We need the ability to dispute copyright violation claims

MakerWorld
1

Here’s my problem:

I made an entry in the fidget contest for my fidget rings. They were an instant hit, and had enough downloads to where I was, for a brief time, in 2nd place. Somebody reported me for copyright violation, citing MY OWN thingiverse account. My model was removed and deleted, without any way for me to dispute. I did open a ticket for appeal, but by that time it’s too late. The model has already been deleted, any points I earned for downloads have already been subtracted from my maker points total. I got no say. We need to do better than this shoot first, ask questions later, approach. I understand the need to have reporting capabilities, but this is crazy. My story continues…

I ended up winning the appeal, and Bambu apologized, and told me to re-upload my model. They acknowledged my thingiverse account and made note of my username in thingiverse and in cults3d. I made a small change to the model, recreated the 3mf files, and re-uploaded. About a day later, the SAME PERSON reported me again for copyright violation! Without warning, and without Bambu even bothering to look into the ticket history, they again, removed my file from the contest, deleted my model, and subtracted points from my total. That time I was back up to 4th place. I again submitted a ticket, but also followed up with an email to the marketing team at Bambu, describing the frustrations. I got a reply again apologizing, saying that I was correct, that the 2nd time a different admin had looked into the claim and didn’t bother to check the previous history, and that they’re working on improving the ability for admins to see copyright violation history more clearly,. I was told again to re-submit my model.

The 3rd time I completely recreated the model from scratch, completely redesigning the gears in the ring in the process. I re-uploaded the file for the 3rd time, and sure enough, the very next day, I was hit yet again for a copyright violation - but this time, 3 more of my models had also been hit with copyright violations - each one citing my own account on either thingiverse or cults3d.

At this point I’m beyond frustrated. I’m missing 1778 maker points, and have had 6 models deleted that I AM the original creator of. And I have absolutely NO chance at placing in the fidget contest now. We need the ability to dispute copyright violation claims BEFORE our models are removed!

14 Likes
2

Yet another egregious slam against an honest contributor.

So question for you all who continue to put your hand on the hot stove, are you having fun? :exploding_head:

3

This doesn’t sound reasonable… a couple questions for you though do you have someone following your account that is just going ahead and reporting you? Do you know who reported you when it happens or is it just a blanket “you’ve been reported” notification?

Hearing stuff like this makes me not want to continue to develop projects in the background to share with Maker World. Last thing I want to do is spend 30-40 hours designing, testing and using up filament only to have my project reported and taken down. I am shocked you kept coming back like you did but thank you for sharing your frustration, hopefully this can be resolved somehow.

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I have to say I’m as baffled as you are!

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From what I’ve heard in the two week I’ve tried to get my models re-uploaded the support says there is no system yet to put the models from “taken down” status to normal status. They also removed 3.8k points from my account which I didnt get back yet either.

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6

If they agree they should not have taken down the model, they should also agree to restore the lost points when you re-upload.

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On the other hand, when a creator reports a violation, s/he expects prompt removal of the offending uploads. There is no perfect solution to this and Makerworld will need to find a good balance. What happened to the OP shouldn’t happen, but this is why there is an open Beta. I would give them some slack to build up a more reasonable system.

8

The report basically says “copyright violation” with a link to thingiverse, cults3d, printables, etc. The way I know (or highly suspect) that the same person reported me multiple times, is in the wording of the email I got from Bambu marketing team “we are thinking maybe we should block some people from reporting if their reports are wrong for too many times”. Why say this, if it wasn’t the same person who reported me multiple times?

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9

Stupid question, but are your other accounts named the same as you are on Makerworld?

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In the interest of transparency, here are the responses I got from Bambu after the first supposed “violation” and after the second.

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They are not. Bambu had me link them in my profile so that has been corrected. They also asked me to put my username to my other accounts in my Maker World bio so others could see.

12

I don’t know if would characterize Makerworld’s response as even being close to reasonable.

The notion of a a copyright strike under the DMCA has been around for over 10 years and the process is pretty much the same for copyright strike and appeal. In the case of YouTube as an example, they use AI to do strikes and one has the right to appeal. However, if the DMCA take down request came from the copyright owner, the content poster has the right to file a counter-claim challenge it and the take-down who has two weeks to respond to the challenge. If it goes unanswered, the content is reposted.

