Extension Theme LICENSE violation by MITIC and SENABICO (Republic of Paraguai)

Marketplace
1

Hello all of you guys

I have been developing Extensions both Themes and Add-ons for concreteCMS for a while now.
I still enjoy now selling them through the Marketplace here and give support when necessary.
All of my Extensions have been published under the Standard ConcreteCMS License.

Now, one of my Themes have been ripped off by Mr. José Gonzales
His Profile: https://gitlab.mitic.gov.py/u/progresivjose

Organisation: Ministerio de Tecnologías de la Información y Comunicación (MITIC)
Translation: Ministry of Information and Communication Technologies (MITIC)

The Theme is used by: Official Republic of Paraguai
Organisation: Secretaría Nacional de Administracion de Bienes Incautados y Comisados
Translation: National Secretariat for the Administration of Seized and Forfeited Assets

Website URL: https://www.senabico.gov.py

Now, I think this is wrong as this clearely violates the LICENSE of my Extensions including my theme that has been ripped off.

Question: What would you suggest me to do in this case?
How would you guys suggest me to proceed on this?

Thanks in advance
Matteo Montanari

2

Which one of your themes is it?

3

Hello Nour

It is actually called: Theme Personal Pro
URL: http://italinux.com/theme-personal-pro

This is where I can see, it’s been edited and renamed:
1. https://gitlab.mitic.gov.py/…/packages/theme_mitic/controller.php

2. https://gitlab.mitic.gov.py/.../packages/theme_mitic/themes/mitic/page_theme.php

NB: In this last file function getThemeDefaultBlockTemplates() still has blocks l5b prefixes

Thanks for your help
Matt

5

I cannot access the Gitlab pages, not sure why.

From what I can understand, that theme is used for all governmental websites for Paraguay.

https://www.paraguay.gov.py/guia-estandar
https://www.mitic.gov.py/

If you have tangible proof that it is indeed your theme (maybe a bit more than just the l5b prefix) I would suggest contacting @EvanCooper directly as he would be the one most able to tell you what your options are.

He might end up telling you to contact directly the MITIC and discuss it with them. Short of an understanding with them, unless you want to get a lawyer, I’m not sure what else can be done. But Evan might have an idea.

6

Hi Matteo,

I’ll discuss your case with the Evan and others on the team but my initial thought is that there is not much that the Concrete CMS team can do. Unfortunately, our DMCA takedown policy does not apply in this case since your theme is purportedly being plagiarized on a site we (PortlandLabs/Concrete CMS) do not control. My initial recommendation is that you send the information outlined in DMCA takedown policy to the MITIC legal department.

7

Hi Matteo,

As Lisa said, there’s not an official role for us here.

That being official, some casual advice:

  • Start from a positive place. Is it possible this theme was purchased legitimately by someone who used it on a big website for the Republic of Paraguay? If it wasn’t purchased at some point, how do they have it?

  • Finding some of your code on their gitlab is disconcerting for sure, but I’m not sure that means they’re trying to distribute it without your consent. As mnakalay pointed out, not all of those gitlab urls are publically accessible for us. I wonder if this is their internal code repository that you’ve found and if parts of it may be more accessible than they should be.

If that’s what’s really going on, to my reading (i am not a lawyer) it feels very much inspirit with the commercial license:

  1. License Grant. Subject to the provisions of this Agreement, Customer is granted a limited, non-transferable, non-exclusive license to use the Software Application for a single website and a single staging or development version. Customer may not offer the System for resale without expressed permission from DEVELOPMENT PARTNER.

  2. Augmenting Code. Customer may modify, supplement, adapt, translate or create derivative works based upon the System. Any modifications are fully owned by customer, and do not effect the license limitations for further use.

In your shoes, what I might do, is reach out to the gitlab user who owns the code you’ve found and point out it looks a lot like your commercial theme and ask if they could please lock down access so the purchased theme wasn’t accidentally distributed.

8

I understand how this might be quite frustrating to discover, no-one likes being ripped off.

But I agree with Franz’s casual advice to start off with a positive mind.

Just think what you could put on a resume
“- developed a Concrete theme that powers the government websites of AN ENTIRE COUNTRY” :sunglasses:

1 Like
9

Hello you all guys

I appreciate your help on this, a positive mind is definitely the best to me.
I totally agree with what Franz says and that’s how I’ll be approaching this situation.

Thanks to you Ryan (Mesuva) you put a smile on my face with your comment.
And actually, yes I might be adding that on my c.v. then later on, yes :slight_smile:

Have a good day you all
Matt