Sponsored themes. Well now…

Posted on April 14, 2007
Filed Under opinion |

I’ll try to keep this brief as I’m sure the debate is hitting overload for everyone. , and I have to say, I agree with him on most points. If you read one paragraph about sponsored themes, make it this one from Matt:

“Finally many of these themes try to legally disallow you from removing the advertising link by claiming it’s part of the Creative Commons attribution to leave it. This is almost funny, because these themes are on shaky legal ground themselves. WordPress is Free, meaning you’re free to do pretty much anything you like with it. It’s under a license that encourages user freedom called the GPL, which says if you distribute something that links internal functions and data structures of a GPL program (like themes do with WordPress) that also needs to be Free.”

Read the full essay on weblogtoolscollection.

A few other posts have rung true, and a couple of posts here about protecting wordpress content have got me thinking. I’m going to follow the lead, and highlight sponsored themes where I can identify them as such. If I get it wrong, let me know and I’ll update things.

sponsored.gifI even did an icon for the sponsored themes.

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Comments

3 Responses to “Sponsored themes. Well now…”

  1. Scot Smith on April 15th, 2007 5:52 am

    There is one way to avoid the debate: don’t download a sponsored theme :p. Good points though, and nice icon!

    – Scot

  2. Daria Black on April 18th, 2007 4:20 pm

    I love the tag. I don’t think sponsored themes are bad as long as the designer is upfront and honest about what it is. I also say that I have to change my mind and agree that sponsored themes shouldn’t be allowed on official WP sites mainly because the WP owners are so against it.

  3. Daria Black on April 18th, 2007 4:21 pm

    I hit enter before saying: also because it seems to be causing a trust issue between WP and the end user which, in the end, is who we are all catering to.

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