[theme-reviewers] Possible theme copycat

[Otto]

On Sat, Nov 9, 2013 at 12:39 PM, Ola Łączek <ola at bodera.com> wrote:

> Hello!
>
> I just noticed this theme in WordPress repo:
> http://wordpress.org/themes/buzz,
> which is strangely similar visually to my own Corpo theme (colors and
> fonts changed):
> http://wordpress.org/themes/corpo
> I'd like your input on this - am I overreacting here, and if not, is there
> anything that can be done about it?
>

At a quick glance, the actual code of the two themes does not realistically
look similar at all. For example, those corner bits under the header, on
the left and right side: in your theme, those are CSS borders. In theirs,
they used two PNG images.

While the look is certainly very similar, it's not particularly unusual for
themes to look alike. But code-wise, they have almost nothing in common.

While we do not allow direct copies of themes without significant changes
(that's what parent/child themes are for), this doesn't appear to be a case
of copying of the code. Additionally, all themes in our directory are
licensed under GPL Compatible licenses, so if somebody wants to copy,
modify, and re-release your theme, then they can do so. They must retain
copyright attribution notices and such, but there's nothing preventing them
from copying the theme and releasing it themselves.

-Otto
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