UPDATE #2: A variant of the Grid Focus is now available for download. Feel free to visit the project page for details.
UPDATE #1: Comments on this article are closed. The WordPress Chinese Forums have implemented a stricter sense of intellectual property rights and are now informing users that ripping & redistributing personal work is not permitted.
I have always believed that WordPress was one of the most powerful CMS’s available to general internet users. What makes WordPress so great is the lenient learning curve. Even greater is the wealth of information and support provided by the WordPress community. Because WordPress is Open Source, and because there are so many devoted users, beginning and veteran users alike have access to some of the greatest public plugin & theme releases around. The key word here being public - freely available for download by the general public.
Although the selling points of WordPress includes such vast download resources via sites like the WordPress Plugins Directory or Unofficial Theme Viewer, there exists the idea of paid-for or personal / private projects. Paid-for or personal / private projects are not free.
WordPress Chinese Forums users decide for themselves
About a month ago I launched a personal project here on 5thirtyone.com - Grid Focus. Roughly 15 days after the fact, the following URL landed in my inbox which was a complete rip of the entire 5thirtyone.com domain. The owner was slowly making his way through the pages changing English text to Chinese.
5thirtyone.com downloaded and ripped in order to create a localized Chinese version - Click for larger version
I continued to discover a handful of additional Chinese domains including this site which all look to be doing the same thing - creating localized versions of a personal project without permission.
A user speaks out and explains
Thinking that there was little else for me to do - writing emails to hosts garnered no positive results, I was almost ready to say "forget it" - no one was listening and no one was going to stop. Yesterday I received the following comment from an individual who identified himself as a Chinese WP user with the following message:
I am a Chinese WP user. Let me explain something here. The truth is a Chinese web desinger “copy” this theme as a foreign WP user’s asking, and later published it, with the plugins, free, on the most popular Chinese WP forum. www.wordpress.org.cn
Well slap me silly! Yay! Chinese WP "designers" have decided that it was within their rights to rip an entire personal project and redistribute with plugins! It’s like knock-off Fendi or Gucci bags, only now it’s WordPress work.
Just because a website is running WordPress does not mean that everything on the site is open and freely available for the taking. If you’re reading this and you happen to have came here by way of the WordPress Chinese Forums, know that I am not at all pleased and will from here on out consider putting my ip-tables to good use.
Other identified projects
Browsing through the forum, I also noticed that the beautifully designed Kineda has a thread of its own here. I strongly encourage visitors or members of the forum to dissuade users from ripping and distributing this work as well.
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58 Comments
Wow, that really sucks. It would suck even more to have to block an entire country from your blog..Let’s hope these designers show some respect as to not ruin it for everyone else.
Very sorry to hear, I myself being Chinese am disgusted at how they are ripping your designs. Hopefully things get better.
This is crazy: The guy who ripped you off (in the screen cap above) has apologized to Derek. Of course the apology is on his blog - which is running a ripped design of HelloWiki.com
That’s pretty ironic. Not ironic in the Alanis Morrissette sense of the word, but ironic in the actual ironic sense of the word.
Check the downloads which has a rip of Bryan Veloso’s older Live From the 101 design. Seeing that I don’t think HelloWiki is being ripped. I think HelloWiki may be guilty as well. I recognize a few others that I don’t believe belong there either.
It sucks how this happens, whatever people put on the net on their server space is theirs, it’s just the same a stealing something physical.
@Adam C: He’s not running a ripped design from Hello Wiki, it’s avalaible for download on his download page, however it does seem that Hello Wiki is ripping the old LFT101 design. What a world we live in
As a Chinese, I’m really shame of doing things in this way. Ripping others’ design isnt interesting at all,and definitely these evil deeds cannot make himself pround for his ‘creation’,either.
I’m not sure which is worse - that folks decide they are free to directly rip IP as they see fit, or that it’s entirely defended by some piss-weak “we do what we wan’t” logic.
