstyle format. why is tgtsoft being slammed here instead of stardock? it seems to me that now tha tthe ram useage has been disproved, the next avenue used to criticize stardock is the payment of royalties. why should stardock pay? if you made a skin and uploaded it somewhere, you did so under your own free will. nobody forced you to uplaod a skin anywhere. stardock makes the apps needed to use the skins. maybe you should pay stardock a few pennies because their app is allowing people to use your skin. that last statement was pretty ridiculous, wasn't it? it was no more ridiculous than the claim that stardock should be paying anyone who uploads skins that are used by their apps.

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This is incorrect.

SkinStudio IS free. The fact that SkinStudio Pro exists doesn't make SkinStudio "crippled".

SkinStudio Pro includes support for Windows Media Player skinning and importing pieces from other skins. The free version is easily the most powerful, feature rich skin creation application available on any platform by far.

SkinStudio is free because Stardock doesn't feel it should be charging people to create skins for its software. And so it doesn't.

What bothered me most wasn't because it didn't have all the features of Pro. The only thing that bothered me was the delay on startup. I hope I didn't offend anyone at Stardock. I realize everything you do is legit, moral, and legal. I also realize you do give back to the community and I think it's great that you do. But you do have to admit that the delay when you start up SkinStudio free is pretty annoying. It's like a shareware nag screen saying "hey buy me already."

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