If you happened to miss out on the controversy involving Thingiverse last week, here’s a quick recap of what went down. One Thingiverse user, named loubie, had noticed that her design had been taken straight from Thingiverse and was being sold in 3D printed form on eBay by a an account vaguely named just3Dprint. Upset that there was no compensation, let alone any credit or recognition for her design, loubie got the attention of the Maker community by telling her story on Thingiverse through her Sad Face model. Since then, other Thingiverse users have noticed that their designs are also being sold by just3Dprint on eBay, and the controversy has even garnered a supportive response from 3D printing law expert Michael Weinberg.
Now, likely due to rising complaints within their Maker community, MakerBot has just released a statement addressing the controversy, and seems to be (wisely) backing up loubie and the rest of their Thingiverse users. In the statement, MakerBot claimed that their users are able to select the license they wish to protect their design, and this includes an option for a Creative Commons (CC) license. Therefore, assuming that at least a few of the 2,000 3D printed models being listed for sale by the eBay account have a CC license attached to them, just3Dprint is clearly in violation of the Thingiverse terms of use.
But the issue here seems to be the fact that Thingiverse doesn’t own the models upload by their users, so what can they really do to stop third party platforms such as just3Dprint from violating their terms? This is a part of their recently released statement that muddles the answer to this question up a bit:
MakerBot is committed to protecting the rights of its community members. In the case of the eBay seller mentioned above, our legal team is preparing communication to the appropriate parties. Since MakerBot does not own the content that our users upload to Thingiverse, we also encourage community members who recognize third party conduct that violates their CC licenses to contact the platforms that are harboring such behavior.
So although their legal team is reportedly working on communications with the eBay seller, they are clearly encouraging their users to reach out to just3Dprint themselves. The problem with that, which was made apparent by their response to loubie, is that just3Dprint doesn’t seem to think they’re in the wrong here. “When you uploaded your items onto Thingiverse for mass distribution, you lost all rights to them whatsoever,” just3Dprint said in response to loubie. “They entered what is known in the legal world as “public domain”…No court in the USA has yet ruled a CAD model an original work or art. Therefore, you have no right to exclude others from utilizing the CAD models you have uploaded.”
By telling their users that they support them, but that they should try and deal with it themselves or through a lawyer (which I assume most Thingiverse users can’t really afford), it’s unclear exactly how MakerBot plans to alleviate the situation. However, some other 3D marketplaces, such as Cults, are taking this controversy as an opportunity to try and show why their services may be a safer alternative for 3D models. According to the Cults team, every 3D design on their platform is protected with a CC license as soon as it is uploaded. Here’s a part of the Cults team’s statement addressing the Sad Face controversy:
“Contrary to Thingiverse, on Cults you have to register to be able to download a creation. And when creating your account, you have to fully accept our Terms and Conditions, where it is strictly specified that, unless you decide to do otherwise, no one can use your work for a commercial purpose.”
It seems that, if this issue expands or gains anymore traction in the maker community, MakerBot may have to rethink the way that the Thingiverse terms of use work. Though I’m sure they had nothing but the best intentions by putting the creative licensing of 3D models into the hands of their uses, the unclear, hands-off approach they’ve taken may be a big reason why this has happened. Like loubie, I’m sure many Thingiverse users now feel that their 3D models are vulnerable to being downloaded and sold by vague third party platforms like just3Dprint, which is a feeling that I’m pretty sure MakerBot does not want their Thingiverse users to have. Here’s to a quick (and hopefully painless) resolution!
Not that I was asked, and not that I have a full understanding of the situation outside of what I have read in this article; But I tend to side with just3Dprint.
You contribute the source of your work to a public web space for others to reproduce on their manufacturing equipment, and you have a problem with copy rights? This seems like a conflicting stance.
Don’t want your work reproduced? Don’t share its source to a community dedicated to reproduction.
For that matter, how much liability do you want in the distribution of this content to the public? Its just3dprint’s material, time, marketing, and logistics on the line here. Lets say this user distributes a thousand units of your model. and half of them malfunction causing damage to property, loss of life, or assets in some way. Are you willing to accept the responsibility with the profit?
Pick a side, open source, or closed source.
I don’t accept the responsibility nor do I accept the payments. If I wrote an article for a newspaper or my blog, you cannot copy it word for word to sell or even submit elsewhere as your own work; you can print it out for yourself, share it with your friends, etc.
The point of publicly expressing a thought or opinion with words is different than the point of sharing the exact numerical geometry of your model with a community centered around physical reproduction, don’t you think?
Why do you share the exact details required to reproduce your design, if you don’t want it reproduced? When you could simply share a photograph of the same thing if your point is to show off what you’ve made?
The action of sharing source code, then getting upset that it was copied seems conflicting.
My argument is pretty straightforward. Don’t distribute your source if you don’t want it to be reproduced.
Reproduction is fine, that is why we share; just like using quotes from an article, but the source must be cited and we don’t design for you to go profit.
This is like listening to a band at a bar, taking their song, recording it as your own, and selling it on your album. Even if you just make CDs with my song from my website and sell those CDs, that is illegal. I have the right distribute my designs or art as I see if, I can share it for free, but you can’t sell it without my permission.
You act as if anything I put out on the internet, songs, art, pictures, writings, etc. for free is not free for anyone to profit off of, even if it is distributed with or without terms.
