licensing

10 Articles

3DBenchy Starts Enforcing Its No Derivatives License

January 9, 2025 by 105 Comments

[Editor’s note: A few days later, it looks now like Prusa pulled the models of their own accord, because of their interpretation of the copyright law. Creative Tools and NTI claim that they were not involved.]

Nobody likes reading the fine print, least of all when you’re just downloading some 3D model. While printing a copy for personal use this is rarely an issue, things can get a lot more complicated when you make and distribute a derived version of a particular model.

Case in point the ever popular 3DBenchy model, which was intended to serve as a diagnostic aid by designer [Creative Tools] (recently acquired by [NTI Group] ). Although folks have been spinning up their own versions of this benchmark print for years, such derivative works were technically forbidden by the original model’s license — a fact that the company is now starting to take seriously, with derivative models reportedly getting pulled from Printables.

The license for the 3DBenchy model is (and always has been) the Creative Commons BY-ND 4.0, which requires attribution and forbids distributing of derivative works. This means that legally any derived version of this popular model being distributed on Thingiverse, Printables, etc. is illegal, as already noted seven years ago by an observant user on Reddit. According to the message received by a Printables user, all derived 3DBenchy models will be removed from the site while the license is now (belatedly) being enforced.

Although it’s going to be a bit of an adjustment with this license enforcement, ultimately the idea of Creative Commons licenses was that they set clear rules for usage, which become meaningless if not observed.

Thanks to [JohnU] for the tip.

Open Source Needs A New Mission: Protecting Users

January 10, 2024 by 43 Comments

[Bruce Perens] isn’t very happy with the current state of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS), and an article by [Rupert Goodwins] expounds on this to explain Open Source’s need for a new mission in 2024, and beyond. He suggests a focus shift from software, to data.

The internet as we know it and all the services it runs are built on FOSS architecture and infrastructure. None of the big tech companies would be where they are without FOSS, and certainly none could do without it. But FOSS has its share of what can be thought of as loopholes, and in the years during which the internet has exploded in growth and use, large tech companies have found and exploited all of them. A product doesn’t need to disclose a single line of source code if it’s never actually distributed. And Red Hat (which [Perens] asserts is really just IBM) have simply stopped releasing public distributions of CentOS.

In addition, the inherent weak points of FOSS remain largely the same. These include funding distributions, lack of user-focused design, and the fact that users frankly don’t understand what FOSS offers them, why it’s important, or even that it exists at all.

A change is needed, and it’s suggested that the time has come to move away from a focus on software, and shift that focus instead to data. Expand the inherent transparency of FOSS to ensure that people have control and visibility of their own data.

While the ideals of FOSS remain relevant, this isn’t the first time the changing tech landscape has raised questions about how things are done, like the intersection of bug bounties and FOSS.

What do you think? Let us know in the comments.

Impossibilities And 3D Printing

August 29, 2020 by 43 Comments

This week our own [Donald Papp] wrote a thought-provoking piece on buying and selling 3D-printer models. His basic point: if you don’t know what you’re getting until you’ve purchased it, and there’s no refund policy, how can you tell if your money is being well spent? It’s a serious problem for these nascent markets, because when customers aren’t satisfied they won’t come back.

It got me thinking about my own experience, albeit with all of the free 3D models out there. They are a supremely mixed bag, and even though you’re not paying for the model, you’re paying in printing time, filament, and effort. It pays to be choosy, and all of [Donald]’s suggestions hold in the “free” market as well.