attention themers: due to increasing amount of leeching of our themes it is imperative that we claim our artwork as ours and not having a lowlife claim it as theirs, or have a website publish our themes witout our permission and not give credit to creators.

previously done by team jeddah, they have watermarked all of their themes for mobile9. the issue of leeching has resurfaced again and scuby found a perfect spot to watermark the theme without it being obtrusive:

popup background, extreme low right corner small size font (2pt). mark future themes so we know who truly owns the themes

we want our themes, to say we made it and where they can be found.
dang! leechers taking credit and making money off OUR themes.

we should all start to put something in them just to let them know who actually OWNS the themes.

i second the notion of watermarking.

well done scub I think if it doesn't look too bad i'll water mark mine as well Sick of leachers now

Is there a suggestion email for se's theme creator, maybe we can ask them to do what TCP did, this wont stop leachers but will give more chance of credit being found to us

Damm tosers!! I don't think anyone would want my themes anyhow especially to try and earn some money out of them.


But the watermark sounds a good idea

Very good idea because i would hate fo someone to take credit for themes that i have spent a lot of time and effort on.

Nice idea !

i know jef always watermarks the statusbar, which works great.

a very nice discrete place: popup background
font: copperplate
size: 2pt

Nice , shall we move it over to the left a bit to stop the scrollbar hitting it? or cn you make it out on the phone?

yea i think we should make it a bit more left too.

Think its a great idea to do this

Already did it on my latest,..I put it in the same place August has shown,..meaning in the right corner on popup....
guess it could be moved a bit to the left, because of the scrollbar. But on the other hand, it will still show right, also because scroll isnt always there.

Actually I already did write mobil9 in the same place, on my M9 themes, hehe, but didnt think of them as watermarks at that time,.. :-D


Another suggestion :

Wouldnt it help also, if people had to register/make an account, to download stuff here ??

BR
Jan

I always hate watermarks on images
I wish it weren't necessary

brilliant idea!

i have started writing my name in the pinboard section of my themes. (6600)

but i know what you mean, where would be a set place for everyone to mark theirs on the 6600 do you think?

I think the pinboard on eg 6600 is a great idea (because you dont see it always,..same as with eg K700's popup)...

you could just move it up to the top, and make the watermark smaller that would blend nicely in.

And I dont think its "off-topic", as this apparently (unfortunately) happens with all sorts of themes.
Think the watermarking should be on all themes

BR
Jan

I can't help it... just have an 'aesthetical' problem with it.... i don't like text showing on themes I have on my phone

@M9 this really sucks that we have to do this but i guess M9 doenst have a choice. If people keep ripping M9 off we really need to try to put a hold to it. Its just not fair that people are making moeny on the backs of others. And its always the good that have to suffer compared to the bad that just rips people off for work that they havent made.

I guess maybe i have to start thinking of that too for the section Asian babes. Seeing as the other section M9 babes is pretty obvious where it came from hihi

yeah i know... just wondering... the <url snipped> theme creator does have a field for 'author', that goes to the same area in the xml file, right?

Vlamm > You're not using the SE theme creator, are you ??

The Se version doesnt have a place where you can put "author/created by", when doing the theme.
At least not unless one opens up the theme, and write a tag in the thm.

And you dont really see it on the popup Doesnt show that much, since its mostly hidden by text.

But I totally agree with you,..dont like it either, but unfortunately we have to


BR
Jan

I use every theme creator out there and I will edit the .xml file for sure (once I've found the courage to do it ) but I'm not ready to write on my images just yet

tagging the xml is easy vlam

Simply rename your themefile extension from .thm to .zip - exctract the xml file and add the themecreator tag yourself manually and then put the xml file back in the .zip and rename it to .thm.

You can put in anything in the tag - the theme still works on the phone - heres an example:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<Sony_Ericsson_theme version="3.0">
<Theme_creator Name=" Spawn - copyright http://spawnweb.dk"/>

and heres and example of how I watermark my themes now in the popup - its actually very discrete on the phone and is free of the text in the popup:

Why not watermark on the Standby screen instead? It's more afficient

True - but Im trying to be discrete and not ruin the theme to much.

