transfer THEME COLUMINST from wordpress.com to org

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  kothea · Member · Jul 11, 2017 at 4:46 pm

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  I use the free COLUMNIST theme on wordpress.com

  I am migrating to .org.

  V2 of the theme seems to be a paid for version. Yet none of the author links to the purchsing site seem to work at http://thecolumnist.info/ .
  I AM QUITE HAPPY TO PAY FOR THE THEME

  Q: Can I copy/backup the theme from wordpress.com and somehow use that? I thought that might be possible with free themes (which it is on .com)

  The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)

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  kothea · Member · Jul 11, 2017 at 4:47 pm

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  obviosuly i ahve tried to contact the author through twitter/fb/email but no response and the twitter account has been inactive for many months.

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  staartmees · Member · Jul 11, 2017 at 4:50 pm

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  https://wordpress.org/themes/the-columnist/

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  timethief · Member · Jul 11, 2017 at 4:53 pm

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  * Themes licensed for use and adapted to run on wordpress.COM software are not transferable. They cannot be exported and imported.

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  timethief · Member · Jul 11, 2017 at 4:55 pm

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  @staartmees
  Thanks so much for providing the wordpress.org theme version link above.

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  kothea · Member · Jul 11, 2017 at 4:59 pm

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  thank you for the response but that is not the correct V2 of Columnist by Ben Martineau.
  http://benmartineau.com/the-columnist

  there is also another one with the same/similar name that is also incorrect.

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  kokkieh · Staff · Jul 12, 2017 at 8:06 am

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  Hi there,

  @kothea, regardless of whether or not the theme @startmees linked to is the theme you’re looking for, themes bought from WordPress.com have a license that only allows them to be used on a single WordPress.com site at a time. They cannot be downloaded and installed on a self-hosted site.

  If you want to use the same theme on a self-hosted site, you need to purchase the self-hosted version of the theme directly from the theme developer.

  If the purchasing links on the theme author’s site don’t work, you’ll need to contact them about it, as we don’t control what happens on sites outside of WordPress.com.

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  kothea2 · Member · Jul 18, 2017 at 9:26 am

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  RESOLUTION:

  Many of the above comments are not strictly correct.
  I have been in contact with the original theme author BEN MARTINEAU

  ***Ben no longer works on the theme and does not sell it***

  wordpress.com’s tech people did tinker with and change the last version he produced.

  the tinkered-with version is the version on wordpress.com

  the wordpress.org version is NOTABLY different. (IMHO not as good)

  there are 3 wordpress.org themese called COLUMNIST but 2 of them are nothing like Ben’s theme and the third of those themes is version 1 of Ben’s theme

  However Ben sent me his last v3 of the columnist them to use FOC in zip format. this seems to work.

  if you want to contact me i can give you his details and he might be kind enough to do the same for you.

  so to migrate from .com to .org AND USE THE COLUMNIST theme you MUST get the version directly from BEN Martineau that is currently NOT FOR GENERAL SALE.

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  kothea2 · Member · Jul 18, 2017 at 9:27 am

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  to be even more clear you need v2 to properly migrate to wordpress.org AND THAT IS NOT FOR SALE ANYWHERE

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  kokkieh · Staff · Jul 18, 2017 at 10:58 am

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  Thanks for updating with that information. Hopefully other users wanting to use the theme on a self-hosted site will find the useful.

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  the5krunner1 · Member · Jul 18, 2017 at 11:01 am

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  yes but they should be aware that even if Ben sends them his latest version it is similar but different to the wordpress.com version.

  I can’t make them look the same.