WordPress Theme Author Removal

Hey Guys I'm setting up an amazon site right now with a free theme. The author had a link to his site down in the footer file which I deleted because it wasn't no follow.

Any legal issues or other problems with this later on?

Yes, it is legal. Not ethical, but legal.

Everything you download from the WordPress repository and even the commercial themes are released under the same open-source GPL license.

This license allows software to be freely used, modified, and redistributed by anyone.

sherpasean said:

Hey Guys I'm setting up an amazon site right now with a free theme. The author had a link to his site down in the footer file which I deleted because it wasn't no follow.

Any legal issues or other problems with this later on?

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where did you get that theme?

Most themes place link to author website just as placeholder and even encourage editing it in their documentation.
You got nothing to worry about.

Apriori said:

Yes, it is legal. Not ethical, but legal.

Everything you download from the WordPress repository and even the commercial themes are released under the same open-source GPL license.

This license allows software to be freely used, modified, and redistributed by anyone.

Click to expand...

Ya I would've just made it no follow but I don't have to time to figure out how to do that correctly in PHP so.... meh....

praveen1090 said:

where did you get that theme?

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Wordpress theme shop or whatever you call it

sherpasean said:

Wordpress theme shop or whatever you call it

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we can't help until you share more details. If is a free theme, then we don't call it a shop

Wordpress is released under GNU Public License and it specifically states that you can freely modify the software. Any plugin/theme for WP also has the same license. So, do whatever you like to. Don't worry about it.

Most of the themes/plugins who don't want you to modify their code, will use some form of encryption for making the code harder to read (e.g. rot13), or they might use licensing servers and download specific logic only after a valid cd key is entered.... Still, if you could modify the code you have...there is no law to stop you (no matter what is written on the file).

Apriori said:

Yes, it is legal. Not ethical, but legal.

Click to expand...

If a developer is making a WP theme/plugin, basically he is agreeing to the WP software license terms. So, IMHO.. it's completely ethical for anyone to modify the code.