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Did Gordon Brown really steal a WordPress theme?

As if Mr Brown didn’t have enough to deal with at the moment it appears that the shiny new website he paid £100,000 for might have been based on a free WordPress theme.

What’s more the designer of the theme is alleging that Number 10 (or the agency that built the site) has removed the footer attribution and is therefore in breach of copyright.

Of course there are two sides to every story and copyright of WordPress themes is a somewhat grey area so it’s interesting that the agency has taken time to respond to the issue on their blog.

Downing Street has issued a statement but judging by the number of blogs covering the story it isn’t going to die down that easily.

Our supplier is certain that there is no such issue concerning the new website. Again, thanks for feedback and please keep it coming.

BY Patrick Altoft AT 3:40pm ON Wednesday, 20 August 2008

Patrick Altoft is Director of Search at Branded3 and has worked in the SEO industry for over 10 years. With experience across some of the worlds largest brands as well as startup businesses Patrick is well known in the industry and speaks regularly at the major SEO conferences and events. Follow Patrick on Twitter or Google+

Comments

  • http://www.davidairey.com David Airey

    Haha. How amusing.

  • http://www.davidfiske.com David Fiske

    £100,000 for a WordPress theme?!!!!! I’m obviously in the wrong business!

  • http://muiomuio.net Mario Andrade

    There’s no need to go too far to find out that copywriting was breached.

    Just take a look at the theme stylesheet.

  • http://www.atanone.net drt

    Hm, it looks familiar to me.

  • http://www.canofpop.com/blog Andy

    http://antbag.com/networker-theme-for-wordpress/ the theme it was based upon.. you can see it in the style sheet referencing – it makes sense to use word press as it’s a simple to use cms.. but it wouldn’t of done any harm admitting it, Gordon Brown could of even used it as positive spin.. Number Ten Embraces open source publishing platform.. etc etc.

    Alias £100k for it well that was just some web company “having a laugh”.. u will be surprised how many sites use wordpress as a base and remove the copyright.. bad practice but it seems to pay many people bills.

  • Pingback: No.10 meeting with a design agency - fictional transcript | The Musings Of A Newman

  • Pingback: www.number10.gov.uk - The official site of the Prime Minister’s Office

  • http://www.PaulsTravelPictures.com Paul

    I was expecting something more flashy for 100k.

  • http://www..bhtools.co.uk Ben Hunt

    £100,000 of tax payers money for a website! You can get an idea of how this guy has brought the economy to its knees!

  • http://upsidejobs.com Executive Positions

    no joke! i was expecting something much much bigger and much different…

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