Not a model creator (yet), just consume the wonderful work makers take the time to upload to this and other (legitimate) sites.
Some thoughts though… This situation echoes he digital rights problem of the 00s (with music, movies, other media) with people’s 3D model work. That was never exactly solved to the benefit of the maker. Conglomerates (Apple) and startups (Spotify) wound up filing the gap for a viable peer-to-peer transfer market that respected ownership/intellectual capital. Worth noting that well-heeled institutions in the entertainment industry invested a lot to divert a free-for-all.
Bambu has an opportunity to stand for the maker here. There are technical solutions to the good suggestion for a ‘walled garden’. Such as embedding digital rights in the model themselves and tying that transaction to smart contracts on the blockchain (in this respect, one might consider NFTs a prototype for actually useful applications). It would require industry coordination, but all printer manufacturers have the same vested interest. Hopefully the industry see this (or other apt) similar scenarios and solves the problem with standards. Otherwise, usher in the file format wars!
And the competition keeps rising with Sketchfab now launching their own platform to offer and sell models - simply called FAB.
If you ask me: the more there are the more the real creator suffers and the more of them take other routes to offer their work and creations.
Great way to make money and increase the user base, not so great for the real creators out there if it is just an endless fight over stolen models or abused rights.
We need a solution that is proactive not this hunting of offenders AFTER the damage is long done.
Maybe it would scare the people who steal and sell other people’s 3D models if BambuLab/Makerworld block their Bambu account and also their printer so that they can only use it as a door stopper.
Check the laws to make sure but any works you create by default are considered copyrighted. Registering the copyright formally entitles you to more damages and other protections, though. It documents your claim of ownership. Without formal copyright you may have a harder go establishing when you created something to prove your ownership.
When I was in the Navy we would call someone with those skills a “sea lawyer”. That would be someone who can sound like one, and who likes to argue like one, but is not actually trained to be one.
