A ‘user’ took one of my Fidget Spinners, removed the central section and uploaded it as a print profile of theirs earning them income in their remix of my design,
They decided the central section should be removed and bam, we have a winner!
Never mind each one of these goes through multiple prototypes to determine balance, spin and much more.
Removing the central section changes the mechanics of its movement.
The removal also means there is an internal concave indentation to the central area.
When I have designed variants with the central portion hollow, it is done by replacing it with a designed core that increase the weight to balance the model whilst being soft and safe for users to place their finger.
I have reported it, I will update you to say if it has been removed.
Question
Has anyone else experienced this nefarious backdoor remix problem?
Yeah, someone did it to a Christmas tea light holder I uploaded. They changed the scene in front of the tea lights and uploaded it as a print profile on my model. I reported it as “print profile is for a different model” and they removed it by the next morning.
Yeah I have had this happen a lot. People change my design in some way that would be deemed a remix and just upload it as a print profile. I think most are just not aware of the difference and I think that is possibly something @MakerWorld could have a think about, a way to stop it or make it clearer to people that a print profile should not be a change to the geometry. However I am not totally clear on what makerworld Intends print profiles to be so am happy to be corrected if I have miss understood.
Technically these are different models from mine, but they are named the same and very closely resemble my original model. So are these unique models, remixes, close copies? I don’t know. How closely can you copy someone before it becomes an issue?
The first one actually says it copied your design in making theirs.
The second one looks too close for comfort to have stumbled on the same idea without influence.
I can’t tell other people their fidget spinners are mine because I was late to the party, plus there are are so many ways you can make something that existed before 3D printing unique.
If they copy my unique textures, that is a different thing.
Your model is a unique take on something, the likelihood of two people coming up with the identical thing at the same time are astronomical.
Allowing others to add print profiles was useful back when it had two genuine uses.
Many might not know this, but, MakerWorld originally hoped to be in the single portal for all models to all printers. In the early days you would find print profiles for Creality printers, AnyCubic and more.
This didn’t happen though and now we only see BL printer profiles.
Add a print profile to support unsupported printers.
In the early days, most of the models were being uploaded with just STL files, as most of the other services utilised that as the primary model format.
Because BL adopted the 3MF format to allow additional information beyond the model, namely the print profile in this case, this would eventually become the most popular format to upload as it also made it far easier for novices to print right away and kept any settings in a changeable format.
The early models didn’t have this extra print profile included so it made it harder for everyone. The designer didn’t supply a print profile, maybe the community would.
The community did, adding profiles to popular models quickly. That effort was incentivised as it made MW a better place for all. Eventually far more models included profiles from the designer. Then the A1 was launched and BL had yet to integrate my slicing solution to add multiple support.
The community came together and those with an A1 mini soon started adding profiles to models they had printed to make it easier for everyone else with this new toy that couldn’t print anything.
Today and the future.
Now that BL adopted my slicing solution to create profiles for all printers from whatever was uploaded, as long as there is a single profile, all current and future printers can be support except for a very few edge cases.
The need to allow third-parties to add profiles should have gone except for one niche.
Adding colour to models that lack it.
I am specifically talking about models like teddy bears that with colour could look even better or a car with different colours for the windows, wheels and bodies that the designer neglected to provide.
Why complaining then ? Someone made a remix for which author claims complains now it is a bad remix and will not work. In return this means also original author will most likely get a download and possibly a boost from the maker since the remix he had printed was not functional.
To be clear I do not endorse stealing of designs but let’s get real.
I read on this forum complains about stolen designs or “unethical” remixes or remixes of remixes from designers of models which in reality takes - (more likely less than 30 minutes) up to 60 minutes in CAD program or more often now using AI to design it from ground up, or they have already made some “remix” that they claim is an original.
I do not see designers who invested hours of work on designing, testing, creating BOM & assembly videos etc… complaining of someone stealing or copying their creations. Feels like the community “respects” those designs / designers. And most of them share this for free no strings attached and get a way better deal in the end - I commend them on than to be clear!
Feels like everyone here believes their model is unique and dandy, which will earn them so many points so they will be able to get a printer on those points in less than a month… Well hard truth is points are given but must be earned!
Makerworld in the past has used “looks like” as a criteria for taking down models as unauthorized copies even if they have an independent development history. It’s not great policy from an IP perspective as no such protection exists in the law, but it’s also their platform and they can decide what is important to them to promote or protect.
It’s created the expectation that ideas are protected on Makerworld (which is OK if they choose do to that) and some people are naturally, intelligently taking advantage of that to protect their “turf”.
The problem of course is when you are a designer on the “other side” and find your models being taken down for what are essentially policy decisions, not actual IP violations.
