Archives for the 'Wordpress' Category
Regarding Wordpress Theme Thievery
Would you provide supportive services to someone for free so that person could make a living doing what they do? Say, if someone ran a clothing store, would you sew all the garments and set them on the curb with a free sign so that shop owner could take your work and sell it without paying you a penny for it? What about a deli? Would you bake bread to give away for free so they could use it to sell sandwiches to make money?
I’m sure the answer would be no to both cases. Then why is it that some people who run Wordpress sites seem to think that they can take themes which have very specific copyright restrictions on them, change those themes as they please, remove all credit to the original author (who put their personal time and effort into the work), and then present it as their own on a commercial blog?
I don’t know why either, but that’s exactly what I found twice this week regarding my Bogart theme, which has a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License attached to it. The first was a site that made some alterations to Bogart by adding a few new class selectors, images, and changing the ordering of columns in the index template. All credit to me was removed from the theme template (except in the CSS file where no one would see it). The second didn’t change a thing, aside from removing my copyright in the footer.php file, and replacing it with their own.
In both cases, the sites are set up as commercial blogs using Google AdSense ads to generate income. In other words, they’re using my free bread to create sandwiches that are making them money. This isn’t right. When something’s not right, I fight.
I’m pleased to say that in the case of the first site, I was able to get the matter resolved the day I contacted them. As it was told, the original owner of the site changed my theme before selling the entire blog to another company. In this case, the new owner did the right thing, and we were able to agree on a fair license agreement to use my work. Even though he didn’t change my work himself, the new owner was still using my core code base, and recognized this fact. I have tremendous respect for this individual for doing the right thing without hesitation.
The second, which I just learned of this evening, has been notified of their infringement. I am still waiting to hear from someone. There was no way to contact anyone directly and emails sent to very generic accounts for the site have bounced back. The site appears to be a link-bait type of set up with tons of keywords and links to other spammy blogs. I may have to pull a DMCA take down on them if they don’t respond.
Update: The second site has responded, and have added my theme credit link back to the footer file.
The point of all this is simple. If you want a cool looking Wordpress theme for your site, especially if you’re hoping to make money from it — think before you start making changes to someone else’s work. Ask yourself “Did someone else put their own time in effort into this nice looking theme? And would they be pissed off if I removed their credit before I put it up on my site?” Your id would tell you yes in both cases.
Simply because something is available for download on the internet, that doesn’t mean it’s free. Just like music, poetry and art, code is owned by the person who created it (or whoever they wrote it for). So do the right thing. If that Wordpress theme has a credit link in the footer, and you want to use it for free — then leave the link right where it is. By putting that little link where we do, we theme authors are simply asking to be paid for our work in recognition via clicks back to our sites. And if you don’t want the link, then contact the author to work something out. Even if it’s just a little scratch in their Paypal account, getting a few bucks for their labor of love will make the day for most theme authors.
The moral of my rant? That Wordpress theme was made public for a reason — because somebody with talent wanted to share it with you and the rest of the world. If it has some restrictions and a copyright notice attached, then honor it… Because that’s the right thing to do — both morally and legally.
Bogart Wordpress Theme Gets a Bump
A quick note to let those interested know that I’ve added a new “wide” single column page option to my Bogart Wordpress theme, as well as tweaking some of the CSS. The wide page has no sidebar in it at all. Perfect for those single pages that you don’t want sidebar stuff cluttering up. You can download the latest archive (v0.8) from the Bogart page.
Bogart v0.7 Released
A quick note to let readers know that my Bogart WordPress theme has been updated to 0.7. This new version properly adds tagging for the new 2.3 version of WP, while maintaining backwards compatibility with earlier versions (see my last post). I also fixed an issue with missing code related to preloading theme images.
Thoughts on Derivations of WordPress Themes
Today I came across this post (nofollowed) by an individual who uses Bogart for the theme of their site. In his post, the author shares how to add a single line of code in two pages of the theme which will make the new tagging feature of the soon to be released WordPress 2.3 available.
While I applaud the author for taking the time to provide his tutorial to the WP community, I’m a bit disturbed by the fact that this person feels he now has the right to (a) re-brand the theme as “Bogart 0.6 Taged” [sic], (b) redistribute the theme from his own forums (which require registration), and (c) place a credit link back to his site in the footer of the re-distributed theme essentially giving himself credit as a “co-author” of Bogart. All without making any attempt to contact me.
Yes, I’m aware I released Bogart under a GPL (General Public License) — perhaps a mistake on my part — and that the license essentially allows this individual to modify and redistribute the theme as he likes with minimal restrictions. But I have to wonder — does this person ethically have the right to claim contribution (authorship) by simply reading how to do something on another blog (as his post claims), and then adding (perhaps copying and pasting?) one line of code into two different files of the theme? Does that really seem right? Does the GPL honestly allow for those kind of derivations?
Not only that, but since this individual made his changes without any kind of error checking, the theme will break should it be used with a WordPress install prior to 2.3. Could his actions potentially taint my reputation as the original author? Should I be responsible for helping someone who has issues with the modified theme?
I wrote Bogart from from scratch starting at line one. I’ve put many hours into making the design what it is. Josh Cook was kind enough to offer to widgetize the theme at a time when my schedule wouldn’t allow for it. As a thank you, I chose to list him as a co-author. He made a solid contribution to the project and earned credit for it. Now someone comes along, adds two lines of code (well, one line really), and says “Look — I’m part of this too!” Should I honor the GPL license and allow him to take credit for the “change” he made or not?
I think there are bigger questions that need to be addressed here as well; Where should the line be drawn on derivitave works under the GPL? What honestly constitues genuine change or contribution to a GPL’d project? Should the originating author be informed of changes before or after they’re made to a GPL project? Should they be informed at all? Am I just being a whiny sissy and overreacting to the whole thing? To me, it just doesn’t feel right. I’d love to hear what others think about the limitations — or freedoms — of the GPL, and whether the actions of this individual seem appropriate to them.
Technorati Tags: WordPress, General Public License, GPL
Bogart Gains Some Ground, and a Point
I’m pleased (and somewhat puzzled) to share that my Bogart theme has done far better than I ever expected it would. To me, it’s just one of those “kind of there” themes compared to some of the awesome designs that have shown up on the WordPress scene as of late.
Even still, it’s managed to find its way onto a few favorites lists recently — which is kind of neat. To those who’ve included me on your lists; I’m honored & humbled to be included among so many other talented theme authors. Thanks for the props.
Naturally, due to this notoriety, I’ve been motivated to fix some of the niggling little inconsistencies that bugged me — most of those being with the sidebar widgets. I think I’ve managed to get most of the little quirks ironed out, and it looks much nicer when using widgets than it did. I’ve decided to officially release my latest changes as version 0.6, which can be downloaded from the Bogart page. Go grab it now if you use it.
I’ve also set up a SVN repository on Google Code to manage the project. The latest trunk can be anonymously checked out at this link. You’ll always be able to get the latest changes (be they good or bad) there.
And finally, to top it off, I plan to set up a separate sub-domain (bogart.jimmitchell.org) in order to let the public get a feel for the theme in action. That’ll be sometime next week — maybe. We’ll see what my schedule turns into over the next few days. Um, make that today, because I’m just funny that way. If I don’t get it off my mind, it’ll drive me nuts until I do.
