Theme ethics
A contemporary view and comment on WordPress themes
There is currently a new trend going on the internet among people that want to make money.
People (I am not going to defame them publicly here) are selling links on the WordPress themes’ footers for money and are so impudent to release their themes under special Terms of Use (such as the usually very fair Creative Commons license). Under those licenses it is (at least it is claimed) forbidden to remove the sponsored link.
But is it really?
Wordpress users such as Garry Conn and Lisa Sabin-Wilson strongly argument against using sponsored themes, or leaving the themes intact as the author (not even necessarily the designer!) demands it.
Why are sponsored links on themes so interesting for certain people?
Obviously because of the money. It is clearly not a matter of interest, because why would someone put to a Credit Card site or Thai vacations and cheap hotels in his footer or sidebar. Out of interest? Defiantly not!
Money, as always, plays an important role. Scammer companies, or those companies who have not really taken the time to read Google’s TOS (and would thus know that what they do is contrary to what they want to achieve) believe that many links on different people’s sites make them money. Indirectly of course, because they assume that more links from more sites leads to a higher pagerank, and thus to a better position on searches for specific terms (such as credit cards, thai vacation etc).
Garry describes it like that:
They don’t know that the theme they just downloaded has a link into a bad neighborhood and they don’t know that Google is penalizing their site for having the link on their site…
What options does ordinary joe new-user have?
Lisa offers these:
- Remove the sponsored link from the footer
- Contact the sponsored link owner
- Quote him/her a price for a text ad link on your domain
- Tell him/her you’ll replace it if he’s willing to pay your ad rate
- If he says no, use said theme minus the sponsored link
My view on this:
If the design is really good, and by good I mean like really lovely and time-intense, more than just a day of development, then one should contact the theme sponsor and ask him for a solution or leave their link and change the size to something like arial 8px or use the tag around the link plus add a rel=”nofollow”.
If the theme looks like it has been stolen or adopted from another page or has something in the footer such as “design by: (name) , hosting by: (name), random shit: (name)”, remove everything but the designer’s link, because after all it is his work. Everyone who has done some wordpress theming knows that porting a design (a finished design) over to wordpress templates is not that much work. After the some tries you get it done real quick. My point is that removing the footer is not the best way, but adopting the footer is. You can also add the designer’s website to your sidebar, if it looks better, I think that shouldn’t be the problem as long as you keep some sort of information that you were not the one who came up with the design (because that is just rude).
I truly share Lisa’s view on that, saying:
Is removing the links (sponsored, ads) illegal?
[...]
If released under GPL? then no.Under a different licensing – - like a CC Share-a-like, for instance – - attribution to the original creator of the work is required. I have NO problems providing a link to the creator of the work (read: the actual person who put in the blood, sweat, and tears to create the graphics, style and code of the template.)
The link to the Credit Card Finance site? Unless the Credit Card Finance Site is the “Original Author” (meaning the individual or entity who created the Work.) – then I am not obligated to keep the link there.
Actually, why am I writing this?
Some weeks ago I got approached by some guy, who (as it later on turned out) was pro-actively selling ad links/sponsored links on wordpress themes, porting old or free css themes over and marketing them.
It was Hans (zeebob.com) who recently approached me and asked me to upload his (scammed themes) to the wp theme viewer, offering $10 for each theme. But honestly, selling my soul for a mere $10 sounded so crappy to me that I turned him down and giving him some tips concerning the lame layout of his page (with like all ads on there). Also, all this sponsoring is really giving me the creeps, one link to the original author seems fair, maybe also link the person who the work or some elements are based on (icons by famfamfam e.g.), but 4-5 links is just the taking the piss.
I hope that people become aware of the sponsored links in the footers and that designers can once again share their themes without getting approached weekly by marketeers as described above. This comment is discontinued, if I find some time I will write a follow-up or answer any comments.
ThemeSpam, I call it. I’m actually in the process of writing ‘WordPress for Dummies” – due to be published this summer.. and I address the emergence of ThemeSpam in hopes of warning theme users about the practice. Note – I’m not warning them *against* using the themes… but, rather, warning them to keep and eye out for those sponsored links. Why the warning? Google is one reason. Another reason is… hey, it’s MY blog and if I want don’t want to support a Credit Card scam on my, I’m not going to and I defy anyone to make me do it just because I’m using a free WP theme. If the theme author makes enough of a fuss – I’ll stop using the theme – either way, their paid sponsor won’t get the link off my site. The ‘warning’ in the book is just simply bringing this practice to the attention of potential theme users who read it – -
buyeruser beware, and all that.Cheers!
Thanks for the quick response and follow up. Please keep me informed about any progress you make. Thanks a lot!
Very timely. I’ve been going through theme submissions to my site (including yours) and the last five have all been “sponsored” themes. It was so annoying that I added verbiage to my contact form that we won’t feature any themes that link anywhere other than the author’s site or sites of authors of creative elements used in the site (e.g. a link to the original for a port).
Thanks for spreading the word about this…
Also… I have had some time to think about better ways with dealing with the links… The NOFOLLOW is a great idea… and instead of using the small tag, why not just use the comment out tag! LOL!!!
The idea came to me a few weeks ago and I wanted to slap myself because it was so over looked. They say, “Don’t remove the links”, I say… Ok. Fine… but I can add comment out tags around your links! LOL and add NOFOLLOW, thus making it totally invisible and not ‘linkable’.
What’s up with the Theme Viewer? Man, that site totally cashed in and sold out. That was one of my favorite places to visit.
I was one of the few that would really keep things real… I would comment every day, offering constructive feedback to the authors. Yes, I am sure I bent people the wrong way from time to time… but it’s feedback…
I would never say something negative without offering the author a suggested solution to a problem. Meaning, I would never say, “Your Theme Sucks”, and be done with it. I would point out the positives and congrats them on that.. and point out the negatives and offer my thoughts about how to improve.
You can no longer comment on the site… which is stupid. How can an author learn without hearing the input from his viewers? Thus, Theme “Viewer“.
No Comments, Tons of Google Adsense just slapped up through out the site… I just can’t believe what is happening to the WordPress Community. I really can’t…. it’s sad.
I really am a huge fan of WordPress and it is sad to say, but I think I am fighting a losing battle. Spam is everywhere… and it has now infected the WordPress Community. :(
Hi jez, thanks for the comment on my entry. I think the most brilliant option a user could choose is what she advocates – to totally boycott themes with sponsored (spam) links.
Now, as long as there are no obvious rules in the ThemeViewer that “this and that” are not to be uploaded and distributed under the site’s banner, these spam adverts will continue to proliferate the community, and yes, it’s really sad.
If the concerned people could only do something, just like what Small Potato does. I mean, could we not start a petition or something?
I used to have a sponsered theme on my old website. Needless to say I removed the link. My thinking was that it was on my website and my domain, which I pay for, so why should I give free advertising to something I don’t endorse? The person who designed the theme already received their money, so it was no skin off their nose. But I like the idea of contacting the sponser and asking how much they’re willing to pay you to keep the link on your website! Isn’t the whole point of the CCL that you can freely edit the theme so long as you leave the original designer’s name intact? Well, that’s what I did. My new domain however just uses a regular WP theme without a sponsered link. It’s up to the user to have AdSense or whatever on their own site, but I prefer my website to be ad-free (it’s a personal website and I get paid enough to keep it running).
I sure hope Lisa Sabin-Wilson gives her new book away for free and not generate income for a third party publisher. Of course she could leave her own name on the cover. After all she DID write it….
Nice post, I was thinking along the same lines, especially your ideas about contacting the theme developer / sponsored link owner dude