Makerbot Terms of Use.... TL:DR..

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Makerbot Terms of Use…

TL:DR.. they might have full access to User Content to do whatever they want to do with it.

I was responding to another thread, but thought these view might be worth discussion separately. For the record, I think what Markerbot are doing in regards to patents stinks.. but, I started to look at the Terms of Use in regards to the site.. now I’m not a lawyer or anything, so this is just my interpretation…

When joining Thingiverse, you have to agree to a “Terms of Use”: http://www.thingiverse.com/legal .

Having a read through it, a few things which stick out in my opinion.

Section 1
Accounts.. nothing there in regards to this matter

Section 2
Site… basically, don’t copy their site or any content.. this section excludes “User Content” which comes up in Section 3..

Section 3
User Content. Firstly, it states that you have to own copyright to what you upload.. I’m guessing in regards to CC, you give credit etc if it’s a derivative work. It also talks about licensing for those outside of thingiverse.

The main part I want to highlight is in section 3.2:
You hereby grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to Company and its affiliates and partners, an irrevocable, nonexclusive, royalty-free and fully paid, worldwide license to reproduce, distribute, publicly display and perform, prepare derivative works of, incorporate into other works, and otherwise use your User Content, and to grant sublicenses of the foregoing, solely for the purposes of including your User Content in the Site and Services. You agree to irrevocably waive (and cause to be waived) any claims and assertions of moral rights or attribution with respect to your User Content.

Now, if I read that right, it’s a double edged ‘rule’.. basically you are giving up rights to the object to the “Site”, I’m guessing so they can publish it. But you are also allowing them royalty free access to prepare derivative works and incorporate your designs in to other creations. <— possibly wrong, but open for interpretation.

The abbreviated version mention they share with others (not making reference to themselves) who may break your licenses.. but you have to take it up with them directly.. ie don’t take anything up with the Company for breaking the license..

Section 4
Secondary License for Thingiverse Designs.. Section 3 specifies the copyright for the site and subsidiaries and it treats that license as separate to the one presented to the end users, which suggests people use Creative Commons or actual Copyright…

Referring to this as a secondary license, to me it’s saying that Section 3 gives the “Company and affiliates and partners” full access with no restrictions to use the designs how they specified and this section is only to those viewing/using the site who want to use the designs.

Section 5
Indemnity… basically, if anything goes wrong with someone using your content, ‘Company’ responsible

Section 6-11 don’t really apply to copyright, except for 10 which makes reference to the Intellectual Property Policy: Intellectual Property Policy - MakerBot

Reading the policy, the opening line: The Company respects the intellectual property of others and asks that users of our Site and Services do the same.

Reading through that, it is saying that they will remove anything published on the site which you believe you own the copyright of… no reference to them using it.

So from what I’ve read.. unfortunately to me is sounds like they do have rights to use anything submitted to Thingiverse in their own way, ignoring the Creative Commons licensing.

A long post, and I hope I’m presenting the facts correctly.. please correct me if I’m not.

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The thing is, in many places you cannot simply put this crap in a TOU, that’s hidden in your site. Not only that, but in court many TOU’s don’t even hold up because they almost always try to get you to sign away some right. For example in California, “binding arbitration” is illegal in TOU/EULA/etc because they recognized that that arbitrator is likely paid by the very company trying to bind someone to arbitration. Which means if they ever want business again, they’ll side on the company who is paying them.

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@ThantiK When you say you can’t put that in the TOU, is that more to the location of where it is?

When registering on the site, it links to the TOU and says by clicking Continue, you agree to it.

In regards to if it’s ‘legal’ or would hold up in court. I was just looking at the page in it’s text form and what someone ‘agrees’ to when joining the site… it’s an agreement between the site and you…

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@Daniel_Porter this has been upheld against apple’s tou so it doesn’t matter if that is there or not, already examples out there of that not mattering.  just like you cannot agree to be a slave. Agreement or not.

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Tjingiverse and any other site wouldn’t be legal without a redistribute/mix/host right.

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@Daniel_Joyce The way I read it, their Terms indicate that they have permission to publish someones work, which is in section 3.2… but in the same section, the terms allows them to use that design themselves, modify or use in one of their own designs, which is separate to the Creative Commons/Copyright license applied.

Basically, the Terms apply the Creative Commons to “Users” of the site but not to the “Company” (Makerbot).

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Well, the way I see it, patenting the derivative work of a CC licensed item violates the owner’s and others’ rights to use the derivative work and is therefore illegal. With the Terms of Use possibly being upheld and allowing the hosting company to use the work basically as they please, they might be able to sell something for profit even if the Creative Commons license does not allow it, but they still could not patent it. This is how I understand that.

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@NathanielStenzel quoting the terms and bolding for emphasis:

an irrevocable, nonexclusive, royalty-free and fully paid, worldwide license to reproduce, distribute, publicly display and perform, _prepare derivative works of, incorporate into other works, and otherwise use your User Content__, and to grant sublicenses of the foregoing, solely for the purposes of including your User Content in the Site and Services. _You agree to irrevocably waive (and cause to be waived) any claims and assertions of moral rights or attribution with respect to your User Content.

The license allows them to do what they want and for you to waive your moral rights in regards to the content…

Basically as the graphics depict of Makerbot saying: “We take your work, we like your work, you have waived your moral rights, we made it.”

I’m not on their side. What they did sucks and is morally wrong! But I still read it as, in the terms a user agrees to… They give themselves FULL rights to take and do what they want with any of the designs.

They specify the second CC license is for the end user only, not them…

Reading the terms, am I right or have I got it mixed up somehow?

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I think waving moral rights is just plain impossible in many European countries. You can wave any claims of copyright, but you still are the author of the work, nobody can tell otherwise. Now with what they recently said, they just “dig” for interesting work in TV and patent it. They recently did claim such patents. It goes beyond the worst fears we would have at the time with the introduction of paragraph 3.2 in their TOS (ref “occupy thingiverse”).

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@Daniel_Porter Thingiverse has a web-based program that lets you modify and mix other items uploaded to Thingiverse. Unless the EULA granted thingiverse this right, they couldn’t have such a feature on the site. As to whether thingiverse can ‘commercialize’ a file, that would depend on the copyright licensing of the file or derivative works. But most of this EULA is there to allow Thingiverse to do the things it does.

Really these sites need to explain it better.

“By uploading content to X, you agree to allow X to reproduce, distribute and modify your content as part of its normal website operations. As accounts may be abandoned, and your content mixed with other content on the site to form derivative works, you grant X a non-exclusive worldwide, non terminating right to said content.”

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Another question is if Thingiverse is considered a separate entity from Makerbot for the purpose of the Terms of Service/EULA.

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@Jeremie_Francois The Terms agreed to grant it… as for legality… that’s another question.

@Daniel_Joyce by not specifying its use, maybe that allows them to use it in multiple ways? But I read it as once you submit to the site, they can use what you submit however they want… they aren’t committing the CC license to themselves, just ‘Users’

@NathanielStenzel top of the Terms says this:
_The websites located at http://www.makerbot.com and http://www.thingiverse.com (together, the “Site”) are copyrighted works belonging to MakerBot Industries, LLC and its affiliates (“Company”, “us”, “our”, and “we”). _

They are ‘Company’ in what I’ve mentioned before. So they are not a separate entity.