This is an idea I had. Why not let a designer sell 3D prints of his (or her) designs directly to customers? Like turning part of Makerworld in to kind of an Etsy shop?
This way designers can make some money selling 3D prints to people who would normally never consider buying a 3D printer, but who would like to purchase 3D printed things.
Bambu would profit from this by selling more 3D printers to makers and selling fillament through theire store and maybe a small commision?
I have some 3D print items I would like to sell through a webshop, but I dont have a website to put them on. Makerworld would be great for this!
What dou you think? Is this something you would want?
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whilst the idea itself is OK, this would pose many potential problems concerning copyright and/or a model license. There are no issues for those selling prints of their own models/designs, but there are for people selling prints of other people’s models.
Some Makers (like myself) require those selling prints of their work to pay for a license; a lot of us use Patreon for this as it’s an easily accessible platform for creators to monetise their work.
Without proper protections, who is to say “Print Sellers” won’t just download other’s creations, print them without a license, and then sell them? We already see people uploading other people’s work without attribution daily, gathering points for work they have stolen and claimed as their own to get gift cards for free items from the Bambu Store.
There isn’t any real protection already, folks can download models and sell prints of them even though the license says they can’t (or, at least, not without a license to do so from the creator). I’ve seen it happen a lot at trade shows and on sites like Etsy, but making a platform that could make this issue more widespread? I wouldn’t be for it.
Printables just recently released a storefront for files. Once you sell your first design 5 times, you can then sell more files. Seems to be what you’re looking for.