I’m sure if someone from a western country ripped off the entire sayings of Chairman Mao, claiming it as their own, that there would be protests aplenty. But ripping off any design as they see fit? .. step right up.
i saw this picture in your flickr-stream, and im out of words. and this “mistake” thing is more then embarrassing. i also followed the comments on flickr and i dont see a solution against this mistaken rip
that really sucks
Jesus Christ, you spend more time whining about this stuff than anyone else I know. Everyone who is anyone knows that you are the original designer of this theme (and every other theme that you spend time bitching about after someone rips it), so it’s not like it’s taking any business away from you. You’re one of the most noted Wordpress theme developers on the web, and yet all I get in my feed reader every few days are posts that contain nothing but you bitching and moaning about people stealing your work, when it’s actually a huge compliment that they would even want to do that in the first place.
Unsubscribed.
TS, you are more than welcome to unsubscribe from the feed. It’s unfortunate your views have lead you to decide to take that route. Note that your complaints are a gross exaggeration. Of the last 100 published articles on 5thirtyone.com, I count 3 that you can use in your defense that I bitch and moan about content theft. My pages, my topics. If you can’t see the greater problem presented in this current article concerning the practice of WordPress users on the Chinese WP Forums, then you’re blind to the fact that the entire forum is wrong supporting such activity.
Every few days? Stop being so melodramatic. Anyone who considers content theft a "huge compliment" is
obviouslyguilty of thinking no different than those who practice the deed.“Stop being so melodramatic.”
In my opinion, that applies to both of you.
TS: Yes, there has been a lot of “whining” lately. No, not every few days.
Derek: IMO, He’s right.. everyone who reads this blog knows it’s your design. Plus, no one comes here to see the design, or read about people who use it without your permission. We come to read everything else! Don’t get me wrong, you’re awesome, and a great inspiration, but I could really care less about the design of your site, or who else is using it.
That being said, it is your blog, and I hope you don’t give a shit about what I think. Something I like about you is that you write about whatever the hell you want to write about, and you shouldn’t feel restrictions in doing that. So if your steamed, and you want to rant about douche bags stealing your stuff, you should!
My hope was to attract some of the WP China users’ attention to help them see that what they were doing was unacceptable. Unfortunately, the thread [English Translation] to convert the theme continues.
Hey Derek.
This is unbelievable. You are a hard working designer and you are ripped by just about the only kind of people that you can’t touch.
Just remember, at the end of the day, you don’t live in a communist country…
Oh, and TS and Jack: I would like to ask you to leave, but this isn’t my publication; so just STFU.
Thats like saying its a huge compliment if someone breaks into your house and steals all your belongings because you have really nice things.
Of course when you put a lot of hard work into a design you want people to like it and find it inspirational. But for them to completely rip off THE ENTIRE DESIGN, is disrespectful. Not a compliment.
And I don’t have the least bit of a problem if Derek wants to rant. First of all, its his blog. And second of all, (there shouldn’t even have to be a second of all) not everyone in the wp blogging community knows about such acts of thievery. I’m sure the numbers of who would stand by Derek’s side on this are much higher than those who wouldn’t.
Content stealing is pretty common around the blogosphere. You thought stealing design was bad? People don’t see the design atleast 60% of the time when they are following a blog, because of feeds. Imagine having your content ripped off … one post at a time … typos and all included!
I’ve seen that scenario a few times, and have tried to fight it too. At the end of the day, you have to realise that these are rather few and far between. Plus, when you’re as influential as you are (Derek), these incidents are further apart because everyone wants to have a clean reputation on the Internet.
All that said, I agree Jack. You have the right to say whatever you want, simply because this is your blog. Someone who doesn’t like what they see is similarly free to take measures that they think are right.
The only bad thing about there being three posts on content theft is that there have been cases where your content is stolen.
On a personal blog, you get posts of all kinds. Anyone who doesn’t realise this is in the wrong place.
“Oh, and TS and Jack: I would like to ask you to leave, but this isn’t my publication; so just STFU.”
@Taylor
That’s a pretty sweet acronym..you’re real cool. Kind of like an 8th grade girl!
I would never opt to withhold my opinion because some idiot (see: University of Denver) made an announcement for me to do so.
