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I agree, but it seems the copyright/editorial use comes up a lot more for 3d model platforms. It seems to differ from typical github usage. I feel it puts it cl

by sbr464 7y ago

I agree, but it seems the copyright/editorial use comes up a lot more for 3d model platforms. It seems to differ from typical github usage. I feel it puts it closer to a stock photography type site, except more often the popular works are actual copies of copyrighted/trademarked products. Any thoughts on this?

Sendotsh 7y ago
I see it as more a place for makers/hackers to post complete projects others can replicate. Be it a 3D printing project, or an electronics one with various components. Something like Thingiverse meets Instructables meets Github. We’ve talked about it plenty at Hackerspaces I’ve been part of, and there’s various attempts at it but none seem to hit the spot the creators are after. https://hackaday.io https://hackaday.io is probably the closest but the UI is a mess, there’s no previewing of the files, etc. I’m literally picturing something like Github with file previewing and some other features added. Love the idea of having issue/bug reports, file versioning for iterations, forking, etc etc. Of course you’d get content thieves posting stuff that’s not theirs, but you get that on all sites with UGC and it could be moderated/reported.
kragen 7y ago
An interesting legal issue here is that probably many 3-D designs are not copyrightable. Copying machine parts and similar functional designs is legal in the US, the UK, and most industrialized countries, except in the narrow cases covered by patents. Sculpture is copyrightable, but gears and bottlecaps are not. I'm not sure if there is explicit caselaw on this, but almost certainly parametric OpenSCAD designs are copyrightable, being textual works of creative expression in the same vein as Python programs or TrueType fonts; not sure about STEP/IGES parametric designs, although logically the same principles should apply. So most Thingiverse designs that are copies of existing products are probably entirely legal, or legal except in a very few countries where they infringe Saudi laws about nudity depictions or patents or something, but by the same token, in many cases the licenses of the Thingiverse Things will not be usefully enforceable, because the STL (or perhaps a resampled version thereof) is statutorily not subject to copyright.

by sbr464 7y ago

Sendotsh 7y ago

I see it as more a place for makers/hackers to post complete projects others can replicate. Be it a 3D printing project, or an electronics one with various components. Something like Thingiverse meets Instructables meets Github. We’ve talked about it plenty at Hackerspaces I’ve been part of, and there’s various attempts at it but none seem to hit the spot the creators are after. https://hackaday.io https://hackaday.io is probably the closest but the UI is a mess, there’s no previewing of the files, etc. I’m literally picturing something like Github with file previewing and some other features added. Love the idea of having issue/bug reports, file versioning for iterations, forking, etc etc. Of course you’d get content thieves posting stuff that’s not theirs, but you get that on all sites with UGC and it could be moderated/reported.

kragen 7y ago

An interesting legal issue here is that probably many 3-D designs are not copyrightable. Copying machine parts and similar functional designs is legal in the US, the UK, and most industrialized countries, except in the narrow cases covered by patents. Sculpture is copyrightable, but gears and bottlecaps are not. I'm not sure if there is explicit caselaw on this, but almost certainly parametric OpenSCAD designs are copyrightable, being textual works of creative expression in the same vein as Python programs or TrueType fonts; not sure about STEP/IGES parametric designs, although logically the same principles should apply. So most Thingiverse designs that are copies of existing products are probably entirely legal, or legal except in a very few countries where they infringe Saudi laws about nudity depictions or patents or something, but by the same token, in many cases the licenses of the Thingiverse Things will not be usefully enforceable, because the STL (or perhaps a resampled version thereof) is statutorily not subject to copyright.