All posts filed under: Reader question

A reader asks: Selling ThemeForest themes outside of ThemeForest

Published by Richard Best

Questions Alex asks these questions (I’ve amended them slightly): “I have come across sites that are charging to download ThemeForest WordPress themes and are adding a note stating they are licensed under the GPL. I looked a number of those themes up on ThemeForest and they were not licensed under the GPL or were only partially licensed under the GPL. I am planning to sell WordPress themes and would appreciate a clarification as to the licensing that ThemeForest is purporting to use. (As of this writing, very few businesses on ThemeForest have opted to use GPL, so where does that actually place a theme sold on ThemeForest?) A few theme authors have adopted the 100% GPL licensing but the majority have not. With that stated, could someone (such as myself) resell the theme in question, [Hypothetical Theme], by attaching the GPL license? I understand that ThemeForest is claiming they have a totally different license in effect. That seems to be where the confusion is.” These questions could span a number of different scenarios: a theme …

A reader asks: Theme reviews, CC0, model releases and GPL-compatibility

Published by Richard Best

Question Ulrich asks: “I do theme reviews for the theme repository on WordPress.org. All the code and assets in the theme need to be GPL compatible. I have a few questions about how GPL compatible images work with model releases. The popular GPL compatible image licence is CC0. Can an image be released under CC0 even if there is no model release? Is a CC0 image without a model release GPL compatible? Who is responsible for getting the model release? The photographer, theme author, website owner? Who is liable if a theme with a CC0 image without a model release is used on a pornographic site?” Thanks for the great bunch of questions Ulrich. I appreciate receiving them. Outline and summary Outline Before I jump into the specific questions you’ve raised, I think it may be helpful for some people if we step back from those questions and: sketch out what WordPress.org and the Theme Review Handbook have to say about GPL-compatibility; describe CC0; analyse what is meant by “GPL-compatibility”; and explain why, in my …

A reader asks: Taking screenshots and turning them into thumbnails

Published by Richard Best

The question In the comments to one my posts, a reader left an interesting question, the discussion of which I thought was better off in a new post. Not only does that enable others to see it more easily but taking this path preserves the reader’s anonymity (I haven’t published the comment, for reasons he’ll understand when he reads this post). The question was this: ‘As a hypothetical, if I create a screenshot of someone else’s website and turn it into a smaller thumbnail, how would this be considered under copyright?’ My comments on this question are below, written as if I was talking directly to the person that asked the question. I don’t limit my comments to a screenshot of someone else’s website. The screenshot might, for example, be of a single photo you see on another site. Comments The question you raise is an interesting one. I’ll make some comments but you’ll appreciate that this isn’t legal advice. My standard disclaimer applies. (I’m sure I’ll get tired of saying that after a while… …