How to change or remove the footer copyright notice in your theme

With the purchase of Premium WordPress themes by MH Themes, you are able to easily change or remove the copyright notice from the footer of your WordPress theme. You can find an option to enter your own copyright notice in your WordPress dashboard under Appearance => Customize => Theme Options => General Options. Feel free to add your own copyright notice based on your personal requirements.

• How to modify the copyright notice in free WordPress themes
• How to change the footer copyright notice in MH Magazine
• Respect the copyright of WordPress theme developers
• More information about copyright notices in WordPress themes

How to modify the copyright notice in free WordPress themes

If you are not using one of our premium WordPress themes yet, you usually won’t have an option included to change the copyright notice in the footer. This usually also applies to free WordPress themes. In that case you could take an alternative route to display your own copyright notice accordingly by modifying the code of the particular WordPress theme within a custom child theme.

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Usually you will be able to find the code that contains the copyright notice within the file footer.php of your WordPress theme. This applies to most WordPress themes, although some themes might handle the copyright notice differently through a custom PHP function.

However, before you remove the copyright notice of your WordPress theme, we recommend that you check the terms of the theme developer / provider. You should also check the license of the WordPress theme in order to ensure that you are allowed to change or remove the copyright notice in the footer. This will ensure that you know the terms and avoid any potential legal issues.

How to change the footer copyright notice in MH Magazine

If you’re using the premium version of our popular MH Magazine WordPress theme, you can easily change or delete the copyright notice in the footer. You’ll find an option in your WordPress dashboard under Appearance => Customize => Theme Options => General. Feel free to change the footer copyright text as you like. If you haven’t purchased this popular magazine theme yet, you can do this in our shop. After you’ve installed the premium theme, the copyright option will be available.

Respect the copyright of WordPress theme developers

It’s important to understand that while you usually are allowed to modify the code of WordPress themes, it’s still required to respect the copyright of the theme developer in order to avoid legal issues. That means the copyright notices within the original theme files of the WordPress theme (e.g. within style.css or readme.txt) usually need to stay intact. These can’t be removed in order to get rid of the license or copyright information as your WordPress theme still is copyrighted work.

This especially is important if you’re a web developer or agency who creates client websites based on 3rd party WordPress themes or other open-source code. While you may modify code to meet the requirements of your clients, you can’t just remove the copyright notices in WordPress themes or other 3rd party bundled resources and claim this as your own work. It always must be clearly stated that your work is a derivative from the orginal product while keeping the copyright intact.

More information about copyright notices in WordPress themes

If you are using premium WordPress themes by MH Themes and encounter any issues with the copyright notice in the footer, for example in case you don’t know how to remove it or where to find the particular option etc. then please see the following support article we’ve created for more information about changing the footer notice: Solving issues with the copyright notice in the footer.