How Do I Respond to a DMCA Takedown Notice? | Nolo.

There is no reason why Makerworld couldn’t do the same here except that they rushed this POS service to market and expected the community to do their job for them finding bugs and problems. That’s just sloppy but it is the Chinese way of chà bù duō. They obviously could not have gotten away with this if this was hardware.

I continue to repeat this Mantra. Every occasion where Makerworld screws up is yet another nail in Bambu Lab’s reputational coffin. They started out this year with really great street-cred by putting out a better, higher quality, less expensive product with an eye towards innovation. Then they put out this Piece of Sh∫te and really mess up their reputation.

Before hand, I might have purchased the next Bambu Printer sight-unseen without reviews. But given that they have proven that they are just like every other Chinese company and their earlier performance was just a “launch on best behavior” conduct, I for one will never trust them.

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In this instance, it was a disgruntled competitor in the fidget competition. I know this because I released a similar model about 2 weeks ago on my normal profile and it had over 550 downloads and zero violations or reports. But suddenly when I put a variant of it in the competition, I was flagged 3 separate times. This screams of pettiness and I had thought that people in these competitions would be better. Then again, I thought Bambu’s responses to the allegations of my “violations” would be better as well, especially after having proved twice that I was the original creator.

1 Like
14

They should just make as difficult to report a copyright claim as it is to dispute it. Everything nowadays is very easy to opt-in, and painful to opt-out.

15

No. I think most stuff that gets taken down is actually stolen. No reason to make that harder to take down. Just make it easier to get original stuff back

1 Like
16

Maybe it helps If you don’t upload the model from scratch and just import it from thingiverse to makerworld I think the admins should see that you are the original creator I guess.

17

Like I said what happened to you shouldn’t happen. I can tell how frustrating it must be.

But hear me out: there is still a possibility that the reports were done in good faith. Someone out there saw a contest entry that they happened to see somewhere before and did a quick check and fount out that the entry was from someone else (it was your own, but they wouldn’t know since the user names were different on other platforms). So they reported this, probably also thought that it’s good for you, too. Makerworld people took a look, and sure enough, the entry was from someone else. So they pulled the trigger and took it down.

Then you successfully appealed and you made a small change to the model, and uploaded it. The same person, or another person, saw the slightly changed model, and thought that the first model must be taken down because of violations, and thought that you now made a small change trying to circumvent the takedown. So they reported it again. (It’s also possible that people didn’t keep track of what they reported before and simply reported something that they thought was from another creator). The Makerworld, being still in open Beta, is overwhelmed with tickets, and also doesn’t have a good system in place yet to show history of adjucated cases, took a look and again quickly pulled the trigger to take down the model (yes, this could have been prevented if Makerworld has worked out a good system. Give them some time to get there).

Then you successfully appealed again and redesigned the gear and uploaded it again. People thought (mistakenly) that you were at it again, trying to circumvent the takedown and reported it, and this time flagged even more models that they thought were from another creator.

Makerworld needs to find a sensible solution, that’s for sure. But we also don’t want to discourage good samaritans out there who take the time to report violations. Someday it could be our models that are stolen and we don’t have the time to find out ourselves. We would appreciate that someone out there report it.

I could be wrong, but I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt.

18

You have to file a ticket and go through the whole support rollercoaster to get it all sorted.

Although that contest is gonna be real fun to see how they judge. Particularly judging criteria like “3. Models uploaded as Remix and Share will be ineligible to be considered for winning.” There are no models uploaded as remixes, but basically 99% of all the contesting models are remixes of other older models that have been part of the 3d printing community for years. Planetary gears, fidget spinners etc. How does one make an original fidget toy, they have all been done, redone twice and overdone thrice.

All of them would have been copy right claimed by Bambu Lab in any other circumstances, but here they are. Even their “potential ideas” are all just remixes…

Their second competition and I feel it will lay heavy groundwork for how these will be judged in the near future.

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MW-Support IS ■■■■ in Claims
Had that with a REMIX

I have Up after 2 Weeks Argumentation.

20

If people use a different ‘handle’ for every site how would the folks at Makerworld or anyone else know the uploads are from the original designer? Is there a way in the process to clarify this?