A rap across the knuckles?

from WinCustomize Forums
I haven't had much use from my Stardock products recently as I've been reorganising my puter after intalling a new HD and losing everything from my previous drive. Today, however, I decided to make some desktop changes and create a suite with various skins I'd downloaded, but alas. To my horror I discovered that my backup files were not complete and I had no cursors, icons, desktopx themes or object dock items to place in the relevant progs. Oh woe, that means I have to get 'em all over again to use my OD products, and with WC now able to see what's downloaded and how many times, does that mean I get a rap across the knuckles for downloading stuff more than once? If so, I'll take my punishment with a wet bus ticket, thank you!
Well I've learnt one very valuable lesson: don't mess with what you don't fully understand, and just as importantly, to thoroughly backup everything on an independant drive or CD, which brings me to what I really wanted to ask> Having read in forums recently about software piracy, receiving rights from authors and etc, can someone please advise if I can backup downloaded skins to CD for my own personal use? I ask because I'd hate to do wrong by WC and the fantastic skinners who post here, thanks.


Forget about rapping my knuckles, my wife has just given me a sh..load of strife for being here for so long, and that's penalty enough, believe me.
1,342 views 5 replies
Reply #1 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Just so long as you dont distribute the CD to other people, you're fine.

As for re-downloading, it doesnt matter. I download my own stuff all the time. It doesnt add to the download count if its a repeat download, and you're logged in so it knows it you. No worries!
Reply #2 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I would venture that you should be alright saving anything to a CD since it's for personal use. I've had to reformat my pc several times now and saved everything I've downloaded to a CD so that I wouldn't have to go through downloading everything all over again. I've also saved everything to a CD in the event of something happening and not being able to retrieve everything.

So, as long as your not planning on saving everything and going out and selling it, I'd say your safe. But I'm sure someone else will come along and clarify this.
Sins of a Solar Empire II
Reply #3 from WinCustomize Forums Top

You can store your skins and proggies where you like

You might consider putting another hard drive in your PC as a back up. Puts your mind at rest to know everything is safe. I have three backups   But then I have 10Gb of photos which can never be replaced if lost.

Reply #4 from WinCustomize Forums Top

You can re-download something as often as you like, and since you're a subscriber you won't have to worry about hitting any download limits.

As for backing up the customizations you use to CD, it's fine. As others have said, so long as the CD backup is only for your personal use and not for distribution/sale, it falls under your fair-use rights.

Reply #5 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Thanks guys, I just wanted to be sure as to not step on anyone's toes with CD backups. In this day and age of copyright etc, etc...,it pays to be sure and not infringe. Furthermore, I'm just not that generous to share stuff like this - if anyone wants it, they can make their own efforts to obtain skins of their own choosing.
Your advice has been duly noted, Fuzzy Logic, I have 3 HD's now and one is purely for backup. Apart from saving all skin types in their individual folders, I've made a complete backup of my main drive using XP Pro backup tool - hoping that, heaven forbid, I ever have anoher mishap like this one.
I used a data transfer tool by Western Digital to relocate everything, but something must have gone awry because although all indications said I had Iconpackager installed, when I tried redownloading my fav icons, I got a message to say that the target program did not exist. Strange, I thought, but a clean install fixed that problem, and now I'm having troubles getting some Cursor XP packs to run although they are in the themes folder - delete and redownload does not resolve this(BTW, I have t
he Plus version).
It seems when I stuff something up, I'm not into half measures, LoL. A simple HD installation! HAH! A college course in the basics is my next step towards prevention being better than cure.

Also, the"rap across the knuckles" was mor tongue in cheek