3D Printed Items and the Creative Commons Licence

[Lemaru]

Hi,

Not really sure where to post this and guess its more a question for the mods/admins.

There seems to be an increasing number of people selling 3D printed item's which they obtain from the Thingiverse website. Whilst I do not have an issue with this (as I sometimes sell printed items too), the items all have a creative commons licence attached. Examples of which are the Amiga Gotek mounting brackets, trap door covers, etc.

My issue here is that the creative commons licence that these items have all require attribution to be given to the original designer together with a link to the original Thingiverse page (where the designs can be found and downloaded). All the people selling on here do not adhere to the licence and do not state the original designer, nor do they provide a link to the original designs. Some of these designs are also released for non-commercial use, so these items should not be being resold for profit anyway.

So my question really is what is the Amibay ruling on this, and who is responsible for policing it?

It is both annoying and sad that the appropriate credit to the original designers is not being provided. I myself have seen my own designs being sold (which people are free to do for the designs I release for non-commercial use) without attribution being given, the least the sellers can do is provide the appropriate credit where it is due. Whenever I sell designs other than my own, I always ensure to provide the relevant credit and links, and as a designer it would be nice to see people do the same. People spend a lot of time and effort to produce the items for the community, the least the can do it be credit for it. It does start to put people off releasing their designs just to see people claiming it as their own.

Thanks.

 

[CrazyBob]

I personally started developing Gotek frames for several Amiga models in 2016 and uploaded all my designs to Thingiverse.com.
At that moment these were the only designs that were available so I spend some time choosing a license form.


Starting point:
- Freely available to everyone to download & print -> Thingiverse is a nice platform for this.
- Printed items may be sold, I didn't want to print these design and sell / ship them due to limited time. (maximum spread)
- Design may be altered / improved, while respecting the license.
- Small recognition by adding my initials to the designs.

That's why I choose the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

I think when a certain license is not respected:
- Contact the seller
- If the seller does not respond / acts on it -> contact moderators on the forum / admins on selling platform

For me it's pure hobby, I wanted to contibute to the Amiga community while learning something about 3D printing / CAD.

 

[Lemaru]

I do the same with some of my designs, and like you I do not mind of people sell the designs I put on thingiverse as long as they do not charge stupidly excessive amounts for stuff like some people do.

It just seems that no one takes notice of the attribution part of the licence and provides credit and a link to the source material.

I actually done the OLED remix of your design recently, and whenever I advertise these I always provide your name and a link to your Thingiverse page. It is also just common courtesy to provide the relevant credit.

Even the seller of your designs on here does not provide a link to your pages. It just seems off that people seem reluctant tondo this, as if it will cost them sales or something

 

[CrazyBob]

I fully agree with that, at the moment I'm following the steps of one AmiBay user who sells Thingiverse designs (from different designers) via a 'For Sale' thread on his own website without respecting the Creative Commons licenses.
- No links to the original source on Thingiverse.
- In regards to my designs, he removed my initials and placed his own logo on it.
- Placed a 'donate' button on his website 'so he can continue his work on these designs'
- When contacting him he ignores the messages here and on other forums (I wasn't the first/only Thingiverse/AmiBay user who contacted him)

https://www.amibay.com/showthread.php?99599-Amiga-Covers-And-trapdoors-3D-printed
https://www.amibay.com/showthread.php?99006-3D-printed-Covers-For-Amiga-sales-online-!!!
(it seems his own website doesn't work at the moment)

Nice initiative to print these designs and offer them via a certain printservice but respect the license...​

I'm normally not that picky, but this is something that gave a little bit of a bad aftertaste...

The OLED re-designs look great btw ​

 

[SkydivinGirl]

Hi guys!

I totally agree with what's being said here. Creative Commons is an amazing licensing model and it should be respected for the good of the community. Just as with people selling anything they are not licensed to sell on AmiBay, report these items using the exclamation mark at the bottom of the post. This will alert the AmiBay admins to the issue so we can ask the person to give appropriate attribution or remove the item if it has a license where it should not be sold.

I'm not on AmiBay often anymore but you can send me a PM if you report a post but don't hear back from an admin in a reasonable amount of them. I'll hop on just to look into the issue.

Thanks everyone!

Heather

 

[Lemaru]

I fully agree with that, at the moment I'm following the steps of one AmiBay user who sells Thingiverse designs (from different designers) via a 'For Sale' thread on his own website without respecting the Creative Commons licenses.
- No links to the original source on Thingiverse.
- In regards to my designs, he removed my initials and placed his own logo on it.
- Placed a 'donate' button on his website 'so he can continue his work on these designs'
- When contacting him he ignores the messages here and on other forums (I wasn't the first/only Thingiverse/AmiBay user who contacted him)

https://www.amibay.com/showthread.php?99599-Amiga-Covers-And-trapdoors-3D-printed
https://www.amibay.com/showthread.php?99006-3D-printed-Covers-For-Amiga-sales-online-!!!
(it seems his own website doesn't work at the moment)

Nice initiative to print these designs and offer them via a certain printservice but respect the license...​

I'm normally not that picky, but this is something that gave a little bit of a bad aftertaste...

The OLED re-designs look great btw ​

Yeah I have seen that fella pop up too, shocking that is.

I generally don't offer too much printed stuff for sale, as printing it is too time consuming, so generally just the Gotek Mounts (which started because it was heartbreaking seeing the damage some people were doing hacking their cases up and then seeing how much people were charging for them), and my own disk cleaner designs.

I do keep an eye out for my few bits on Thingiverse as noticed an eBay seller who was selling several of my designs (appears that he prints everything Amiga related he can find), and even using my photos to advertise them. I put them for non-commercial but as he was charging a reasonable price I let it slide and just picked him up on the attribution aspect. He now puts credit and a link on each page, which is all I asked for. I do have issues where people charge stupidly high prices for 3D printed items that others have designed though.

I totally agree with what's being said here. Creative Commons is an amazing licensing model and it should be respected for the good of the community. Just as with people selling anything they are not licensed to sell on AmiBay, report these items using the exclamation mark at the bottom of the post. This will alert the AmiBay admins to the issue so we can ask the person to give appropriate attribution or remove the item if it has a license where it should not be sold.

I'm not on AmiBay often anymore but you can send me a PM if you report a post but don't hear back from an admin in a reasonable amount of them. I'll hop on just to look into the issue.

Excellent, thanks Heather, I will keep my eyes peeled. I guess CrazyBob has already seen his Gotek mounts being sold with no attribution or links already, but I will continue to keep an eye out for my stuff, and the designs of others I know in the Amiga groups I am active in. (or just anything I recognise from Thingiverse for that matter).