I realise there are lots of posts about licence but I couldn’t get a clear answer. A wordpress theme is a useful thing, but it is still quite a job to get to the end website done. Some time ago I bought a theme and finally I am getting around to doing something with it, but am unsure if it is OK to do what I expected to. ie figure out how to use it and set it up to suit what I need, then put that as the theme for two websites I own. As best I can tell from the licence terms, this is me developing one end product and distributing it to myself for free. What I will do is sort out the blogs, menus, pictures etc on one website then copy the lot to the other website and just change text and pics to suit. I have no intention / desire to do any others, just these two which are my pet projects.
Note both websites have multiple domains pointing to them so technically there are already going to be multiple paths to the same basic work in its two forms.
Please clarify if this is this acceptable use per the Regular Licence terms? Thank you.
I should add these are just general viewing websites to give info and allow people to chat about the content, there is no monetisation involved.
No you will need two licenses.
In it’s simplest form the rules are: 1 purchase/license = 1 website.
If it was simple I wouldn’t have asked. The relevant term from the GL is as follows: “You are licensed to use the Item to create one single End Product for yourself or for one client (a “single application”), and the End Product can be distributed for Free.”
The theme is a way to make an end product, being a website that works with the banners, pics, text / whatever distributed in ways that work for me. Once that is done it seems, to me, that I have bought the thing and done the work so I should be able to use it - ie distribute it to myself for free. If I want to buy a different theme then that is what I do, but I really don’t like the idea of having to pay the full fee again to use what is basically a template I should be able to use as many times as I like to make my own content, but twice will be fine.
I am just wondering where “fair use” and “reasonable recompense” when it comes to personal use purchases. It would appear most theme buyers do so in order to onsell the theme plus their customisation services which, without exception, are many times the cost of the theme. Fair enough, every new install is a new licence, even if it is similar to a previous implementation. If you are making money out of it you should share that around. But when you just want to copy the thing for personal use I don’t see how that is the same. It is a premium theme ($A85) so not a small thing to just buy another one.
Could anybody please provide a more nuanced answer as it would be well worth having at least a decent explanation of how the “distribute for free” concept works for themes. And maybe the GL needs an update as, if the “simple” answer is how it is intended to be, as soon as one points another domain at the same website, or landing page within it, it could be a technical breach!
Someone else may be able to shed more light but with all due respect using it twice or a hundred times is sill in breach of the license and terms that all buyers (speaking as someone who has bought more than most) agreed to.
Points 2 and 3 and the beginning of the license docs seem quite clear:
I actually agree that it would be good to have more detail, but at the same time in a space with so many variations it makes more sense to be clear and simple, and not confuse matters further around fair use, commercial .v. personal etc.
If in doubt you can always contact support
Funnily enough, the first thing I did is try to contact support but in three different browsers couldn’t get the Captcha to display so gave up. They have a message saying high volume has blown out their 24-48hr response rates to a week. Cynically, I suspected “accidentally” wrecking the Captcha helped them deal with whatever the issues were there…!
For me, this question has now become irrelevant. I tried to convert the second site to the same theme and set-up as the first and realised that the similarities may be there but the needs are quite different, so I won’t be using the same theme for two sites regardless!
I appreciate the spirit of Charlie’s further comment but honestly the meaning of points 2 & 3 is a long way from clear to me. Take that “final website customised with your content” and distribute it for free. What happens next? Well obviously the recipient receives the website as it is and immediately uses it for its intended purpose, ie adds or deletes content, which is all I was proposing to do. I am not saying what is right or wrong here, just that we are a long way from clarity and maybe there is a sense of fair play missing in expected actions / outcomes from the use of the products.
Whilst I contend it is still important to do a much better job of contemplating all the ways buyers might use their purchases, I no longer have to worry about feeling guilty if I may not be in an OK place. Which is all I wanted to sort out in the first place. Most of course may be ok to just cheat, which I see lots of discussion around and absolutely an area for auto-detection, but for those that just want to buy a thing and use it for themselves a couple of times, that would seem to be a fair interpretation of what info is there now, to me!