In the few months of Free WordPress Themes being online, we’ve received a few complaints from members and non-members alike. The gist: someone has uploaded their themes, but without proper attribution. Worse, these uploaded themes had sponsor links embedded somewhere (usually the footer). This means some people are making money off other people’s efforts, sometimes perhaps unknowingly, but mostly probably with full culpability.

Now what to do in these cases? First thing we do is respond back to the complainant that while we try to ensure the quality of uploaded themes, we cannot monitor everything 100%. This means we cannot check each of the thousands of themes uploaded against the original sources to verify the accuracy of information submitted. Second, we tell ask them for the link to the original source, as proof that the theme is indeed theirs. We can then check the date of original publication, and possible comments and inbound linkages, which would at least tell us that the original source is valid.

We then try to review the copyright statement or license of the original designs, particularly whether a third-party uploading would be against the license. Usually, derivative works are not allowed (such as with closed copyrights or some variants of the Creative Commons license).

Then when we have checked that the theme has indeed been illegally posted by the third party, we then delete this off that person’s account, and notify the uploader via email of the violation.

Sometimes, though, third-party uploads don’t necessarily add on to the original work–no links, no ads, nothing added. Maybe they’re just fans of the original theme author? Or maybe they just really like the theme, and decided to upload themselves. In these cases, then we just advise the original author that there has been no known violation, and we just ask if they would rather have the theme under their own accounts.

It’s not rocket science. This kind of work mostly entails dealing with people the right way.