I was not insulting Derek at all, merely sharing an opinion. One that I clearly stated should have no influence whatsoever. I hope Derek would not take offense to a comment like that. If anything, I was encouraging posts of this manner. I made no mention of him doing anything “wrong” and certainly did not bad mouth him.
If you have something to say to me, there are many ways to contact me. Otherwise, don’t bad mouth me via girlish acronyms on someone else’s blog.
@Derek: I’m sorry if it did come off as “bad mouthing” you, or trying to “influence your writing patterns”, it was absolutely not meant in this manner. I was just saying that this is not the content that I subscribe for.. and that you should keep writing this type of content if you want because it’s your house.
@Taylor:
OK Know after I posted that, I’d like to apologize to you. I was very heated when that came out, as I don’t appreciate people bad mouthing me for no reason. But now I’ve calmed down and I realize that the way to come back to that should not be to do it right back to you. So, I’m sorry for saying all that. I just think you should take the time to read the real message behind my initial post, and not be so quick to try and “call me out”.
And, UOD is not a bad University (at all), that was just a cheap-shot. Again, sorry.
Derek,
Sorry to hear that you became a victim of such theft. Hope you get it sorted out soon. Being a victim myself of IP theft; I have found that adopting the Creative Commons License and asking that the author of the offending site at least provide a link or acknowledgment to the source or URL, in most cases helps. Hopefully the blogger at that site will honor that.
For those wankers complaining about Derek being melodramatic, this is his blog and he has every right to do as he wants. If you are in disagreement, simply don’t read it, move on.
Keep up the great work Derek and look forward to your next theme.
Best of Luck.
I vaguely remember a chinese saying, something like only the best are getting copied. So feel happy to belong to the best
I think getting ripped is less like a compliment, more like a double-edged sword. Your design only gets ripped if it’s good, so that is a compliment of sorts, but it gets ripped, which is a bad thing. Personally, the thing that draws me the most to this web site is the design, and, here’s the weird part…
I actually like it when Derek talks about his site design, or getting ripped, or redesigning, etc.
I think these posts are more ‘intimate’ than talking about some big piece of software that I’ll probably never use, or some service that will be gone in less than a year.
Judging by these comments, I would say that we all read this blog for a myriad of reasons.
So Derek, keep doing what you’re doing. You’re doing it right.
I agree with TS and Jack.
Derek, your work speaks for itself, and everyone that needs to know that this is your design, knows it’s your design. No more really needs to be said.
What content did any of these people really “steal” besides the images that you used? Which probably aren’t even your originally.
Leave it at that, move on.
Content = design, about snippets, a photograph of me, anything that does not belong to anyone else but me (yes, the releases went beyond what is displayed on the landing). Hotlinking - using any files off of my servers that I created to serve up would be considered my content (unless otherwise noted in the stylesheet). If it was a leave it at that and move on type of scenario, you probably shouldn’t have commented. But since your definition of "content" is inaccurate, I had to add more.
I made a mistake in that the real story here should be the fact that the WP China Forums - which have no affiliation with WordPress.org - are reusing images and branding of "WordPress" to create a legitimate looking WordPress resources website. Matt himself has admitted to having attempted to make contact in order to stop the use of official images considering the type of activity that is happening on those boards.
The reality is that the site admins, as well as members of those boards, obviously show no care for or about what others outside of their world think. Focus should shift to Bluehost which serves the pages for the forum (based in the US).
Hey,Taylor, dont get this involved with communists, you go too far over this issue.
Derek, I’ve registered an account in WP China Forums,posted an reply on that thread, telling ‘em to stop ripping.
Dang Derek, Sorry to hear about the MULTIPLE rips! I went over to the forums and threw the page through Google’s Translator (it’s not perfect but I get the general idea) and the sad thing about it is it’s actually advertised as a 5thirtyone.com theme… Yet people don’t stop to think about if it was open for others why wouldn’t you offer it on the site. Oh well, I hope Bluehost steps up and realizes what’s going on and takes some sort of action!
@ Kory - I’m sure that many people realise it isn’t an official 5thirtyone them but don’t care.
They are probably happy to have a nice layout where they can then pop in and out there own graphics and content and try to ‘make it there own’. Oh the humanity!