Songs, art, pictures, writings are all different than the instructions for reproduction of a physical thing.
again, this user put the instructions for reproduction into a community of users who reproduce. Why? Because they wanted the idea to be freely available? Yes! The idea was made freely available! It is still freely available! What about those people who don’t have a 3d printer? Why can’t they enjoy these wonderful products that were made freely available to those with a printer too? Someone wants to charge a bit of money to cover the cost of reproduction? Fine!
I will say that attribution is the respectful way to handle open source material, but this article didn’t seem to be about the lack of attribution, it seemed to be about the ethics of copy rights, which turns out to be a very subjective topic, with a lot of flex.
I come from the software world as a professional software developer. When we want to protect the rights to a technology that we built, we keep the source code locked down and private. We file patents, we go through the steps necessary to legally protect our IP, not slapping a flimsy warning label about our wishes and intentions on the front of a neatly packaged source code archive.
It would be a better comparison if the band at the bar is handing out sheet music for its songs. I only put designs on the thingiverse that I’m willing to give away. The only reason I put things up at all is because I feel that because I have benefited from the site it’s only fair to give back. I don’t understand why this is and issue only now- the heart shaped gears have been sold on ebay for a long time now by quite a few sellers.
If you really want to understand the situation, please start from visiting websites such as Britanica.com. Their Terms of Use clearly say “You may display, reproduce, print or download content on the Services only for your personal, non-commercial use. ” If you will decide to reproduce their materials for commercial purposes, they will sue you and you will loose. The same story is with Thingiverse. Every model published there is the subject of copy rights. The specific model which its’ author found on just3dprint was licensed under “the Attribution – Non-Commercial – No Derivatives”. By selling this specific model and by selling other models without giving attributions for authors of these models just3dprint violated copy rights law. The only difference between Britanica and Thingiverse in this case is that Britanica is willing to pay for their lawyers to hunt down copy rights violators and Makerbot is not willing to do so. But, Makerbot is dead anyway. This story is just an indication that people have to start looking for other places to share their models.
While I clearly see loubie’s point, I have to wonder if any of these uploader’s expectations are reasonable. Without backing by a lawyer, she really expects that all uploads or the site they are uploaded to will enforce the intents of open distribution? This is akin to leaving a painting unattended on a sidewalk and, at the very least, expecting that nobody is going to photograph it and sell prints. That painting can’t defend itself, and without a cash flow, it’s open season.
I think this is a clear lesson on human nature and the real world. Whether anyone cares to admit it or not, each and every one of us that chooses to survive is at some level a capitalist. I know that’s a dirty word nowadays, but perhaps if it was recognized and embraced rather than shunned and ignored, maybe the evils of extreme capitalism would get balanced out.
While I am in support of open education, software, etc., it also needs to be noted that there’s a quality control issue with allowing anyone and everyone to upload designs of any kind.
Actually, your example doesn’t really represent the situation. The better example is that you give your painting to the public gallery for display in public but when you accidentally found copies of your painting being sold in stores without your name, the gallery explains to you that they are too busy or don’t have enough resources to protect your painting from being stolen.
That’s a much better way to put it. Thanks!
So running with that, why would one put their painting in an inept gallery or not take the time to at least research the gallery’s abilities to guard the work? I mean, if one’s work is that important, either post it in a solid, reputable gallery or not at all. (And this somewhat ties back into my QAQC comment.)
Either way, expecting some other entity to defend the rights to one’s work without a cash flow – during a “hands-off” license defense approach by the designer, no less – isn’t realistic. I’m all for open this-and-that, but it only gets you so far; at some point you have to fire something other than blanks.
I agree with you that it is not wise decision to post a model which can make money on Thingiverse instead of Shapeways. However, the fact is that just3Dprints did violated copyrights law and the only reason why they decided to do it is that they knew that individual designers were foolish enough to trust Makerbot . I think that the main outcome of this story is that by refusing to protect rights of their designers Makerbot will loose Thingiverse. Since they don’t produce any new products anymore, after Thingiverse, they will gone. I don’t know whether Stratasys really bought Makerbot to kill it, but this is what is happening now.
I guess this is all part of the settling and consolidation process.
I just hope that people across any lines out there realize that you can have all your Ts crossed, but without robust enforcement none of that matters. Kinda like the US Constitution.
An agreement with an internet company does not surpass national laws. Most laws are the same or similar. If you promote or expose your design, publicly, you have, indeed, put your design into public domain.
This is why I’ve NEVER contributed to Thingiverse. Thingiverse is an accessory to this infringement. Just hosting content wasn’t enough to keep PirateBay from a worldwide assault. Thingiverse has a choice, defend the copyright holders who have trusted them, or defend themselves FROM those copyright holders. Thingiverse has a responsibility to those they’ve encouraged to share. They facilitated the license agreement.
If they can legally wrangle their way out of responsibility, that itself should be enough to make people remove their content from their site.
Wouldn’t filing for a copyright or design patent protect the designer/artist’s distribution rights, at least in the USA?
Initial gut reactions aside, this is a really gray area. The defining question is, what is just3Dprint really selling? It could easily be argued that he is providing a service similar to the individuals printing objects for clients on the 3DHubs site. He’s basically printing a publicly available design for a customer who has no printer. Framed like that, it seems the only difference is, he prints the objects in advance with the expectation that somebody will pay him for his printing service later. In other words, he’s not selling the design. He’s selling his ability to print the design for you. If what he is doing is legally wrong, then it seems that people working through 3DHubs should also be worried.
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
it all depends upon which CC license YOU choose at the time you upload your design.
https://creativecommons.org/choose/
if you have NOT allowed commercial use you can sue anyone who prints and SELLS your designs.