Just a little logo - most peoples (if they steal) will prolly use the standby screen as a preview and not the popup

True enough

I also find the theme creator tag helpfull

heres an example of how it looks on esato after uploading a theme where I added this tag - notice the data extracted from theme:

Data submitted by uploader

Theme name: Angelina Jolie
Uploaded by: spawn
On 2004-07-29
Size: 76.0 KB
Downloads: 691


Data extracted from theme

Theme creator: Spawn - http://spawnweb.dk

Hi, just wondering. What program do you use to open and wrap back again from *.thm to *.zip and back? I tried using Winzip but it says that it is not a valid winzip file. I used a TAR wrapper. While this was okay, once I install the them in my phone, it says that it is corrupted.

I have already impmented watermarking my two first themes and would want to edit the xml file.

a .thm file IS a .tar file with just the extension changed.


[edit] sorry that wasn't your question
I don't zip the theme up, I just 'rename' the extension from .thm to .zip then extract the xml, edit it, zip it up again and rename it extension back to .thm

by the way, how would I go bout 'invisibly watermarking' a P900 theme done with the SE theme creator? or am I better off with a different theme creator altogether?

i also use winrar -- it's easy to open almost any type of compressed file

vlam - best bet is to use vito...has built in creator and author, copyright information and stuff.

How about when it's possible to make the standby screen a GIF image and still get the result you want, you make it a gif animation (if it isn't already an animated gif) that shows the copyright info for one second every two minutes.
It would be one way of making it almost invisible.

But then again you can't do this for every theme since you might want an animated loop or you need to make it a JPG to achieve the quality you want.

that's definitely not something I would do, I always consider the wallpaper one of the very most important parts of the theme and I would not easily disturb it.

hi 2 all outta there....How can i become a certified themer????

Here's a test of my Death theme V2 with watermark, what do you think ?
i've written RR@M9.COM in small in the middle, is it good ?

well it's covered by the clock for starters, and like I said, I personally am not a fan of watermarks on the wallpaper. The wallpaper is often the first visual impression of a theme and I would not choose to put marks over it.

since the standby wallpaper is the most used image for a preview, it's just good sense to put it here. but i think it's kinda useless anyway, a talented photoshoper will be able to remove it unless the watermark is on a vital part of the image...

hi there,

i've just posted my first theme, CJ Gibson (Waiting for it to pass inspection )

i placed my name underneeth the left softkey title (call) on the "standby" screen.

Zoner

how's about a preview of that zoner?

chief <shhh, lets not give leechers any ideas>
did i just give the secret away?

I only wish we could animate the statusbar so we could make "www.mobile9.com" appear only for a few loops then vanish.

I'm well aware that the best deterrent would be to "shamelessly" put mobile9 up front , but i'm also aware that's also a "turnoff" to some downloaders who consider the watermark as "obtrusive"

I think the perfect place for the markinngs in p900 themes is on the dialouge title bar ..........

Good call I say, I bought a 99p CD-ROM from Ebay with a load of themes on and there was the Angel one (the classic theme) but it was credited to Pia and Mobile-9.

Still somebopdy is making money off that though

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE ADVICE.

i am a new themer and have noticed my themes popping up on other websites with other authors claiming them as their own!! i was shocked. absolutely nothing had been done to change the theme, they had simply downloaded my theme and uploaded it somewhere else as theirs!

i was so put off by it i considered not creating themes to share any longer. isnt it amazing that low people could do such a thing and spoil it for the others.

instead of desisting from making themes, i will now watermark them where you have suggested, as well as alerting potential leechers to this fact in the "description" section when i upload.

SO PUT THAT IN YOUR PIPE AND SMOKE IT YOU THEME LEECHES.


- disgruntled squid chan.

it is true that your images cant be extracted but if you have a look on the left hand side, there is a preview of the image without the "Sony Ericsson" crap all over it.

all one needs to do is press 'print screen' and paste into a program like photoshop where they can crop the desired area and then remove your watermark. isnt it disgusting?

Indeed it is. Most leechers won't take the trouble though, but anybody could if they wanted.

somebody re-edited my theme.. but made a lousy job at it..



Here's the Original



Well, look closely at the watermark...

I agree absolutelty with you Vlam, but I also hate to see that someone takes credit for my work.