The following is the original post:
I am a Chinese WP user. Let me explain something here.
The truth is a Chinese web desinger “copy” this theme as a foreign WP user’s asking, and later published it, with the plugins, free, on the most popular Chinese WP forum.
http://www.wordpress.org.cn
Many WP beginners(yes, beginners and teenagers), download it and install it as his/her first WP theme for its great design. 5thiryone’s design was very famous on the forum for the old themes, but now, it is much more famous than before for this theme.
Sorry to hear that. But, please, call them “SOME of the wordpress China users”, for he does not represents all the Chinese users .
I myself is a Chinese WP user. I am sorry to hear about that.
Some Chinese users, I have to admit, don’t have a strong sense of copyright. They just appreciate your wonderful theme and take it away without your permission.
The forum you mentioned, I think, is not “official” enough. I’ve never visited that forum before. For some official sites, they may attach much more importance to the copyright rather than this one which lacks of strict regulations.
Most users in that forum are not having a good understanding of English, I think. So they dont know that theme was from your projects and they focus on the theme itself.
I noticed just now that someone has reminded the one who published the “creation” to contact you and explain it clear. Hopefully, there will be an official apology and he should stop doing that at once.
If you want some help to contact that guy, I’d like to provide kind of “translation”, hopefully I could make myself clear.
David
Being a Chinese I could only say sorry about this, I tried to stop them, but failed.
Well what I wanna say is that don’t see all Chinese as that one.
Sorry to hear that:(
but, it’s a huge amount of wordpress users in China and not all of them do wrong things like that, not saying what a good guy i am, somebody did something wrong, but it not means “everybody” did.
I have posted in that thread to ask them stop from doing such things, you should know many of Chinese wp users are blaming them, too.
I’m also the menber of Chinese WP forum,and also have seen this theme,but I know it is not free,so I do not use it on my blog.I respect the copyright.
Hie, I felt sorry about this.
I am a Chinese myself, but from Malaysia.
As you know, piracy and cut and paste seem like normal in China.
Almost everything is being copied there.
Wonder what the piracy organization in there working or not?
Hi buddy, I wonder if you have your own brain.
You got it.
Being a Chinese myself, I FEEL SHAME!
At least he/she admits “I’m a sticky fingered uncreative bastard”……
Derek -
Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I’ve noticed this isn’t the only Chinese forum who has ripped designs for release (www.shareko.com is another) Unfortunately, I can’t write/read Chinese (only speak), so if anyone here can voice their opinion for us in their forum… We’d really appreciate it. Hopefully, we can teach them that this is wrong, and find other ways they can learn to build their own templates.
Terry, unfortunate to see your work used without permission. I would continue to push giving the host pressure but seeing as though shareko is hosted in China leaves very little as far as options are concerned. I Exchanged emails with Bluehost again today. Looking for some type of support from that perspective as hosting a forum which promotes the re-creation of various personal projects, including Kineda.com, seems like something any host would disagree to do.
…………………..:(
To contact the one who charge the forum directyly seems a better way.
I’d like to offer some help. If you would like to send me a email and make clear what your opions are, and I will try to contact the forum administrator through email.
My Email: snoopylion[at]gmail.com
Email sent. Thanks David.
Sorry to hear that.
I myself is using a localized theme - durable, but I got the author’s permision.
It’s time for you to say NO to theft, and it’s time for some people to say sorry and stop stealing.
Actually, many people reconsider this problem now. I believe everything will be better. Just don’t be too angry.
Being a Chinese .I‘m so sorry to hear that.
Derek and everyone,
Thanks David and all the people tell me the “copyright” things about the site of wordpress.org.cn today, I make this site for a years long,in order to make a place to let people who may like use WordPress chinese version to learn and I’m happy to let more people to pleasure use the Opensource software like WordPress, but I’m not attention more about the posts which have the “copyright” question. If these things have some hurt to you, I will say sorry.
I have seen the improvment in our forums, we close some threads as we can do just like momoko2k have done,hope more people help us.
It’s not the wrong of Chinese, it’s my mistake.
(my english is poor, sorry me.)
xiGang
Thank you xiGang. Comments on this article are now closed.
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