on March 1st, 2005My Interaction with Blogsome
When blogsome.com started providing free WP powered blogs, I created one for myself.
I also asked them, if they could pre-install some of my themes with their system.
They did not respond back to that, but after a while I started to get support questions for my GreenTrack and ShadedGrey themes from blogsome users. Only then I found out that they have started providing those themes to their users.
yesterday I noticed that, when the blogsome users, applies the theme to their website, it does not link back to our WPThemes.Info.
I contacted Blogsome and asked them if they could provide the link back to me, but they replied with a ‘NO’ for that. Their policy does not allow that.
I thought about it for a while and said it is OK to do that, because linking back to WPThemes.Info has always been optional in any of our themes.
but really when I think about it now, Blogsome is not a charity organisation, and are making money by running that site.
I dont know whether I should pressurize them again, or just leave it as it is right now. (After all, the idea behind creating and sharing the themes is for the people to use it. isnt it ?)
what do you think ? Let me know.
Updated on March 10 2005 :
Thanks for the comments guys/ gals.
I got an update from the Blogsome people, that those ‘google ads’ in their website are removable by the user if they want .
I think I will close this topic here(comments are closed now) and make sure the future themes we will release it as ‘free for a non-commercial use’ kind of copyright.
Thanks again.
I installed one of your themes today, and in the stylesheet code, your site is mentioned (hence my visit).
You can’t seriously expect to get paid for something you donated. I know that a backlink would be nice, but that would be blogsome taking liberties with blog content, which probably wouldn’t go down too well, would it?
Nice themes by the way.
I’m about 99.999% sure that whatever layouts you’ve put together are under your copyright. Since it links to you out of the box, it should be automatically included. Yes, I use your theme and I didn’t pay, but I keep the link up. Since Blogsome took the link down, they’re claiming your work as their own and getting paid for it.
However, since they have your name and a link to this site at http://www.blogsome.com/design.php they’re kinda sorta giving you credit.
Hmm… Personally, I’d ask why their policy forbids it when they’ve already attributed it to you.
Thanks for the comments guys.
It is their policy not to crowd the footer with so many links. they only want one link to blogsome.com
yes, they do give credits to me in 3 places. one in the code, one in the designs.php page and one page in the admin where the users select which theme they want.
They are not stealing / getting my credit.
the thing is, if someone bumps into one of the blogsome blog, and like its look and feel, they have no way of finding out that this theme can be downloaded from wpthemes.info for free.
Thats what I want to happen.
Hey, I started using your theme, it’s a great theme.
I would personally make them put the footer on, otherwise they can get their themes from somewhere else.
You make great themes, and deserve the bit of credit that comes with it.
Not in hidden code that the average user wouldn’t see.
Even a small clickable “Theme Author” link.
It’s not like it takes up that much room.
Up to you though.
I agree with Finchwizard. I think it’s worthwhile to continue to politely ask them to add a simple, uncluttering link to wpthemes.info
In my experience it’s just a matter of getting ahold of the right person or being kind long enough that they end up really wanting to give you credit. Also, you can use the argument that they rely on WordPress and WP installations rely on you for their designs. So the more traffic they send to you, the better you do, and then the better they do.
why dont you charge them? since they are using ur copyrighted files under your name. :)
Hmm… tough call.
Maybe you could make a compromise? Ask them to put the link somewhere else. Like if they’re also PHP/MySQL based, that you’re one of the default links that can be taken out if the user wants to?
Sadish, you already know what I think about this. But just for the record, people should play the game without trying to show or impose who owns the ball. I don’t really buy their reasons for not linking back in the footer. Most people won’t realize that the credit is given in other different places and to be honest it surprises me that they don’t even leave it open for discussion, when the whole WP community is supportive and colaborative. They are already making their bucks through advertising, I don’t see why a small credit link should be such a big deal… This is a courtesy shared all through the net, not only in the WP community. It’s not stated or written anywhere, but it’s common - and good - practice. I’m disapponted by their posture about this.
Under which license are you providing the themes?
They are obviously using your themes for commercial benefit, so they should be obliged to include the link or be denied the right to use the themes.
There’s nothing to stop you changing the license under which the themes are released.
It’s a pity that you might be forced into doing something like that, but if they are abusing your work then so be it.
I’m with Michelle. And also, I just realized: the google ads take up space, a lot more than a single, small, regular link would. But running the ads doesn’t bother them. Why? Because they profit from it. Users must have the ads in their blogs no matter what, so why not also have a simple link back to theme developers? How convenient… If it wasn’t for the themes that are offered for free, they wouldn’t have any theme options to offers their users, making the service they GET PAYED to run less attractive. I don’t know. This doesn’t seem right to me.. the more I read and think about it, the more I am convinced of this. It wouldn’t hurt to show a little appreciation and thankfullness to developers who make their work available for free and they benefit from. Why should developers feel thankful that Blogsome is using their themes? Like it’s some sort of prize or something… Come on!!!
I can understand why blogsome would “force” ads - it’s their business model.
Not attributing the themes to their author however is a bit much.
It would be like us using Apache and claiming that we wrote our own httpd daemon
i agree with patricia and michele, it is unethical to remove the link to the themes’ creators to begin with, but it is way out of line to flat out reject the request to add the link when the creator asked for it. not to mention they are profiting from it.
there are several other themes from different creators that are being used in blogsome, does this happen to them too? how do they feel about this? is it worthy of your time to contact them and notify them about this sadish? some of them might not even know about blogsome and how their themes are used for profit with the link to the authors deleted.
just my two cents.
Cronos,
as far as I know, other themes are not linked either. I don’t know if other developes are aware of this or not. But my guess is that they are. Maybe it would be a good idea to contact them…
Could you use a copyright with something like “free for non profit use” in your own policy…???
Another great idea, Blips! Sadish, I think we should!
Obviously and through their own actions Blogsome has demonstrated that they like your software, therefore ethical and courteous behavior should dictate that Blogsome acknowledge your work in some way. Otherwise they appear to be underhanded and deceitful, in my opinion. I use one of your themes myself, but I don’t use Blogsome, so in my book you are greater than they are!
You should use this license.
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/
This mean that people can not use your themes for commercial purposes WITHOUT your permission and credit must be given to original author.
And thanks for the wonderful work guys! :)
JD
Btw, the linked license is flexible that anyone can build further upon your work provided they release the work using same license. So, theme porting should be easy for other people. :)
JD
I think an important fact is being missed here. First Sadish requested that we include his templates. When this issue arose we said that we would not use his templates if he didn’t want us to.
Also ads on the site are not compulsory.
Point that was made by Sadish but worth re-iterating:
Just a clarify a couple of point:
- Blogsome links back to the theme developer in three locations (1) from the admin section of every blogger’s blog - under “themes” - the only way they can select a template (2) in the “designs” page which is linked directly from our home page and (3) in the code of the theme.