Comment Re:GPL people make it clear in their FAQ (Score 1) 571
The question posed was whether or not Themes are inherently derivative of *WordPress*, which they are not. Now, I certainly concede that a Theme could be derivative of another *Theme*. But I would also contend that *almost* all PHP in a template file is non-copyrightable (functions.php is another matter altogether).
As for the line of code you quoted: I don't see anything copyrightable in it. (Trademark might be another matter, if the developer of the Erudite Theme trademarked the Theme name "Erudite".) It's nothing more than a function call, using defined arguments and the defined method of operation for internationalization of text strings.
Most of what is copyrightable in *any* Theme is going to be in the images, CSS, and JS - with perhaps some of the functions defined in functions.php. So, any resemblance between a standard Theme template file (index.php, single.php, archive.php, header.php, footer.php, etc.) is going to consist of non-copyrightable function calls and semantic markup.
(I also concede that any blatant plagiarism - be it from WordPress core or from another Theme - would strengthen (but not guarantee, depending on what was copied) the derivative argument.)