Xiaomi have released clear documentation of the MIUI Theme Policy coming into effect as of 1st May 2013 :
Thank you MIUI-ers for all your comments and feedback. MIUI team had an in-depth discussion on some of the pertinent issues that you guys have brought up. Hopefully the below will clarify some of the details on the new policy and provide users more insight in what our MIUI theme team has in mind for the international community:
1. Sharing your themes - Free to share themes on forums, XDA and other websites
There are some misconceptions here in that MIUI is only allowing users to share their theme designs via the MIUI Theme app. This is not true.
Designers are free to continue to share their themes on the forums or websites they choose as long as they upload their designs to designer.xiaomi.com. Again, we are initializing this procedure to protect designer’s design and copyright issues.
2. Previewing themes
Designers are allowed to preview their themes without uploading and posting it publicly. To preview, designers must setup an account in designer.xiaomi.com and then can preview their themes privately.
3. Tweaking or slightly modifying themes for personal use
Tweaking or slight modifications to existing themes for personal use (e.g. changing icons etc.) are also allowed as long as you registrar a designer account at designer.xiaomi.com. You can act as a designer and tweak as you please without uploading to the public.
However, if you want to share it to other users, designers will then need to upload the theme to the public. This is done so again to protect designer’s copyright. It is to ensure that the copyrights of existing themes are not abused. For example, if the tweaked theme was unintentionally released to the public (I pass it to a friend because he liked the theme and he pass its on etc), it would discredit the original designer.
4. Theme Editor – an alternative tool AND multilingual version?
Theme Editor acts as an alternative tool to what other tools designers are using. Theme Editor is not mandatory. It is a tool to further enhance the designer as it simplifies steps and procedures and feed themes to your phone in a much simpler method.
Designers can still use the tools they currently are using just that when you share the completed them with others, it will need to be uploaded to designer.xiaomi.com first.
5. Setting up account in designer.xiaomi.com – Binding mobile no. and amending registration form (i.e names etc.)
MIUI team is working towards removing the binding mobile number. MIUI hopes to have this fixed this week so that it can simplify the registration process for the designers.
We are also amending some of the registration fill in as well. For example, more character inputs for those with longer names.
6. Slow loading speed when using MIUI theme apps to browse for themes and downloading
Realize overseas users using MIUI theme apps to browse for themes and download may be effected by slower loading speeds. There has been a partial fix on this and loading themes now should be quicker this week! Let us know if your experience is faster than it was previously. Thanks.
In the long term, our Xiaomi team as a whole is working on this matter. As we are expanding to HK and Taiwan, we are also working on overseas infrastructure and support to speed up loading time for Themes and other MIUI features like OTA updates etc.
7. UI Updates
In the future MIUI Theme team is working towards creating a theme app UI that will have more English features to further support our international users.
Thanks again to all our user feedback and please bear with as we improve step-by-step towards a more international theme app!
Thank you MIUI-ers for all your comments and feedback. MIUI team had an in-depth discussion on some of the pertinent issues that you guys have brought up. Hopefully the below will clarify some of the details on the new policy and provide users more insight in what our MIUI theme team has in mind for the international community:
1. Sharing your themes - Free to share themes on forums, XDA and other websites
There are some misconceptions here in that MIUI is only allowing users to share their theme designs via the MIUI Theme app. This is not true.
Designers are free to continue to share their themes on the forums or websites they choose as long as they upload their designs to designer.xiaomi.com. Again, we are initializing this procedure to protect designer’s design and copyright issues.
2. Previewing themes
Designers are allowed to preview their themes without uploading and posting it publicly. To preview, designers must setup an account in designer.xiaomi.com and then can preview their themes privately.
3. Tweaking or slightly modifying themes for personal use
Tweaking or slight modifications to existing themes for personal use (e.g. changing icons etc.) are also allowed as long as you registrar a designer account at designer.xiaomi.com. You can act as a designer and tweak as you please without uploading to the public.
However, if you want to share it to other users, designers will then need to upload the theme to the public. This is done so again to protect designer’s copyright. It is to ensure that the copyrights of existing themes are not abused. For example, if the tweaked theme was unintentionally released to the public (I pass it to a friend because he liked the theme and he pass its on etc), it would discredit the original designer.
4. Theme Editor – an alternative tool AND multilingual version?
Theme Editor acts as an alternative tool to what other tools designers are using. Theme Editor is not mandatory. It is a tool to further enhance the designer as it simplifies steps and procedures and feed themes to your phone in a much simpler method.
Designers can still use the tools they currently are using just that when you share the completed them with others, it will need to be uploaded to designer.xiaomi.com first.
5. Setting up account in designer.xiaomi.com – Binding mobile no. and amending registration form (i.e names etc.)
MIUI team is working towards removing the binding mobile number. MIUI hopes to have this fixed this week so that it can simplify the registration process for the designers.
We are also amending some of the registration fill in as well. For example, more character inputs for those with longer names.
6. Slow loading speed when using MIUI theme apps to browse for themes and downloading
Realize overseas users using MIUI theme apps to browse for themes and download may be effected by slower loading speeds. There has been a partial fix on this and loading themes now should be quicker this week! Let us know if your experience is faster than it was previously. Thanks.
In the long term, our Xiaomi team as a whole is working on this matter. As we are expanding to HK and Taiwan, we are also working on overseas infrastructure and support to speed up loading time for Themes and other MIUI features like OTA updates etc.
7. UI Updates
In the future MIUI Theme team is working towards creating a theme app UI that will have more English features to further support our international users.
Thanks again to all our user feedback and please bear with as we improve step-by-step towards a more international theme app!
