snider

If you decide to move off wordpress.com and onto self-hosted. you can contact the theme vendor and ask for a download and show them your wp.com info where you had already purchased the theme.

I don’t know about premium themes in general, but this is not the case for WooTheme, a major theme vendor. One of their support staff told me the versions of the same theme (e.g., Freshnews) on WordPress.com and a self-hosted website were viewed as two separate products.

The premium theme on wordpress.com have some items removed because the .com platform itself requires premium theme vendors to remove some of those extra options, and sometimes rearrange menus. This part is not the vendor’s choice. WordPress.com has always asserted that there is less functionality and more restrictions on their platform when you choose to host your blog with them.

I didn’t see this disclosure on the WordPress.com page for selling themes to consumers, although I do not doubt it can be found elsewhere.