I mean if you didn’t wan’t anyone to use it why would you upload it (yes this is much shorter than your other answers)

no, I don't think so, but do watch out of some people, they may steal it for their own benefits, like what Kaos_Kitten said, they may put it in in their roleplays without permission

If you are using it for personal purposes than no. Private skins are not possible anymore due to "certain sites" caching every skin a person wears because Mojang's public API and you can not private your profile like you can on Bedrock. Bedrock is the only way to keep your skin private.

This also depends on the way the skin was made / purchased / obtained. If you just download it as long as it is nor commercial (against mojangs EULA anyways), stealing said skin (person who made it owns it or if commissioned the person who bought the skin owns it) you should ask. Again, sites make it hard to track down the original creator or owner of the skin and is important to sign your skin on the template or upload your work first so people know where it comes from.

if the creator doesnt want others using it and hasnt uploaded it publicly and it requires a player skin downloader to get their skin (including downloading from someone who used one), it would morally fall under stealing unless the creator says it isnt for that specific skin

legally, im not sure, but morality comes first

if you arent sure, its probably best to ask the creator first

I think the only issue with theft is if you use a skin for roleplay, and its not an existing character. Using a youtuber skin to privately roleplay a youtuber is fine, but if you take a random skin and add a character and name onto it then it can cause issues.

I guess the general rules is to just make sure that its not an OC or persona, if you publicly wear someone else's character and project your own story onto that, that would be stealing a design.

as long as you're respectful with their wishes, thats the important thing, and if you're unsure you can always ask the creator.

I know a lot of LOTC skins are deliberately not asked to be downloaded for roleplay reasons, so its always good to check with the owner of the skin first!

I don’t think so, as I have had many downloads of skins I’ve posted on my Skindex account, and I’ve never considered it theft. Like Hardcrafter said below, some people (like me) consider it an honor to have the skins we put work into be downloaded and other people use them.


However, others may think that you can’t download without permission, or that you can use their skins as long as you give credit. If you use a skin, it’s not really an issue unless the creator makes it an issue. Personally, I don’t really care as long as the people that downloaded my skins claim that they are the creator. Then, that gets different.


Just respect whatever the creator wants, I guess :)

That's a rather interesting question. If a skinner is uploading their work to a site which is open to the public for anyone to see and potentially download I don't see it as an issue.

If anything it's usually an honour for the skinner if they see people using their skins.

It's only really a case of "theft" when you claim that you are the original creator or owner of the skin. ie If you download a skin and upload it to another site without any mention of the original creator it's definitely theft.

Downloading and using a skin however is definitely not theft.

I agree with the other two replies here. It wouldn't be considered illegal that I know of but it is good to respect the creator's requests. There are a lot of issues in the art community where art is reposted/taken without credit when the artists specifically said not to. But anyway, technically no, it wouldn't be considered "real theft".

it wouldnt be illegal but it would technically be theft if you use it on another server, not exactly theft but it would be kinda mean

"should not" is not specific enough to be considered a license. The absolute minimum that could maybe hold the tiniest amount of legal merit would be more like "This skin is for use on the <example.com> server. You do not have permission to use it on any other server."

That said, good Minecraft skins are not that hard to find and I would respect the creator's wishes.