I would like to discuss with you about the unauthorized use of items on ThemeForest. Today I discovered that an author is using my product in 4 templates being sold. At this time these 4 products have 464 sales. I have already taken the necessary steps and opened a ticket for Envato Staff.
Authors receive some punishment in case of a massive breach of the licenses? We’re not talking about 10, 20 or 100 sales. We’re talking about 464 irregular sales.
I think the Envato should act more harshly against this type of author. Only removing the product is little and does not prevent the author do it again.
This is a revolting situation for the honest authors.
Anyone had similar experience? What do you think should be done against this type of author?
||+991725|An-Themes said-||
For all your items you have the "Extended License" option available, so I don't understand your problem.
Wrong. If he did not release the items under GPL, then even the extended license requires buyers to have both the license and written permission from the item’s author.
If the author has no record of allowing that particular user to incorporate his work into a template, then he has every right to be pissed. Either way, this is an easy matter for Envato’s support as they can easily check it.
I’m not talking about Extended License. I’m talking about authors who purchase a product under Regular License and use it as a part of their templates on Themeforest.
When this situation is discovered, the template is suspended. So, the author changes the template and put it online again.
I suppose nothing more happens with the author, but I think he should be punished for breaking the rules this way. In my case, he handed my product almost 500 times without my permission.
My product is small and has modest sales, but what may be happening at the moment with a popular product like Royal Slider?
Since Envato should be able to check the submitting account holder’s already purchased licenses to ensure that proper licenses were purchases during the review process BEFORE approving them, the fact these review oversights may have really occurred is surprising.
Especially in the case where the theme author has no history of ever having bought even one extended license. The author isn’t the only one that has lost money on this, Envato missed out on their cut too.
The required written proof of permission from an author should have to accompany the theme package when submitted. Running afoul of any of these issues should be a instant reject situation, right?.
…the fact this oversight has occurred really surprises me…
You shouldn’t be surprised because such mistakes can happen, especially considering the fact that Themeforest is growing so fast, a reviewer would never be able to find whether x used y’s product unless that’s being reported (as the OP did).
Depending on the severity I’m quite sure envato will take the necessary steps against that particular author to prevent such things from happening in the future.
I’m not surprised it happened as much as much as surprised that the offending theme author’s account wasn’t checked by the potentially several reviewers (mistakes do happen but multiple times?) at the very least for proof of extended license purchase. If this is a difficult thing to do during the review process, it definitely needs to be made easier.
Finding these problems in the review process can be complicated. But once the problem is detected, the Envato Staff must act energetically. I will be very disappointed if there is no punitive action. Envato does not need that kind of author.
My guess, this thread with be locked with some reply say “we’re on it that shouldn’t have happened, please create a support ticket(or stay with support)”. The item in question will be removed UNTIL its fixed then be back up and nothing will happen to the author/authors in question. Maybe they’ll change how they check for things in the review process
I’ve also had this happen. Envato’s current policy is hands-off. While I understand this (the liability lies with the infringing author), I would love to see a policy in place that if and when such a violation occurs, the infringing author would forfeit a portion of their earnings to reimburse the author who had been infringed upon. Authors would agree to this when selling on the marketplaces to allow enforcement of the policy.
Is very simple to define a policy to combat it, just set punishments such as fines, suspension of sales, etc… The only punishment to the offender is having to change his product. Unbelievable! In the last two days I opened 3 tickets (DMCA) for different authors. Sad!
@marcoarib, so do you mean that author purchased Regular license and using it on Themes/Template download package? or it could be showed only on preview, so make sure.
Not sure about this particular case but it is allowed to show one preview using one Regular License.
@marcoarib, so do you mean that author purchased Regular license and using it on Themes/Template download package? or it could be showed only on preview, so make sure.
Not sure about this particular case but it is allowed to show one preview using one Regular License.
In the worst case (there were 3 cases so far), my product was being sold as part of 4 templates with just one regular license.