Weblog Tools Collection recently published a post, WordPress Theme releases for 5/16 .
I saw one of the themes that got featured, it was called “Liberty”.
Immediately I thought it is quite a blatant copy of my SeaShore Theme.
If you would like to see a demo of both of the themes, click on the following links.
1. My Seashore Theme Demo.
2. Their Liberty Theme Demo.
When I asked them about this, they said, it is not a copy and they built the theme from scratch.
See the comments section on this post.
If you are a person who knows a little bit of HTML, you would do a “View Source” on the demo page, and you would see the “id”s of the different DIV elements were exactly the same.
Now I want you to be the judge, and let me know if what they did should not be considered a ripoff. Post your views on this.
Thanks.
Updated on 21 May 2008
It seems Eric from Conservablogs realized it is actually a ripoff, thanks to a detail email from one of our readers Ryan from Pixopoint.com.
So, Lets put this thing to rest and move on [Lets stop the comments section on this post].
I do not normally go to this level of writing a post, unless I have no other way of getting the people realize.
I do thank each one of you, who stood behind the truth one more time. Thank you.
This is a website by Sadish Bala, created to share the news, tips and tricks on using WordPress.
[...] I think it is a ripoff my design, but I want you to tell me your opinions on this. Please post your views at my post at WordPress Rocks!. [...]
Sadish,
I agree that it is based on your html and CSS. The CSS files are too similar with elements like voice family that I have never seen in another css file before.
Thanks Andrew, for taking a look at on my behalf.
Sadish
Sadish:
Don`t worry about that. It`s a bad and poor copy. Your theme is superior in design and elegance.
Best
I compared both css files and I think you have a valid complaint Sadish.
Sadish, that is undoubtedly a ripoff of your theme.
Fortunately yours is infinitely superior. I do have to wonder why they claimed it wasn’t copied from yours though. A quick flick through the source was a dead giveaway.
BTW, are your themes copyrighted? I couldn’t see any copyright notice in your theme. Perhaps they assumed it was GPL’d?
I assumed a theme I downloaded from you a while back was GPL’d, I’ll go take a look now to check if it is or not. I made quite a few modifications to it, so don’t want to be breaching copyright (I’m only using it on my own site, it’s not available for download).
The theme I used was “TheGreenHouse” which is apparently covered by a “Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License” anyway so I was allowed to modify it thankfully. The site I’m talking about is here in case you’re interested … http://flytrapgrowing.info/
Thanks Ma Eugenia, Len and Ryan.
Ryan,
All these different types of Licenses are quite confusing to me and when there were some issues with the ripoffs in the past, people suggest to have a license page on the site, such as this one.
Basically you can do whatever you want to the theme as long as you are using it for yourself. If you are making a derivative of it, you should get in touch with me before releasing it to the public.
There are many people who contact me like that and I just ask them to keep the footer link to my site. Thats it.
If you read the comments on the Conservablog site, you could see I contacted them first to let them know and he replied that it is not at all based on my theme. That was very rude and that is why I started writing this post.
I am thankful to everyone who has been supporting my work so far and fighting for me. Your positive comments and appreciations far exceed the irritations these ripoffs give me.
Thank you.
I think adding a short copyright notice in your themes would be a good idea. I include a copyright notice in my style sheet outlining what people can and can’t use my themes for. The following CSS file basically says people aren’t allowed to sell or provide my theme for download anywhere but are allowed to modify it for their own needs. I don’t normally stipulate such restrictive conditions, but it’s my own personal blog theme and I’m a little too attached to it to release it to the masses (yet).
http://ryanhellyer.net/wp-content/themes/hellishsimplicity/style.css
You could also specify an existing license, like “Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License” or GPL instead in there.
With a GPL license you can’t stop people copying your designs though, so if you don’t want that then you should stick to a more restrictive license.
I see on the weblogtoolscollection.com post that there was some confusion over your licensing too and some people assumed that it would be GPL. I’m guessing the original thief may have thought this too, hence they so blatantly copied your code.
Anyhows, your theme is much better than the copied version, so this whole kerfuffle is likely to have attracted more interest to your site than you would have had anyway and the copier has made themself look like a complete dork in the process. So win, win for you!
Sadish:
Well that’s crummy. I wonder if guy that answered you is ignorant of how code works, and thinks he bought or otherwise obtained the theme from someone, fair and square. gazellecreative dot com claims that she designed it. Well, she changed the colors of the skin, but it’s still the same. Even the copyright notice has exactly the same characteristics. That was a stupid thing to overlook.
It’s one thing for someone to take code and manipulate it and use it on their site for personal use. It’s quite another to claim you designed it and use it to promote your work.
Ignorance though, is not an excuse when it comes to copyrights.
Please see the updated post on the Liberty Theme here:
http://conservablogs.com/2008/02/20/conservablogs-liberty-wordpress-theme
-Eric