Legal Question

  • Just a quick question:
    If a designer has discontinued his services/website but still has themes available to download (from themes.wordpress.net); is there anything wrong with “acquiring” those themes to still develop on them?

    Obviously, you would still give the original developer credit by name, but is this considered good practice?

    Thanks in advance.

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)

  • As long as the designer released the themes under GPL or a similarly open license, and as long as you keep the same open license, it shouldn’t be a problem.

    But if you add spam links to the bottom of the theme and tell people they’re not allowed to remove them, then you might be acting in bad faith.

    Thread Starter 5115

    (@5115)

    Thanks for your response.

    The theme is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 license.

    And that would be a no for spam links.

    I did this once, got a bunch of very nasty BS from the designer who came out of hiding, and swore that I would never do so again.

    Just for reference and stating as a warning.

    Double check the theme credit links. Some of those domains have expired and now point elsewhere. wp.com had egg on their face a few months back over this.

    I agree with Adam though. As long as you keep to the licensing, you will be fine legally. Morally may be a different story.

    Thread Starter 5115

    (@5115)

    Thanks for the tip theapparatus. The last thing I want to do is offend the original designer.

    What I am thinking is renaming the theme to “Theme Name:Redux.”
    And pretty much gut it to my liking… while still leaving credit to the original designer by name in the stylesheet. I think I will even leave the footer blank except for ‘Powered by WordPress.’

    Thanks again guys. More advice is definitely welcome.

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
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