[theme-reviewers] Theme Copy

[Otto]

On Sat, Nov 9, 2013 at 2:58 PM, Sakin Shrestha <info at catchinternet.com>wrote:

> Hello Theme Reviewer and Admins,
>
> I would like to bring to your notice that my themes are being copied to an
> extreme and even the new theme company made the framework on the basis of
> my theme.
>


Okay, let's just put a stop to this before it gets out of hand...

Theme Authors: If your themes are on WordPress.org, then other people are
*allowed* to copy them, modify them, and even re-release them.

We do care about copying of themes. But if somebody takes your theme,
modifies it in any significant way, and releases that modification, then
that is *okay*. That is *allowed*.

We will not allow "total" copies, where the changes are trivial or where
they didn't actually change anything at all. But modified versions,
renamed, with different graphics, or styles, or anything like that: This is
acceptable under the license you're releasing your theme under. We
explicitly allow it, and even encourage it.

WordPress is released under the terms of the GPL, and we require themes to
be released under those terms (or compatible terms) as well. You put a
license declaration in your theme somewhere that explicitly allows people
to copy and modify it. When you do that, you really don't get to complain
about it later.

TL;DR: Modified versions of themes that are listed on WordPress.org are
okay.

-Otto
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