Comments on: Violation Against Our Wordpress Themes

By: Chris

Chris — Tue, 23 May 2006 12:27:28 +0000

Sorry to hear this Colleen, it is truly a crooked world out there. Please keep us uptodate on what has, is, and will be done with this situation.

By: bytech

bytech — Fri, 12 May 2006 21:47:54 +0000

He does not need to understand the rules. He simply has to follow them. His understanding of the situation has no impact on it. It’s really very simple that way…

By: Colleen

Colleen — Fri, 12 May 2006 21:16:55 +0000

He doesn’t understand why designers care if he adds his two links to our themes… I think it’s obvious why we don’t like it!

By: adam

adam — Fri, 12 May 2006 20:29:56 +0000

wow. that’s seriously evil. i’ve seen a lot of sites scraping wordpress themes, but this is a new low.
it’s understandable that their hosts won’t do anything without a DMCA request, but what they’re doing is evil enough to warrant the effort. (i wouldn’t want my host taking down my site without serious evidence against me)

By: bytech

bytech — Thu, 11 May 2006 20:40:00 +0000

Awsome new theme Colleen!

Well, I myself released a skin for IPB a while back and already had a couple of violations. The way I try to think of it is that this just comes with the territory. Some people will steal your work, but hopefully those that respect it make it worth while at the end of the day.

I would say do what you can to go after the violators. Work on a plan that makes it worth your time stealing your stuff. The sites that remove our credit from the skin receive a nice invoice from us with a charge for the credit removal ($39), and a fee for removal of credit before the purchase of the permission to do so. Some peeps pay up, and appologise. I think the trick is to make it look like you’ve dealt with this before, and this is only the first card. Make it easy for them to comply, but at the same time worth your time. The casual crooks get a good scare out of a well organised pursuit. They are worried you are severl steps ahead of them, and want out at the first sign of trouble…

… but that is just my experience. I am sure it does not apply to every case. With peeps putting in their own credits, this should be easy to deal with: contact the flower shop and ask them if they are aware of people using stolen property to advretise their shop. That should get them to pull the adverts quickly, and hopefully put the crooks that place these links out of business.

By: Darren

Darren — Thu, 11 May 2006 18:07:13 +0000

Colleen, contact Wordpress, they might be able to do something to raise the attention of this wankers using your themes (and others too!) I wish I could hack cos I’d hack their arses off - bastards

By: Matthew

Matthew — Thu, 11 May 2006 11:42:36 +0000

I know exactly how you feel. Once upon a time I created a beautiful website in my html days and someone copied it directly by using the exact source code and downloading all of the images I had designed and photos I’d collected. They then had the cheek to ask me to be their sister site. It upset me to the point that I took the site down.

Your case is a real shame, but hardly surprising; your themes are amazing. Try not to get too upset about it, they say immitation is the great form of flattery. Rest assured that you created these themes, they belong to you and morally you are in the right.

Please don’t stop giving them away, it’s people like you who are what the web is all about. Not some daft prat who steals other peoples ideas and then sells them via advertising for a flower shop.

If this doesn’t console you then bare in mind that my site uses your corporate-pro theme and I love it! I’ve been looking for a theme I’m happy with for ages and yours makes my site look lovely.