The frequency of unauthorized 3D model content is increasing and something has to be done.
Each of the major desktop 3D printer manufacturers offers an accompanying website where their customers can easily download printable material. Creality has Creality Cloud, Prusa Research has Printables, UltiMaker has Thingiverse, Anycubic has Makeronline, Elegoo has Nexprint, etc.
Operating sites like these is quite challenging, as we learned from the countless attempts to build standalone 3D model services. Virtually all of them have failed miserably, and have done so for one big reason: it’s incredibly difficult to attract designers.
If there are many designers, there are many designs. If there are many designs, there are many users/buyers. If there are many buyers, there will be more designers. It’s a kind of virtuous cycle that works once it gets going, but that requires a large number of designers to participate first. That’s very hard to do.
That’s why most of the independent 3D model sites failed: they could not attract the traffic. However, the 3D printer manufacturers can do so because they subsidize the operations of the site with hardware revenue, and automatically have large bases of customers they can bring to their platform.
With today’s mostly automated desktop 3D printers, there are increasing numbers of operators that are less technical, and they need these sites to provide content to print. The cycle is easier to start, especially when you’re selling thousands of machines per month and most customers are very likely to need content.
Bambu Lab took an interesting step by gamifying their content platform, MakerWorld. While they’ve been tuning it to optimize results, it strongly encourages designers to contribute the best content by rewarding them with points that can be exchanged for materials or even equipment. It’s worked very well and MakerWorld’s content level has exploded.
The competing companies, Creality, Elegoo and Anycubic, had to keep up and over time launched their equivalent platforms. However, by that point MakerWorld was likely growing the fastest due to equipment sales and their points program.
Creality, Elegoo and Anycubic all faced that same familiar problem: how to attract designers. They introduced various schemes to encourage content uploads, which have worked to varying degrees.
But there’s a huge underlying problem: the technology of 3D models does not really provide any intellectual property protection. If you have an STL file, you can not only print it, you can send it anywhere you like. You can keep it, you can modify it, and you could even sell it. There is no technical mechanism to stop this from happening.
Unfortunately there are people who take advantage of this technical loophole. According to Bambu Lab in a post last month, their MakerWorld users have been reporting massive numbers of design theft, with their works showing up on other platforms without their permissions.
It seems there are several patterns of theft:
- Outright cloning of the designer’s entire portfolio and masquerading as them
- Reposting a work without permission
- Selling a work that was originally licensed for only non commercial use
- Reposting a work that was supposed to be exclusive to MakerWorld
This is very likely illegal, and certainly unethical. However, some are making a quick buck — or points — by doing so.
It’s possible for the original designers to report the unauthorized use to each of the platforms, but it then depends on the platform to actually remove the items.
This is difficult to do for these platforms as the scale of theft is so vast. It’s possible some of this theft is done with automated tools, and humans would never be able to keep up. Also, there is an incentive to keep the unauthorized files present, as they make each platform bigger than it otherwise would be. Deletions are therefore slow, maddening the original designers.
Evidently many were so upset they complained to Bambu Lab, which seems to be the source for many of these models. Bambu Lab responded by taking legal action against platforms they felt were not doing enough to remove their users’ unauthorized content.
Since then we’ve learned that larger numbers of unauthorized 3D models have been removed from some of the other sites. For example, Makeronline has removed approximately half of the offending entries, according to Bambu Lab. However, many remain and more continue to appear. In some cases, those that were taken down simply reappear with different accounts or names.
Bambu Lab has launched lawsuits against Creality and Elegoo, rather than sending them a cease and desist letter as they apparently did with Anycubic. It’s not yet known the fate of this lawsuit, as that would certainly take months to resolve. However, the presence of a lawsuit may trigger Creality and Elegoo to take action of their own to remove unauthorized content on their respective platforms.
Finally, Bambu Lab said this:
”Coming soon: A complete copyright protection system with faster detection, simpler enforcement and stronger penalties to keep your creations safe.”
This sounds quite interesting. However, due to the technology of 3D models, it is likely that the new protection system would operate only inside of MakerWorld. A system that would truly and globally protect IP on all sites would require either:
- A significant and powerful cooperation agreement between parties to coordinate actions, or
- A technology change that physically prevents theft
While today’s scenario is “others taking from Bambu Lab’s site”, the reverse is also possibly true. In fact, it is probable that every site has unauthorized content to some degree. Will they all sue each other? If so, it may be that the first option, a cooperation agreement on unauthorized content, might be in the cards.
The cooperation agreement would provide standard processes for reporting and handling unauthorized content, including inter-company communications. These would be adopted by each participating company, and that would very quickly dampen the unauthorized activity.
I’d call it “DesignShield”. Here’s a logo we could use, too.
That’s what I am hoping for: a branded process that is adopted by all the players. Imagine if you’re a designer considering which site to upload your works. You’d pick one that has the “DesignShield Alliance” stamp, wouldn’t you?
Via Bambu Lab
