License and copyright links.

I know there are few posts about licenses and copyrights on this forum, but I thought this needed to be addressed in a topic of its own.



I bought the CS cart and with it I have the option to remove the copyright link from my site, however after reading few posts about this subject I discovered that if we use any of the third party scripts/addons/templates or skins then we are not allowed to remove the third party's links.



I am currently using a skin template called (Package) provided by Templateking.com which came free with the cart, which I thought it was made/designed by CS cart and the Templateking FAQ state, if you purchase a template from them you can remove the linkback but if you use one of their free ones then you can't.



I looked into this in more details and found that the template I am using had other copyrights in the script,



copyright = "TemplateKingdom.com

@copyright 2006-2008 Live Web Institute. All Rights Reserved.

https://www.cs-cart.com

Copyright 2011, AUTHORS.txt (About jQuery UI | jQuery UI)



Just to name few.



So my question is who do we answer to in case of a lawsuit or a copyright infringement.

CS-cart comes with a copyright.txt file in its main directory; it spells out all you need. Also under each template's directory that has a copyright (e.g. var\skins_repository\projection) is a license.txt file. It is up to the store owner to uphold all cs-cart and third party copyrights.





Example of template copyright:



This templates are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License. See http://www.templateworld.com/free_templates.html for more details.



Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported — CC BY 3.0

All copyrights should have been clearly stated on the CS cart website prior to purchasing.



Its like buying a car and I must keep a sticker on the windshield of the car advertising the dealer's name, and somewhere in very small print on one of the documents stating that if I remove the dealer's sticker I get sued.



I didn't download the template from the authors website, it came with the cart therefor CS Cart are responsible not me.

Take a look at License Agreement on the Use of CS-Cart


[quote]

I didn't download the template from the authors website, it came with the cart therefor CS Cart are responsible not me.

[/quote]



I am positive your own legal advice is invalid.

LOL… That wasn't a legal advice…



If that's the case then what about all other copyrights belongs to other authors that imbedded within the code, do I have to search the entire code to see what I can and can't change/remove.

[quote name=‘Topduck’ timestamp=‘1322261417’ post=‘126743’]

LOL… That wasn’t a legal advice…



If that’s the case then what about all other copyrights belongs to other authors that imbedded within the code, do I have to search the entire code to see what I can and can’t change/remove.

[/quote]





My rule of thumb is quite simple. Don’t sell what is not yours and if you purchase something you can change whatever you want (except items with a trademark simple) and do not remove other people’s copyright notices.



Of course this is not legal advice either :)