There is nothing new under the sun. In blogging, if you can take other people’s blog posts, add your own spin, then you can start a new post to continue the conversation. If you have entirely new things to write about, start everything anew. Just you can’t copy the post verbatim and claim that to be yours. But the thing is different when it comes to blog templates…

Today the blogosphere is talking about Vince Chan, an amateur Canadian blogger who steal Darren Rowse’s ProBlogger.net template. The theft of blog templates has occured several times but this time the situation is a bit different and unique.

Chan started with what could be identified instantly as ProBlogger, except that he has tweaked the header and change the color of the logo to blue. If you are a regular reader of ProBlogger, you will know that and probably get confuse a bit before realizing the situation.

His motivation?

I chose the design with the naivity that Darren would one day approach me and say that he’d give me his blessing to work and push the envelope to promote Amateurs in Blogging - a collaboration of sorts.

Instead of having the pro approaching you, why don’t you find ways to get their attention?

The fact is not all templates are created the same. In WordPress, there are a handful of templates to choose from and you can download more from the site. Most of them share the GPL license, which allows bloggers to copy, modify and use it freely.

But Rowse’s template is unique, designed on his own expense, and presumably copyrighted. Just these facts alone are enough to discourage plagiarism of the layout of the blog. You still can learn from the layout; on how to place AdSense effectively, etc. but you can’t copy any code.

If you are here for the long haul and want to brand yourself, I suggest that even you can’t start with a newly designed template, at least don’t use any standar template without modifying it to suit your brand. The standard template is just that, too generic. That can cause damage to your brand rather than improving it.

As many people encouraged Chan to change his blog, he finally did it. I advertently leaved out a link to his blog.

Link: ProBlogger.