Here’s the thing, all these websites are their own entities and do have the ability to effectively control who and what they allow on it. It is up to them if they want to delete your model they can, end of the day they really don’t owe us anything. If we don’t like it we can take our marbles home and not play. This isn’t discrimination, it is their prerogative. It essentially is in the Community Guidelines but not in so many words.
It’d be refreshing if these places would be better prepared to maintain a decorum, honest people won’t complain
It’s a shame they were given the choice of removing the offending items. Theft is a crime and they should at least close the account and hold any money owed for the offending items.
Report the theft to Etsy. At the very least, it will put them on Etsy’s radar. At the very best Esty will shut their store down. Thieves deserve to be treated harshly. I admit that I take and rework other people’s work…for my own use. I never sell anything that belongs to someone else unless I have a license from them to do so.
The sites, makers world, etsy, whatever get benefit from the models being hosted. They lose if they remove them. The designer, taking legal action, not really worth it. I think plagiarism needs to be prevented at source. Someone mentioned making models that needed glue or screws - i.e too complicated to simply print and sell. I think, if you are a designer, then you need to put effort into preventing your designs being stolen. This may mean that in order to download, you have to be contacted, or the design has an embedded lock in it, that prevents more than a few uncorrupted prints before failure. Whatever you do, the nefarious will circumvent it, but make it not worth while for the casual crook. Fundamentally, 'the sites ’ make their money from the user, foot-fall is king. It is not in their interest to remove the plagiarists, in particular if they bring in more sales than the originator. In the same way that the phone companies do little to prevent spam calls, or the postal services reduce junk mail. If you can incorporate electronics, then that is easy to prevent copying. Maybe a specially machined component as an axle/whatever. But that means something else on top of cad work. Unless you can stop it at source, you will fail in preventing copies, it’s just the way it is with the global internet.
That does not work. If the printing or assembly becomes too complicated, hardly anyone will even download the original.
The current Wild West situation in 3D printing design reminds me a lot of the 80’s when the same thing happened with software. Protective mechanisms were immediately undermined. The problem was brought under control - to some extent - when the hosters were held financially and criminally responsible.
Sooner or later this will also happen with 3D printing. I prefer sooner…
Hi, what about people copying designs but making slight adjustments?
I designed these business card embossers from scratch. I figured every dimension out myself, spending quite some time iterating to get to a proper working product.
Now I found this on Etsy, ok, it is different, and my businesscard embosser is not the first one online. But this one seems heavily inspired by my design and even copies exact the same, and very similar patterns. Anything I could do about this?
Just to share also a positive experience: I noticed today a copy of my Makerworld model Zipper Bookmark on Etsy despite this being licensed as Standard Digital File License. I messaged the seller. He claimed that he mistakenly thought the model had an attribution license and he agreed to take the model down. So, apparently honest mistakes do happen from time to time.
For the other cases: quite at the bottom of the Etsy page there is a “Report this article to Etsy” Link.
@MakerSpace.Online Probably not. I’ve been designing and selling on Etsy for a number of years now. Even got a few patents. Knock-offs happen and are a part of life. Think Uber / Lyft as an example. Same idea, different implementation. Both legal even though one was first and they are similar. In fact, the patent office was created to encourage improvement and innovation. Patents are open to the public including design, implementation, process, etc. You can patent a device/process but not an idea.
The whole 3D design and printing hobby/industry relies or honesty and personal ethics … both for the most part do not exist.
I also notice not only are designs “stolen” by others (and re-uploaded sometimes as claimed originals, sometimes “remixes” and not) but many designs that are uploaded by the designer claiming copyright are based on stolen IP pretending to be Fanart but should never be sold.
Its a general mess all over and a shame it simply reflects that sparsity of personal ethics and the lack of a cultural imperative for honesty.
What do you want to do about it? I think the most you are likely to get is maybe a mention that his/her item is based on your design. Contact them, see what happens. They have spent an amount of time, changing details, adding extra rollers, manufacturing and marketing. Equally, you have admitted yours was not the first on-line so they could have copied one of the others. I guess it irks, that they are probably getting a bigger reward from the items, then you make from the design. Maybe you look into the cost of getting the items printed, and market and sell the items, since once something is on the internet, it is there for everyone to use, in whatever way they like, and it easier to plagiarise a drawing, compared to a physical object.
My last post was community flagged, by someone/persons who presumably disagreed with my comments. No idea why folk are so sensitive. Perhaps it was my constructive criticism/opinion of Makerworld?
It is! And I’m marking this as the solution to the problem, because we may not be able to solve all the troubles of stealing objects, but we can at least pause at the end of the day and appreciate a well made design!
I’m starting to print the billiards table. So small!
So if he thinks your designs are bad, why TF is he stealing them?
Sounds like he needs to have his account taken away, not sure how to do that, but you would be right in sharing that message thread with Etsy mgmt. What a maroon! (As Bugs would say)
To be fair, if you’re marketing something “for monopoly” you should probably state that you aren’t the owner of the IP as it could be argued that you are trading off their brand recognition or producing a counterfeit.
You might have noticed some products are sold as “compatible with leading brand” and deliberately do not mention the name of the product.
EDIT They stole my monopoly model. Your monopoly is it now?
But yes, I do support the OP, and the person on etsy selling the prints is not doing the right thing. Howver it’s a bit of a 50/50.
If there is one thing you can count on it’s dishonest people and It’s sad that not everyone has morals. That being said, you can use situations like these to your advantage by promoting your design skills and successes for employment or business purposes.
Think of it as marketing which would put you ahead of your competition if you could provide a potential employer etc. with examples of your designs being that good and popular that they are being sold to a mass market. no single designer could pay for that kind of publicity while you get to own the thief in the process.
My philosophy is to always look for an opportunity in a bad situation.
