Comments on: 3rd Door – Today The Advice: Don’t Steal Premium WordPress Themes

By: lintang

lintang — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 05:29:32 +0000

well, i pay for the support, i dont think its GPL ed

By: Christian

Christian — Tue, 04 May 2010 05:39:33 +0000

Ok...So a long thread about the dangers of using bad code in stolen themes...
When long, strange code is at the bottom of tons of free themes on line. Hell, everything from webhostingfan.com seems to have these long "safety codes" to "prevent others from replicating their sites"... in truth it's just to continually perpetuate their back-links. I agree with you in regard to the hot copies, but think this can happen with anything not in the codex

By: Boni

Boni — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 09:57:29 +0000

Yeah, stealing other works is not good.

I think it is better to use paid version. It is cheap enough, and the best part is you can get the update of the themes, and you can have consultation with the developer to modify the themes as you want.

By: DO NOT download WordPress themes from untrusted sources | Themes | WereWP

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 22:16:14 +0000

[...] please, and I am here relaying the info published on themelab.com and wpengineer.com recently, DO NOT download WordPress themes from untrusted sources. Leland posted lots of solutions [...]

By: Stop Downloading WordPress Themes from Shady Sites | Theme Lab

Stop Downloading WordPress Themes from Shady Sites | Theme Lab — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 17:28:19 +0000

[...] awareness to the issue that still is a big problem today. Most people lately are talking about the encrypted code problem with premium themes but I’d argue the problem is much more widespread when it comes to free [...]

By: Christina Warren

Christina Warren — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 22:10:50 +0000

I'm with Leland -- the issue isn't exclusive just to premium themes (regardless of what license they are under), but themes in general. In fact, that was a big issue with the first iteration of the WordPress themes directory and the unofficial directories that got a lot of the traffic. The problem is, a lot of new users might not know where to go to get a theme by an original author. If a site has a link to something, says "download here" -- people who don't know how vulnerable PHP can be to this stuff might not know any better. Although it would be more difficult for the code to actually offer a backdoor to your site (frankly, it shouldn't be able to do that -- if it can, then that's a much larger security bug that should be addressed with WP Core), the spam links in the footer are still things you don't want. It's good advice to all users to be aware of where you are downloading your theme from -- just because something looks legit doesn't mean it is.

By: Leland

Leland — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 20:53:26 +0000

Back to the actual point of the article, this is definitely an important issue, but the problem isn't exclusive to premium themes. Free themes with malicious code added by third-parties are likely much more widely used. Do a search for "wordpress themes" in Google and I'm sure you'll find a lot of rogue theme repositories which host (already) free themes with added malicious code. Unfortunately a lot of people unknowingly use these themes, thus making their site vulnerable. I think the title would be better suited as: Don't download themes from untrusted sources. Themes hosted on WordPress.org are can usually be considered safe. They are hand checked by a moderator after they are put through a number of automated checks.

By: Wordpress Guy

Wordpress Guy — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 19:50:10 +0000

Hmmmmmm. I *love* the smell of FUD in the morning.

1. There's no such thing as stealing a theme (unless is in a shrink wrapped box in a store).

2. You can't steal something that's licensed under the GPL anyway. (exception see 1).

3. This just shows there is a need for a reputable site that distrbutes premium themes freely and as intended under the GPL. Someone want to setup free-premium-themes .com?

By: Alex

Alex — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 19:09:36 +0000

@Kenneth, the header might be little bit confusing for some, infringement or stealing - we split the hair.

We just wanted to show the risk if you USE a theme from a dubious source, which is not from the originator of the theme. That's all.

By: Kenneth Younger

Kenneth Younger — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 18:50:54 +0000

I think this bothers me more than anything else out there regarding IP.

You do not STEAL when you copy something that you shouldn't. It is called infringement, and it is fundamentally very different than stealing. One deprives the owner of property, the other doesn't.

It's important to use the right terminology when dealing with these issues, as not doing so means potentially conveying the wrong meaning to those that don't understand the issues and technology behind the issues.

As most have pointed out, in this case it's not even infringement because the GPL was used on the original theme.