Beautyinmd,
For myself, in my post I said that I only look for themes that have only the designer's link. I just won't use themes that have links other than the designer's link.
I'm NOT one to get rid of the links and then still use the themes. That's wrong. But I just won't use it at all. Plenty out there with just the designer's link on it.
I see many themes with 3 or 4 different "sponsored" links on them. ALOT of them to borderline legal sites. I'm certainly not gonna risk my reputation because someone clicks on one of those sponsored links and it goes to some pyramid "get rich" scheme. It makes me look like I support that site when I actually don't. Not good business.
The only reason I use free themes sometimes is that it takes time to get one designed and I need to put up niche sites quickly. So I look for one's that fit MY criteria. But I generally have some templated themes designed for me so I don't need to use the free ones as much anymore.
It's nothng personal against theme designers like yourself. You're doing a great service for others.
It's a double-edged sword.
Hope I made some sense!
P.S. There's an interesting thread at Tony Blake's forum regarding free WP themes and plugins under the GPL license. The thread is at:
GPL Question