Abandoned themes and what can you do?

Envato Customers Web and Code
#1

Hello I bought a theme actually several copies after the author told me the theme would be updated for decades to come.

About one month later the author of Detube abandoned the theme with no explanation, I feel ripped off.

Can I have a programmer update this theme and call it my own or make minor changes and call it my own?

Is the Detube theme now open game?

What is the recourse for theme designer who lie threw their teeth?

I no longer trust Wordpress theme developers, as when this happens there is no just answer if any at all.

#2

No you can’t claim it as yours regardless of having been let down.

Envato is slightly different from many other marketplaces in that they don’t own the items for sale here… It is this approach which means, unlike most other sites, they are able to offer the quantity and quality of items that they do, and what drives a lot of their success.

At the same time this means that there is only so much that they can do to enforce some things or hold authors completely accountable, and as such why they state that all items are purchased ‘as-is’.

In a lot of cases abandoned themes may be due to unforeseen circumstances more than anything. That theme was quite a famous on and there’s been quite a bit of discussion about it being removed.

You can have a dev edit it (I seem to remember several trying previously based on discussions here), and you can use each copy for 1 website as per the regular license as you would have previously but you cannot tweak it to claim ownership or resell it etc.

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#3

Hey @Neil_Lizotte,

One thing we absolutely encourage you to do is to report the theme and the author to us. As large as the quality team is, they can’t be everywhere at once, and so we rely on the community to let us know the rare cases when authors cease their support or abandon their items .

The support team might be able to help you in this situation, so it’s well worth reaching out to them.

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#4

Seem to remember this was removed years ago? Why DeTube Wordpress Theme Taken Down ?

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#5

My Detube was updated by a third party and works for now.
I have not used any copies which I did not pay for.
The update is very simple edit to the style.css I believe.
There should be some sort of contract the developer has to sign for duration of updates and support and the buyer should have rights too.

Those contracts shoulds be updated each year.

I had over 700 videos on my website when they abandoned the theme and that was just for one website.

That represents a lot of time and money?

I never buy a new car on a as is policy, so I will use other programmers and design the themes and know that the time and money I invest is worthwhile.

Very Poor

#6

The update is available for everyone for free, they do not charge.

#7

I understand it’s frustrating (we’ve bought more than most people on the marketplaces and have had many items removed).

At the same time (just our view) when we get a functional theme for $59 that custom built would be thousands of $ then we are willing to take risks. In most cases even when abandoned it’s fixable and still worth hundreds of $ if not more.

To use your analogy of the car - we agree entirely that if we bought a new car (or theme) as full value then we would be well within our rights to expect a lot more. If we bought a car off the roadside or privately from an individual on an autotrader type site and there were problems then we canlt really expect the same outcome.

Enforced support etc. would be great but it would fundamentally alter the entire operation on envato and have a huge impact for authors, envato and buyers alike.

Hopefully your site will hold up for a while

#8

Since the author abandoned the theme, why not hire a WP Developer to make an update for you.