How to Steal a Wordpress Theme

April 7th, 2008 · by David Bradley >> 16 Comments

“How to steal a wordpress theme” – that was one of the first search phrases of the New Year that brought several readers to the Sig Figs website. I suspect what those readers were after was a way to extract the theme from an attractive site upon which they had alighted during their surfing. But, aside from the moral dimension it is almost a totally redundant thing to do and could get you into serious trouble. After all, if the site you found has used a generic theme from one of the many free repositories of Wordpress themes, then you would be wasting your time trying to find a way to extract it from a given site. On the other hand, if the theme is something proprietary or tailormade then copying it could leave you in breach of copyright laws and so open to litigation.

I’ve written previously on this site about How to Design Your Own Minimalist Wordpress Theme, which basically involves installing a freely available designed theme and then inadvertently, ahem, forgetting to upload the images. It worked well for a previous version of the Sciencebase.com site and got a lot of positive feedback. On a related subject, I’ve also written about customizing your 404 missing page error page, something that is generally not done with any theme you download.

Anyway, to save you the trouble of stealing a Wordpress theme, should you have been feeling a little lightfingered lately, here are a few theme resources (all very easy to find in Google):

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16 responses so far ↓

jobin martin // Apr 11, 2008 at 5:59 pm

I found this article useful,though I didnt reach here searching for ” How to steal a wordpress theme”!
I use free templates since I am not a power blogger now. May opt for a custom template later. There is a software called theme builder which can build an instant theme of your choice.

jobin martin’s last blog post..Free internet- How to browse without paying money
David Bradley // Apr 11, 2008 at 6:15 pm

Good one Jobin! Yes, I’ve heard of that. I tend to start with something free and then adapt it…

…I certainly wouldn’t steal anything.

db
Halim-Belajar SEO // Jul 11, 2008 at 11:15 pm

Does this mean we can’t modified the theme?

Halim-Belajar SEOs last blog post..Create your own free website | Step by step | newbie guide
David Bradley // Aug 20, 2008 at 4:25 pm

Looks like gobbling Gordon Brown, the UK Prime Minister could have a few things to teach us about how to steal a Wordpress theme, at least according to spies at Open Sourcerer. Apparently, Gordy paid something like $200k for the theme, which turns out to be a Creative Commons free-for-all and then removed the licensing credit.
George // Oct 9, 2008 at 11:36 am

so how do i steal content?
David Bradley // Oct 9, 2008 at 2:02 pm

Well…George…that’s the easy part…but illegal! So, please don’t!
KATREyuk // Oct 14, 2008 at 10:52 pm

Pues yo necesito “extraer” un tema y no s? como, pues el tema est? en el blog de un amigo al cual no puede acceder v?a http://FTP...
Ser?a ?til saber c?mo…
Seguir? buscando…
David Bradley // Oct 15, 2008 at 8:47 am

I’m not sure what you’re after Katreyuk, my Spanish isn’t good enough to figure it out, but the fact that you mention FTP leads me to think that you really are hoping to steal someone’s Wordpress theme! That’s not what this post is about. Please reconsider the error of your ways before it’s too late.
Dan // Nov 19, 2008 at 12:23 am

Actually it’s very easy to steal a theme using the Firebug add-on for Firefox. Just don’t use the theme as-is. Use it for inspiration.
Swinny // Nov 26, 2008 at 6:03 am

In need of inspiration. How do you use Firebug to do that?
Juan // Dec 16, 2008 at 3:36 pm

Hi,
I create some WP templates and sell them at a very small price.
Is there a way to protect them from stealing? I mean, If someone bought it, how to keep this person who bought it from giving it away to his friends?
Thanks!
David Bradley // Dec 16, 2008 at 3:54 pm

@Juan Not as far as I know. To be honest, I wouldn’t worry about it, sell your themes to the best of your ability and just feel flattered that someone thinks they’re worth stealing. Seriously though, there probably isn’t anything you can do except include licensing details and ask that users include a link to your site.
casio // May 25, 2009 at 5:56 pm

wha wha wha. seriously? why even title this ‘how to steal’ when all you do is wuss out from paragraph one?
David Bradley // May 26, 2009 at 11:43 am

Casio…such a pointless comment.
anshu // May 28, 2009 at 6:01 pm

haha good. Now you motivated me to create one on my own. Thank you.
David Bradley // May 28, 2009 at 8:07 pm

I certainly didn’t intend to motivate anyone to actually steal anything.

casio, if that’s wussing out, tough.