Many users of WP theme just remove sponsored links

This is the funniest thing I have read today.

If I create a theme, I have the right to distribute it with whatever conditions I want.

Wordpress may be free..

but why would theme creators create themes if they are not going to get any benefit from it?

 

And thats where you miss the whole point behind the WordPress project.

Not all theme creators expect to have the link kept in their theme and are more than happy to bang out more designs.

 

It is upto the creator to decide what he is happy with...

if wordpress doesn't like sponsored themes...they may stop them for being released on their site..

but if the designer is releasing the theme at other places...no one can put conditions on him.

 

That will be something that WordPress may introduce in the future due to the abuse of selling sponsored links.

You are right, nobody can restrict theme designers for asking people to keep the links on their theme. With it being part of the WordPress project license the request to keep the links within the theme can be rendered as useless.

 

Only if it utilizes code from one of the initial Wordpress themes. If you make something 100% scratch, than the Wordpress license has no bearing on your theme. The only mirky licensing issues come into play when theme designers build off of Kubrick or another Wordpress theme that is licensed within the project. At that point, the work is legally considered a derivative work according to US copyright law, and according to the Wordpress license, it must be released under the same, or very similar license.

 

I think the problem is that too many of these new themes have so many footer links. I have seen some with four or five. I think asking someone to keep one or two is more realistic and it won't make the footer area cluttered.

 

You are right in your own way, however these kind of pressures of reducing footer links induce some designers to steal others' work, who claim to be the original CSS designers, even when they are not.

Would you rather get into copyright violation issues by not attributing credits to the respective authors or would you want to go the right way?

The root cause of the sponsorship ruckus was:
1. Forcing users to keep sponsored links: Contributors are different from creators, you can't force people to keep contributor links, unless you don't mind Matt forcing everyone to keep all the contributors' names on the theme too who created WordPress.
2. Highlighting sponsorships more than design: Leaving sponsor links in the footer is one thing, but highlighting it in the CSS description, why? I think a designer should concentrate more on design and sponsors should also understand that part.
3. Mass-producing themes, most of which are rip-offs or duplicates
4. Incompetence on the part of designers who claim to be WordPress designers and yet can't answer a single support question nor do a single customized WordPress project.
5. Third-party distribution of themes by non-designers in the name of designers

Sponsorships were there right from May 2, 2006, but there was more sincerity in creating themes a year ago. If you go back by one year, all those who started earlier did provide a lot of free support, as of today, you can see for yourself, so much has changed.

Anyways, I won't digress anymore, I think sponsors are still better off advertising on themes than advertising on other platforms, the returns may be lesser than earlier, but are still not bad. I think instead of pushing users to keep sponsor links, if we request them, they are more likely to understand what it takes to make a free theme.

The responsibility falls squarely on the sponsors to pick designers who provide them authentic and original work, giving credits to all original authors and ensuring that they have a decent licensing structure. This will prevent their themes being tagged "spammy" or "rip-offs".

 

For anyone who buys these links in WP themes you might want to read this topic from the WP forum. Link

Good Luck

 

1 or 2 links is fine. More than that and you do risk people removing them.

Then again if you get 300 downloads of a theme and 100 people remove the links, you still have 200 good backlinks to your site. That's not a bad return.

 

As a user of wp themes, I dont mind leaving the linkback to the original authors website but whenever i see sponsored by insert random proxy/directory/other contentless site, I delete it. I am legally bound to attribute the theme to the author but I am in no way bound to keep the sponsor links. Anyways I tend to only use CC licensed themes anyway that allow me to make customizations to the theme.

 

this is interesting topic, basically i feel short link titles and relevant links would help users keep those, if they feel its like to big a advertisement sort text links they might remove them, i came across a guy who downloaded one of theme i launched, he almost changed everything of the theme , modified and made his own, i really have no clue how to handle that, though i messaged him to keep the links as its not gonna harm him in any ways.

 

agree with Trichnosis you should only deal with those whom your trust, or else they might cheat you
but removing the sponsored links after getting payment sucks!!

 

it really depends on what theme u are sponsoring, how many links does it have, there are themes which have even reached like 6k + downloads, so there is a good scope for automated link building process, definitely worth, but i feel most of them who understand would keep the links, as it doesn't harm them.