#code theft

In the first case, I personally messaged the user and asked them to remove their theme as I believed that the similarities were undeniable. Admittedly, I did perceive their response to be somewhat rude and they refused to take the theme down. Feeling a bit defeated, I gave up and went to bed, deciding that I’d try to contact them again tomorrow. However, when I visited their blog the next day, they had removed all of their themes and closed their ask. They cited dozens (I believe 40+) hate messages and death threats as the reason. I immediately felt conflicted and continue to as I write this post. Whilst I did not ask / encourage anyone to become involved in this process, I still feel responsible. However, still feeling somewhat bitter about the (seemingly obvious) theft I stayed silent. 

Something similar happened again earlier this week. This time, I decided not to personally message the user. At the time I was very exhausted / emotional (for a number of reasons that were not strictly theme-related) and asked for someone to message them instead. Unbeknownst to me, this user was also accused of stealing from sorrism, a very well-respected theme maker. While I never communicated with them or saw any post saying so, I believe a similar thing happened. They too deleted their entire theme blog. I stayed quiet, again. 

Yesterday, the exact same thing happened. I saw a few messages saying that a certain theme looked like mine. I checked it out, thought that it was quite likely that some code was stolen. This time, I reacted quite differently to the prior occasions. I did not contact the user, nor did I request anyone else do the same. I was also rude in my response. I realised that I was expecting the same thing to happen. It would get taken care of by someone else. Presumably, followers / fans of this blog who really have my best interests at heart. This user also deleted all of their themes and let me know that they had received a significant amount of anon hate. However, despite their earlier mistakes, they were very gracious. 

It led me further into some moral reflection about this whole scenario. I realised I had started to rely on this negative energy. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still struggling with the logistics of it all. Theft is undeniably wrong and can’t go unchecked. In all of these cases, it seemed quite obvious that codes and design ideas had been stolen. That is wrong. That is unfair to the people that spend significant time crafting unique themes for free. To the numerous theme makers who often feel burdened by this hobby. I often think of running acuite as a kind of job / chore at times. To have your original content stolen is not right or fair. Especially in the case of theme makers who then re-release your work and often receive high praise / credit for it. It’s not okay. I understand that. 

But you know what else is not okay? Telling someone to harm themselves because of something as (admittedly) trivial as a tumblr theme. Harassing someone to the point that they delete their blog and close their ask box. I can’t stand idly by and pretend that it’s okay anymore, just because it somewhat serves my interests. It legitimately upsets me more than a theft claim at this point. Knowing that people - whether they had stolen or not - are receiving such venomous hate does not sit well with me, at all. As I said, a lot of these messages are probably coming from people who are simply trying to support me. I appreciate the sentiment, more than you could ever know. But we need to change tactics. We need to resolve this negativity and act in a kinder way. Support me by reporting their theft. Support me by kindly explaining the situation and reasoning with them. Support me in a way that doesn’t negatively impact someone else. I do not condone these negative messages in any way. I’m pleading with you to please never send those kind of messages on my behalf. 

I think the real struggle here is the kind of corporatisation of theme making. As mentioned, it has become a chore / job / business for many people. In the form of monetary compensation for custom themes, it is positive. However, it has also led to a sense of detachment. I am not a corporate entity releasing content on a deadline for demanding customers, but sometimes it does feel that way. At the heart of it, I just thoroughly enjoy coding and interacting with the people who enjoy using my themes. I think we need to take ourselves less seriously though. There is a person behind every blog. I’m just an eighteen year old university student who releases themes when I have time to make them. Those people who were harassed are just regular people with regular lives too. At the end of the day, it is just free themes on tumblr. I’m not trying to trivialise theme making, because it’s something I do take incredibly seriously and have a lot of pride in. But let’s eradicate the pressure. Don’t address theme makers as if theme making is their job and your satisfaction should be their number one priority. Don’t nag theme makers about creating new content. Don’t be rude to theme makers if you don’t personally like their design. Don’t encourage an anon hate filled rage for potential code thieves. Just. Don’t take it all so seriously. 

Those people (and any other code thieves) deserve to face consequences. They should remove their themes. They do not deserve to be harassed with hate messages until they feel as if deleting is their only option. No one deserves that.