---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: vero@ebay.com
Date: 25 February 2016 at 19:45
Subject: VeRO Program – eBay Listing Removed
To: loubie
Thank you for contacting us.
We are pleased to inform you that the following listing(s) you reported have been removed from eBay in response to the Notice of Claimed Infringement you recently sent:
just3dprint
261964153371
We have notified the seller and all participating bidders that the listing(s) has been removed due to your request.
If the Notice of Claimed Infringement contained items that are not listed above you will receive a separate email communication about those items. These notices may arrive at different times (over a period of up to several hours) as items for different sellers are processed separately.
If you should have any questions or concerns regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact us again.
I’ve sent the following mail to a Thingiverse mod:
Tinkering_On_Steroids
February 24, 2016
Hello,
I’m a maker who used thingiverse to upload and share own designs for quite a while.
The mass-download and abusive use of thousends of designs by a single user in conjunction with disrespect of copyrights and moral aspects was the reason that I lately lost trust in the concepts that are fundamental for the Thingiverse plattform and therefore I decided to delete all my designs.
There already have been a lot of discussion regarding legal issues and morals.
But in addition to that I think it would be most helpfull to have some simple technical/organizational enhancements to the platform that could help to regain trust in the sharing concept and also in the Thingiverse plattform.
I would like to propose to give the designers more control about who download their things. If there is a single user with for example a several hundrets of downloads of different things and not a single upload within a month, I would like to have the possibility to setup my account to prevent those user from downloading my things.
Therefore I’d like to suggest the following enhancements to the plattform:
Record and show the number of downloads and uploads within the last 30 days in each user profile
Allow designers to put suspect user profiles on THEIR PERSONAL blacklist that prevents the blacklisted users from downloading the specific designers things
Allow designers to setup their profile with a ratio of max downloads and min uploads that automatically blocks other users downloads if their download/upload ratio exceeds that limit
I know that will not resolve the problem entirely. But it might help to set the hurdle for abuse a lot higher and may help designers like me to regain trust.
Did eBay give you any indication how many times the infringing seller had actually sold your artwork?
Because the proceeds from each sale actually belong to you, as the copyright owner. Maybe there were thousands of sales, or maybe just a few, but the point is still that the money legally and morally belongs to you.
I hope that they are not expecting you to raise a lawsuit to recover what you are owed, especially for such an open-and-shut case as yours…
I’m surprised that the web site doesn’t have some sort of controls to limit site scraping, but there’s probably only so much that can be done beyond that.
@Tom_Nardi Maybe you give it a second thought. It’s not that bad as it might sound in first place. As long as noone behaves abusive, no dramatical effect.
@Louise_Driggers good for you!!! It’s all about the attitude, if just3dprint just apologized to you and removed the listing, you may have been ok with that, heck maybe even split the profits with you. I bet they didn’t realize they were kicking the hornets nest…
Again, good for you, standing up for yourself and not letting this slide, I am really amazed at how much attention this drew.
3D printing in general is such a red hot topic, and news travels fast, regardless of whether it is good or bad. As a result of this, I think more people are becoming aware of the licensing, and how others will abuse it if given the chance. I don’t see many others trying to pull this stunt, and it seems eBay will automatically pull the auctions if it is brought to their attention, in fact for the near future I imagine they will be scanning auctions like this, themselves.
@Tinkering_On_Steroid your proposal does have a dramatic negative effect - there are tens of thousands of 3D printer owners that do not or choose not to design and then upload CAD models. These people download, and use strictly for their own use, many of the wonderful files available. How would your method judge the quality of the uploaded model? Anyone can whip out a junky model that nobody would ever want and would do nothing but clog up Thiniverse with “fluff” models… Don’t underestimate the power of the 3D printing community - @Louise_Driggers complaints and everyone’s support and response has had a positive effect and brought much needed attention to the issue. I’m not saying something shouldn’t change, I just think that banning those without design skills would not be good…
@Alan_Thomason I didn’t say that those without design skills should be excluded. Its just about measures to prevent mass-downloads from single individuals (its about one user downloads hundrets of models within a few days).
It sounds like a logistical nightmare - right now, you don’t need a Thingiverse account to be able to download. If an account was needed to download then fake accounts would flourish. If fake accounts were impossible then the unscrupulous would pay others for the downloads, etc, etc… It’s not perfect by any means; but, copyright law is real and enforceable. The 3D printing community can also have a real impact as well - tens of thousands of pissed off techies is something that I wouldn’t want to go up against.
Preventing mass-download is not a solution. Just like DRM, it will only punish honest users, while dishonest ones will always find ways to abuse the system.
The system does work, an abuser was spotted and removed from the ecosystem. They made a bad name for themselves and have been kicked out eBay.
A system to report and correct bulk abuse is what is needed. If someone notices something like this. There needs to be an SOP for stopping it… If thingiverse is going to survive.