WPSnap Recent Discussion on WLTC
Posted by Snap! on August 9th, 2007
This is in response to comments regarding Hello 2007 on Weblogtoolscollection.com, here’s an excerpt:
indeed. you should probably be making sure to not just repost wpsnap’s posts blindly. the theme author’s page is here: http://hellowiki.com/2007/02/28/wordpress-theme-hello-2007/
adam — 08/2/2007 @ 8:02 am
Adam continues in a subsequent comment
why not link the author’s page, and link wpsnap as a translation, if that’s all it is?
i’m a little leary of wpsnap, as their theme posts don’t make it clear that they’re referring to someone else’s work, and they hotlink downloads on designer’s servers. adam — 08/2/2007 @ 9:30 am
We strive to make the process of finding new and exciting themes easier on wpSnap by adding a “Download” link, a “Demo” link and a direct link to the “Theme URI”. We are little surprised that despite the information provided, some are still leery of what we are trying to accomplish! In short, we are not a theme redistribution site, we simply highlight work that stands out from the crowd!
As for hotlinking, most theme authors prefer hotlinking over redistribution of the themes for two reasons, 1) they have better control of the content users download 2) they can manage their stats better. If authors specify that hotlinking is not desired, we ensure to comply. Also, by allowing downloads directly from the author site, we make sure they are getting the themes from the most legitimate place possible!
Also, we have a disclaimer that clearly tells the users of our site what we do and what we don’t, we encourage all users to please take a moment to read it. Aside from that, we also ensure:
- You have a “Sort by” option to choose the designer
- A direct link to the theme author’s website is provided in every blog post (tell us how many theme distribution sites bother to do that?)
- Since we do not redistribute themes, none of the zip/rar files will have any link the author has not added and definitely no link to www.wpsnap.com.
- We wanted to release a theme by Clazh, but we didn’t only because he doesn’t want his themes hotlinked.
- Our disclaimer clearly says that we will remove themes by designers who do not want their themes listed on our site.
- We try our very best to ensure no copyright violated themes or blatant rip-offs are promoted on our site (the reason why the theme that triggered off this debate Hello 2007 was removed).
“All our themes refer to others’ work,” we’re announcing this loud and clear, in case there is still a doubt.
If that were not enough, “we verify” themes before allowing to upload. Check this theme, we asked the author if he had permission to re-distribute Wolfgang Bartelme’s theme with color variation, and he brought to our attention that others had done the same and the original author was fine with that!
In the name of GPL, many authors use popular themes and make minor mods to gain instant popularity. Now, if all designers made different color versions of Bartelme, tell me how fair would that be? Look at Paul Enderson’s version, it’s the best of all, but he has retained it that way, without trying to re-distribute. Of course, we don’t want to be the moral police, so we can’t dispute what is allowed under GPL, but we want you to know that we do CARE equally for theme users safety as well as theme authors’ rights!
The objective of WPSNAP is to promote all designers based on the quality of their work. We request that users directly contact us if there were any questions or concern.
Tagged: Copyrights infringements, GPL, Hello 2007, Hello Wiki, PimpDaBlog, Plugins, Theme Distribution, WLTC, WordPress Themes, weblogtoolscollection.com, wpsnap
6 Responses to “WPSnap Recent Discussion on WLTC”
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August 9th, 2007 at 7:32 pm
those are all good reasons for hotlinking the download. i’ll certainly reconsider. i’m not out to malign you, nor am i convinced that anything underhanded is going on.
however.
you could have easily emailed me about this, via the email address i have posted on my site. do you see it? no? it’s on my about page. you could dig around further and find my phone number.
that’s just my about page. the note you’re referring to is on a disclaimer page, which is even less likely to be read.
i have guidelines posted. i don’t expect people to read them before posting a comment. hell, even after posting. likely the only time someone will read guidelines or disclaimers is when they have a specific beef with something you’ve done, and have been told that they were warned on such-and-such page.
if you want to be a better and more fair theme viewer, transparency is the name of the game. who’s running this site? i dug around in your about page, but i don’t see anything.
August 9th, 2007 at 8:46 pm
Adam, check the About Page now
The reason why we wrote this post is for everyone’s clarity. If you could have a doubt, so could someone else.
We would also appreciate if you would contact us directly if you have any concerns.
Thanks!
August 9th, 2007 at 9:36 pm
nice to see!
I will in the future
August 9th, 2007 at 9:39 pm
On that note, if we were to upload your theme, can we hotlink?
August 10th, 2007 at 6:23 am
you already are
i suppose so, although i generally don’t update a specific download, i generally increase the version number and change the upload link.
August 10th, 2007 at 8:03 pm
huh I might be late to the scene but I got bartleme permission before I made a mod also I prefer people coming to my site to download the theme