Need help with Solostream WP Launch – anybody?

I have already contacted admin to remove the link or take down the whole discussion. And what about the link that @djeff8593 posted? It too has themes for free – are they legal?
Arrrghhhh. When I wrote that post it was in response to this discussion. I was acting in good faith – stupidly, I now realize.
This whole episode is turning into a huge wake up call.

Just as an aside – Christine, in the future it is sometimes helpful to read the “READ ME” files upon unzipping content. The themes contained in the links more or less indicate that they’re stolen.

There are a multitude of free and high quality themes out there. I’m using Arras as mine. The big difference between premium and free themes are the premium themes sometimes come with the PSD files, come with specific plug-ins that add to the functionality (and are already properly integrated for their point release), offer developer support, and sometimes have a regular update schedule (at least from what I’ve noticed).

Still, a growing number of free themes are starting to do the same – even premium themes will sometimes have a ‘lite’ version to give you something, but encourage purchasing them.

I’m not going to assume you knew you were in receipt of a stolen product – as unlikely as some may feel, I can see where someone would be mislead into thinking that the acquisition point was legit – especially someone who’s not overly familiar with how insidious the interwebs can be, but it is important to check and make sure – particularly with design, that you’re not getting something stolen.

On that site there are a couple of tell tale indicators that the site isn’t exactly legit (yet I’m puzzled how it has remained ‘up’). There are a lot of sites like it also – the best place to get solid free themes if from the WordPress theme directory, at least for now until you get familiar with what’s legal and what’s not. WP isn’t going to distribute a stolen theme or plug-in. Other methods would be to google “WP theme designers” and from there just sort of trace their designs to legit site like MooThemes / ThemeForest / Smashing Magazine / Tutorial 9 / WDL.

On the other hand – everyone knows what mistake you won’t be making again…

Also, THEIR source uses something other than their own server to store and distribute – but most of what I find is not the latest point releases of the themes, so – going back to your original question – outside of the situation, yes on most themes you can add a custom header image, a custom BG image – for the most part you can completely re-skin any theme, you just have to know where in which files to alter. Generally look through your style sheet and then the header.php or index.php

Thank you @sgordon for at least giving me the benefit of the doubt. I also thank you for taking the time to explain the things you did. You are a kind (and rational) soul.
It is sometimes very confusing for me and I more often than not feel like a babe in the woods as I try to navigate the web. But I am learning – unfortunately sometimes the lessons come as a result of mistakes, serious ones I might add. I have taken all your points to heart. I will try my best to be more careful now that I know (little miss wendihihi drove the point home better than anyone!) about how insidious some can be.
It is now way past 3am and I am still here trying to find a theme that is legit to use on my blog. I thank you for the list of ‘legit” theme sites, but now I am so paranoid that I’m thinking I don’t know who YOU are and you could perhaps be misleading me. How can I know anything for sure or trust anyone? Things have gotten very tricky indeed!
In fact, in the last few hours while looking around for a legal theme, I have run across other sites that are giving away solostream themes. Doesn’t solostream do a regular check on this? I mean, if I can find them, certainly they can and then of course they could do something about it. I would think, anyway. In any case, I think I’ll take your advice and stick with WordPress Directory for now until I am better informed.
Changing themes will have to wait till the morning as I am exhausted now and heading off to sleep.
Oh yes, thank you for advising me about illegal plugins too. Something else I did not know and would never have thought.
I wonder why it’s taking the forum moderators so long to reply?
I must go…
Thank you for your “voice of reason.”

Well mods have lives as well. Most site moderators are people doing it out of kindness, or they may feel that this thread is a shining example for others.

Solostream may or may not know about it. I’m not overly familiar with the manner in which solostream behaves as a company (their monitoring or level of concern), and it stands to reason that if someone buys from them, they can easily look up and see if they have a legit copy of the theme prior to giving their professional level of help. Pirates can be smart, but do can developers. Like you, I’m sort of broke – but like I said – there’s enough free resources that have a robust support structure that about anything can be accomplished.

If you need further assistance in finding a theme, let me know and I’ll do what I can to help you determine what theme based on what I’m familiar with (for starters – what is the overall purpose of your blog? – finding a theme that fits this is far more important than finding one that has neat features)

As for ‘trust’, that’s earned. Whether or not you trust me is dependent upon your willingness to do so and if you’ve researched who I am (not that I’m important, but I can bee easily Googled)

If you’re overly curious about the solostream themes, maybe an email to them directly with links to where you’re finding them might be worth the time.

Good morning Gordon,
I am surprised to find this thread still here. I guess it is what you say, that the moderators will let it stand as an example. In any case, I had already written to Michael Pollock at Solostream last night and received a reply this morning. He is very kind and understanding and there are no hard feelings between us. Whew!
He has explained to me that they do know about the illegal sites and are still trying to figure out what to do about them – apparently it’s not such an easy process. I’m sure they will find a way to protect their work in the future. In the interim it’s great that they have such loyal customers. Even though I didn’t appreciate the manner in which I was treated by some here, I did appreciate that Solostream customers stood up to defend the company’s rights.

Thank you for your kind offer of assistance. I think I will be fine now. I have figured out how to change the theme and I do know how to add plugins and widgets (I’ve been taking tutorials) so I can improve it’s functionality. Now I’m off in search of one that will allow me to load a custom banner. Wish me luck.

You are welcome to visit my blog. It isn’t quite launched yet – only a few people are aware of it. As soon as I flesh it out, I will begin promoting it. In any case, you are welcome to visit. Thank you again!

christinemcintyre.me

On behalf of the entire Solostream team, I want to publicly thank djeff8593, aaron929, tsquez and sgordon for your support throughout this thread. Please let me know if there’s anything we can do to return the favor.

Sadly, it’s becoming quite a nuisance to try and police the Internet for stolen themes. We are aware of many of the offenders out there, including the one mentioned in this thread, and we are trying to figure out what to do about them.

In some cases we can get the sites shut down for copyright infringement, but many times, these sites are operated by people who know they are operating outside the law, and they go to great lengths to prevent people like us from being able to stop them. It’s becoming quite a time drain.

We are exploring the possibility of building in some sort of authentication mechanism that would require an activation code for use of our themes, but we’ve not gotten there yet.

It would be great if one of the moderators could remove the offending links mentioned in the thread. I did download one of the themes, and it’s clear they’ve added some encrypted code to the footer of the theme, and who knows what that code does.

And get this … they even added this to the footer template:

“WARNING: This file is protected by copyright law. To reverse engineer or decode this file is strictly prohibited.”

Wow. Brazen scumbags.

Michael Pollock
Solostream Chief Marketing Officer

ok – this thread is now done – I think everyone gets the idea
this thread will not be deleted just because someone was caught with their pants down