My Plugin Was Stolen

Could you explain more about what the rebranded plugin does that is deceptive? Is it something like every few clicks the commission goes somewhere other than where the site operator expects (i.e., back to the author of the rebranded version)?

Once you install the plugin, what exactly does it say that confuses the user? How does one implement the commission process normally and what does this plugin do to change that? Do you have screenshots?

If you can explain exactly how this deceives the public then file a complaint with the FTC: https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/ They have gone after malware/spyware in the past that didn’t disclose what it was doing and this sounds similarly deceptive.

I don’t think this is a GPL/copyright issue because the GPL gives anyone the right to rebrand your plugin, modify it, etc. Engaging in fraud isn’t itself a violation of copyright law, so you should focus instead on explaining what false or misleading statements this rebrander makes. [Edit: Although, if they also remove your copyright notices, etc. so as to make it look like the code you wrote was written by them, then that is definitely (C) infringement and a violation of the GPL as well. It’s not clear to me from your post how far they went to cover their tracks.)

Hey Brian,

I’m not concerned that they stole my code. That’s the nature of GPL. What concerns me is that they give no credit back to me as the original GPL code developer.

With regard to the tipping option, the original plugin makes it very clear that the blog owner can enable or disable tipping on their blog. If enabled, a portion of the Amazon products displayed on their blog will be displayed using MY affiliate code so as to provide a “tip” to me as plugin developer.

In their version of the plugin, they have left most of that code in place except they have substituted their affiliate code instead of mine, and have hidden the administrative controls used to enable/disable the tipping option. In other words, they are taking commission from the blog owners without their knowledge or consent.

One of the things that concerns me is the fact that if they are willing to steal from their clients in this way, what’s to stop them from capturing peoples AWS access credentials completely and stealing from them outright.

Thanks for your explanation. I’ve now compared the two code bases and see precisely what you are talking about. They’ve copied your code wholesale, changed any instance of ‘amazonfeed’ in the code to ‘amazonpress’ replaced your attribution information in the readme.txt with their own, and obfuscated the fact that tips are occurring while also entering their own Amazon affiliate information in place of yours. They’ve violated the GPL, infringed your copyright, and are defrauding their users of commissions without notice.

Yes. You pretty much nailed it. So the question is, is there anything I can do without having millions to spend on lawyers? (it’s a free plugin after all)

Hey, I just stumbled in here from Reddit. you might check with the Free Software Foundation or the Software Freedom Law Center as they deal a lot with GPL issues. If not, they might be able to point you in the right direction.

Free Software Foundation
https://www.fsf.org

Software Freedom Law Center
https://www.softwarefreedom.org/

Looks like that site (www.wordpressconnect.net) is now in maintenance mode.

Authorship Attribution is not a major concern for the GNU GPL. The GPL enforces source code availability, it protects the source code, not the author.
If you want attribution, you should have picked the Artistic license, or one of the academic licenses, like the BSDL.

While the copyright notice is negligible in some contries, most copyright laws have an enforcement that any such notices must not be removed. The redistributer is not required to advertise the original authorship, but stripping it out is not generally accepted either. Depends on where the redistributor lives. So you can go there, whatever the GNU GPL says. (It doesn’t care, however.)

Another note: If the plugin redistributors intentionally trick blog owners to provide commision to the plugin “stealers”, then you should also report that to Amazon. I’d guess they can look into that, any maybe freeze the account. That sounds like deceit. And there is surely a provision for that in any revenue contracts.

Report it to WordPress/Auttomatic. Seeing that they support GPL (Thesis issue) I think they would be willing to take that plugin down from the repository… I think that’s your best option. Especially when they are taking a good chunk of money that supposed to go to plugin users… without letting them even know.

And why, after this discussion whose conclusions seem quite clear and after so many months, is this apparently deceitful/stolen code Amazonpress plugin STILL in the official WordPress Extend repository?

Try contacting [email protected].