The Real Problem with Sponsored WordPress Themes

There’s been a lot of discussion lately in the WordPressosphere about sponsored text links appearing in WordPress themes available for free download, both for and against. My stance is a cautious “pro” position.

There is an unintended consequence to sponsored WordPress themes that will come up sooner or later for somebody, and when it does, theme sponsors will seriously rethink whether or not they will want to continue sponsoring WordPress themes, and they may even request that their links be pulled from existing themes.

Let me relate my own experiences with this problem. I don’t have any sponsored links in the themes I design and release for free, but this problem isn’t the result of sponsored links. I place a credit backlink in the footer of the themes I release for free, which, in all ways except that it wasn’t paid for, is exactly like a paid text link.

On several occasions, I have received emails from people who were angry or upset that pictures of them or their intellectual property had been posted to my blog without their consent. Of course, nothing of the sort happened. I politely replied to them and told them that it wasn’t my blog, it was only my design that someone had applied to their blog. I explained that anybody could (and hundreds of people did) download my free themes and that I had no control or say in what they published on their blogs. All these people knew was that there was a link at the bottom that pointed back to me here. They mistook designed by as written by. They thought that name—my name—was the sole author of everything on that blog. Any of you WordPress theme designers reading this have probably experienced something similar.

You see where I’m going with this? Wait, it gets better (well, worse, actually).

One day I received an email from someone asking me if I was aware that my Sapphire WordPress theme was being used by a hate group’s blog. I looked at the site and it was terrible stuff. The person who wrote to me about this felt very strongly that I should do something about it, somehow find a way to get them to stop using my theme for their blog. I wrote back and explained that I don’t have any control over what people decide to do with their blogs. I had released something onto the web that could be used by anybody, for good or for evil, whether I approved of it or not. If terrorists use Microsoft software on their computers, does that make Microsoft complicit in terrorism? There are a great many people out there who don’t understand that the person who designed a site’s appearance isn’t necessarily the person who is writing and posting the content.

Imagine you’re surfing the web and stumble across a hate blog (pick whatever you would find most offensive) or even adult material, and at the bottom, it says: sponsored by XYZ company! In many people’s minds, sponsorship equals endorsement. Sponsorship equates to approval and partnership. So I’m sure we can expect to see a couple sponsors get burned by their sponsorship of WordPress themes. Once the link is out there, you can’t take it back. I suppose you could issue cease & desist orders, but once you have to start doing that, I think you have now lost any advantages you though you were gaining by sponsoring WordPress themes.

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