I still dont exactly understand!
If you put an STL online then you are basicly making it so that anyone could print your design and possibly sell it. I’m just saying if you dont want someone to sell your design, then don’t make it so they can!
By analogy, leaving your car parked downtown is an invitation for somebody to take your wheels (and anything else that isn’t bolted down).
If you have property (intellectual or otherwise), it is your right to choose who can use it, and under what conditions. If people are honest, then a simple statement (aka a license) is sufficient for this. If some people are dishonest, then you have to lock stuff up and it becomes more inconvenient for the people who are actually entitled to use that property.
Simple enough?
Copyright grants specific rights to the creators of art, literacy, and other non functional designs. Sometimes the author chooses to extend those rights, either partially or whole through a license. If those rights aren’t explicitly given, then you do not have them regardless of if it is public or published, or if a cost is involved in obtaining it.
For example, there are many free novels and eBooks online. However just because it is available for free doesn’t give you the right to print it out and sell the book - unless that right is explicitly granted by the author.
It’s not a debate about cost or ease of obtaining it, it’s the law. If you take and sell someone’s work without consent it is illegal and you can be held liable for damages and theft.
It depends in where you put the file. If you upload it to a bittorrent, good luck trying to stop it from being misused. If you download it from a 3d printing web site you have certain rights on that model. You can print it, and modify it, but you can’t sell it. If you are completely dishonest, and don’t care, you can do what you want and try to get away with it. STL files and 3d printers don’t have Digital Rights Management oversight (like automatic deletion after a certain number of prints) like MP3 playes do, and nobody wants that either.
See, you’re totally right. People can possibly sell it. But since I don’t want people to sell them, I put a license on them so they can’t. It’s the act of putting a license on a model that states the terms of use which makes the act of selling illegitimate, not the inability to access the model in the first place.
Btw, this is something many of the people in the 3d printing community consider a bit of a sore spot and have and will fight hard for this.
Thanks
This entire concept goes to the heart of what defines open source. See the best and fastest way to improve something is to throw it out to everyone so they can all have a play with it and make small changes.
But the problem with doing that is that when you do you give up some control of it, which is where (as everyone else has said) the idea of licences come in.
So I design a thing. It’s a nice thing and I’m proud of it.
If I print one I want to show people the thing I’ve printed so I take a photograph of it.
Someone else sees the photo of that thing and thinks ‘that’s pretty neat!’ and asks me for file so they can print it themselves.
‘Hell no!’ says I ‘It’s mine and I don’t want to give it to anyone else so I haven’t put it anywhere so anyone else can do what they want with it without my permission!’
…so the guy gets a bit grumpy, goes off and designs his own one and starts selling it after uploading it to a 3d printing files website with a licence that states it may not be sold by anyone else, changed, yes, but NOT sold.
I find out and I’m furious! I tell him to take it down!
…but there is nowhere anywhere that I can point to to say ‘I MADE THIS FIRST!’ so suddenly because he was the first one to put it in public place with a licence on it, I’m no longer the originator of it and more importantly, if I want to I can’t sell it…
So, skip back to the beginning…
I make a thing.
I upload the stl to a 3d printing file website with a licence that states ‘I made this, please take a copy and adapt it, but you may not sell it’
Guy comes along and see’s it, takes a copy of the file.
It’s not quite what he needs because there’s a small flaw in it, so he changes the model and uploads it to his own account.
However, because of the licence I applied to it originally, he HAS to say somewhere ‘I got this from that other guy and changed it’, and in saying I’m the originator, he still can’t sell it.
It would have to be so completely changed to be essentially only inspired by my idea, only then would my licence not apply to his work.
@Eric_Davies i get what you are saying but your not allowing them to steal it with the print because they could print an exact copy of it so yours would be there still.
So it is kind of how they could go and measure the dimensions and then go make it.
@Mr_Bonce woah,
So your saying that if i do lisince it then they have to make a complete new design,
But how do you know that they still are not selling your print, no matter the licinse?
Design’s have to change by 15 percent, or else the courts and the copyright system won’t count it as an evolution of a design. Referencing email accounts can be used to track illegal sellers down, such as somebody who downloaded something frm thingyverse, then tries to resell it using the same email, busted.
@MidnightVisions so just be smart and change the email???
(I am not selling illegally, dont worry.)
@Spark_356 if you make a painting, how do you know people aren’t going to sell photos of it? If you write a book, how do you know people aren’t going to sell photocopies of it? If you write a song, how do you know people aren’t going to record it off the radio and sell the recordings?
This is a problem for anyone who makes anything, but it’s arguably not really a problem. The simple fact is, MOST people are honest and want to obey the law and respect artists’ intellectual property. That’s where copyright and licenses come in. Give folks a fair and easy way to acquire your work properly and they will do it. But SOME people will steal your work no matter what you do. Technically, you can go after them with lawyers, but who has time and money for that? So your options are:
- Make stuff and put it out in the world and accept that some asshats will take advantage of you. It’s worthwhile for the majority of people who respect your work and your rights.
- Don’t let anybody use your stuff. Contribute nothing and lose nothing.
Your choice. Most of us pick #1 and just complain to each other about the thieves every once in a while.
@Ryan_Carlyle yeah i think i’d go for #1 but this post was for the people of #2