North Korea spent about $850 million on its failed April 13 satellite launch — it looks like they freed up that cash by skimping on their official national website.

Michael DiTanna, an undergraduate student at Fordham University, was researching North Korean media outlets when he made an interesting discovery tucked away in the source code of the country's official website. What did he find? The site was based on a $15 "Blender" web template from IgniteThemes.

DiTanna told Wired's Danger Room blog, which was the first outlet to report the story. Later, Fox News tracked down the designer of the site, a California-based web designer named Robert Westmore.

Westmore told Mashable that Fox's early-morning call was when he first learned about North Korea's use of his template.

"I received a call from a member of the Fox News organization on Wednesday morning and they told me about it," says Westmore. "I was just starting my day and hadn't logged into my computer yet, otherwise I would have found out on the Themeforest.net forum where I sell my templates."

Despite the American government's cool relations with Communist North Korea — colder now after the country's ill-fated rocket launch attempt, which the U.S. warned would harm relations between the two nations — Westmore says he's fine with their government using his design. After all, they did fork over the $15 that Westmore charges customers for his hard work.

"I was shocked at first, but after thinking about it I honestly don't have any problem with them using my template," he says. "As long as the template is purchased legitimately individuals or organizations can do whatever they want with the file, I'm not here to judge."

Either way, the new design is much nicer than the old, which looked a bit like a 1990s-era GeoCities page.

At the time of writing, North Korea's official website is loading unusually slowly — either they're getting bombarded with viewers because of this story, or they're using a low-budget hosting service, too.

UPDATE: Tad Farrell, a scholar of North Korean affairs, says the website using the template is not the official website of North Korea.

Thumbnail image courtesy of iStockphoto, CGinspiration