Theme copies/duplicates being approved and published

I’m elite author on ThemeForest, specifically selling WordPress themes and this is my alter-ego.

I have a huge problem with this market being flooded with almost identical items. Themes are released with high frequency and tend to be too much similar to those around them.

The problem really shines when you see that the same author is releasing themes that are 99% identical. Changing the logo and name does not mean it’s a new theme!

Right now, certain author has two themes published in the last two weeks and they are identical. Even theme branding is the same. This is pure nonsense.

Question 1: Why is Envato enabling this market flood with identical items? Where’s the good old ‘point of saturation’ reject?

Question 2: How come that duplicate themes by the very same author can be allowed and published?

5 Likes

You are not first to mention . I mentioned it before but alas !!! Now I am thinking creating duplicate product and submitting from same account . After I am done with one account then I will open a new account and again submit items from my previous account. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr…

1 Like

Haha that’s good one. :slight_smile:

One of them has WooCommerce support added… but that’s quite ridiculous :smiley:

I know which author and themes you’re talking about and it’s really shocking to see that nothing more is being done to prevent stuff like this from happening.

Not only are the themes 99% identical, they’re also a complete copy of our Redwood theme, just with a few added CSS customizations. The author has not even bothered to change class names or anything.

We already reached out to Envato after the first theme was released but without any luck. I guess we’ll try again.

1 Like

Thats why I stopped watching items now a days. Most of the items are copied from others.
There is nothing to be inspired from them. And the quality of themeforest is getting worse.
I suspect envato is creating a difference between themeforest and element. Cause they want to make element better than themeforest. We are planning to quit !!!

1 Like

You better put a DMCA. I am sure this item will be removed then

one word: Quantity :confused:

We had a similar problem some time ago as one of the authors literally copied one of our themes with only a few CSS modifications. However, entire HTML markup and backend was the same.

My personal suggestion is to avoid DMCA as it actually cannot help. We have tried that first, and in such case, author can file a “counter DMCA” which in plain words means “I do not agree with what they said”. If such things happen, Envato doesn’t have any rights to proceed further until we as an original author proceed with official law procedure which I’m afraid is too much to afford and bother for the most of us here.

But what you can actually do is reach out to Envato support under “violation of Envato marketplace rules” and that may eventually lead to a re-review of the suspicious item. In such case, Envato has full rights to put the item down on their discretion.

Hope this helps!

2 Likes

My Education Theme Edugate (which is on 2016 Top 10 WordPress Theme) has been copied (style, content, section…) and sold even in their club (and non exclusive on TF) with another name called [name removed]
I tried to contact Support and they told me to send an DCMA in order to put them down.
I agree with @meks we,authors cannot do this one by one, when you saw such items or we report it, Envato PIC must be the decision maker to make prompt action here.
It’s just like in the real life, when Hermes fake ones are made, the authority will make prompt actions by confiscating & disposing those (not waiting until Hermes sue the creators).
We want to focus to creating items, not to chasing those copycats because we are operating under so-called Envato marketplace policy…

2 Likes