Just Do It... not be jerks, that is

I’ve said at some great length that I’m not a fan of the Creative Commons, at least as far as its role in the art community is concerned. In short, it’s workings are more befitting to a patent enabling software programmers and developers to interface with users/modders without the hassle of red tape. This was called Copyleft. It was later formalized by Richard Stallman when he created the GNU. This was later modified again into the Creative Commons, the primary difference being the “noncommercial” and “no derivatives” clauses as available options. 

My point is, for as much as I dislike the CC, I still acknowledge its place, I respect people’s right to use it (responsibly), and I certainly do not ignore it. 

The following story of people who blatantly ignored the CC license is somewhat old news, with the offending party’s eBay store having not only all of its listings removed, but feedback as well. Just3DPrint is three college kids who offer 3D printing services on commission. If you’re new to 3D printing, don’t worry, you don’t need to understand more than the basics to see exactly how complex this problem’s root system is. As you know, DeviantART offers you a choice of standard copyright or a handful of CC license variations when you post any of your work here. Due to the open source nature of 3D printing on both the hardware and software fronts, sites like Thingiverse and Pinshape, which host user-created CAD models, the standard copyright is not available, only CC or GNU. This may seem onerous, but we have to remember what it means to copyright a work. Copyright reserves the rights to make copies to the rightsholder (hence “all rights reserved”) but putting your file on an online repository with download options specifically meant for people to make a physical copy of your sculpture needs something a little less “reserved” than copyright. There are numerous other reasons why 3D file repositories are set up this way, but that’s the most prominent aspect to the hosting arrangement. 

There is kind of an odd, nebulous gray area to this hosting arrangement involving third-party printing services. 3DHubs is a social network wherein owners of 3D printers, be they big quasi-corporate printer farms or yahoos in their living rooms, can offer their services for a fee. So, what then does that mean for uploaders of 3D files who select the “noncommercial” clause for their CAD file? Sure, DeviantART has an on-demand print service for artwork, but there’s two important things to remember. First, it’s entirely optional regardless of what license you select. Second, you get a cut of the sale. With 3DHubs, you may not even know your file is being printed. Thingiverse uploaders can have “Print” buttons to streamline the process, but a user can still download the file to their own drive and then upload it to 3DHubs directly. With thousands of transactions daily, 3DHubs can’t watchdog every single upload to make sure a noncommercial clause is being violated. The saving grace is that 3D printing is still a fairly niche hobby, so the total amount of “monetary damages” if we’re to use an extreme example is negligible. It’s still a little odd that a transaction started on Thingiverse using their “print this” button doesn’t in some way come back to the original maker. 

I’ll step out of the journal entry to give some advice to any 3D artists or sculptors who may like the idea of people having their own version of your creation. Although 3DHubs does not compensate the creator of the original model directly, Thingiverse has recently implemented a tips jar feature allowing users to send money directly to makers. Meanwhile, Pinshape, which I would consider the superior service from a commerce standpoint, lets creators set their own price for downloads. 

I suppose the saving grace for this flaw, besides the overall small market that 3D printing is today, is that no matter the license you select, due credit must always be given. Granted, this “free publicity” doesn’t put money from a sale directly in the hands of a rightsholder, but it helps deter price gouging by letting people use any printing service they choose. The service does not own the product, so it’s in their best interest to stay competitive. 

Just3DPrint, however, not only offered prints of items carrying a noncommercial clause, but did not even acknowledge, credit, or link the original creators of the models. Thousands of models on Thingiverse were being offered through Just3DPrint’s eBay store, with none of them having attribution details. A well-known Thingiverse user by the name of Loubie helped shed light on this story when she found one of her sculptures available on eBay sans a shout-out (They later said they would correct the listings to give proper credit if politely asked). There was also a noncommercial clause to her CC license, so she did what any rightsholder would do and asked them to remove the listing. 

She was utterly snubbed and told to go fly a kite. 

Loubie reached out to the community by posting some of the correspondence and encouraging other users to check the eBay store to see if any of their models were misappropriated. The comment section of this post exploded when J3DP themselves tried to run damage control and profess their innocence. However badly you may be guessing they failed, the reality is worse.

Their reply was a 3,000+ word diatribe covering a wide variety of subjects under the IP and patent umbrella, nearly all of which was so categorically false that there was no shortage of replies pointing out basics like what a trade secret really is and how the Berne Convention works. 

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1350837/#comment-801359

If you don’t want to go through the whole manifesto, here’s a vertical slice: the original reply from J3DP to Loubie upon her asking they take down their listing of one of her sculptures per its noncommercial license, emphasis mine. 

"When you uploaded your items onto Thingiverse for mass distribution, you lost all rights to them whatsoever. They entered what is known in the legal world as "public domain".The single exception to public domain rules are "original works of art".No court in the USA has yet ruled a CAD model an original work or art.Therefore, you have no right to exclude others from utilizing the CAD models you have uploaded.Furthermore, if in the future we do get a precedent in the USA for establishing CAD models as "original works of art", we would still likely be just fine as we are not re-selling your CAD models, but rather "transformative" adaptions of them in the form of 3D printed objects.
SFEP.S. When you created these CAD files, did you really want to limit the amount of people who could enjoy them to the 0.01% of the USA with a 3D Printer? 100% of America can purchase the items from us at a reasonable cost and enjoy them-creating made in the USA jobs in the process as well. Furthermore, if you hate the idea of people profiteering from your work, you may want to take it up with Makerbot/Stratasys who only hosts Thingiverse for AD revenue, to sell more 3D printers."

The Creative Commons is not the public domain (even the CC-Zero license is merely a formality). The Creative Commons does not replace Copyright. The matter of whether or not CAD files are protected is complex, but only in terms of nomenclature. What J3DP are insisting is that instructions for something are not copyrightable, which is like saying a screenplay is public domain until the movie of it gets made (at which point only the film would be copyrighted and anyone else could still adapt the screenplay). Computer Aided Drafting is not art the same way a painting or an illustration is due to the distinction between form and function, but it is nonetheless sweat of the brow, a product of human endeavor. If you invest the time and energy into creating something, copyright and patents guarantee you protection from what legal experts call freeloading assholes. 

Stratasys themselves have a wonderfully informative post about this: http://consulting.stratasys.com/2016/02/cad-copyright-and-creative-commons-the-infringement-saga-continues/ 

Further comments from the three stooges refer to the license agreement as “a fiction” created by Thingiverse as part of their scheme to profit from its users. We are now officially in foil hat territory. The Creative Commons was not made up by hosting services for nefarious purposes. I would love to see the evidence saying otherwise, but I have a feeling they’d just bring up reptoids or Freemasons or some other garbage boogeyman organization. 

Is it even worth pointing out that Thingiverse does not have advertisements on their site? 

I’m working on a much larger dissection of the J3DP manifesto I hope to have up on my WordPress site in a few weeks. Albeit it’s old news, it’s still so monstrously hilarious in its ignorance and stupidity that until these man-babies own up to their bullshit, I don’t think enough attention can be called to it. Their eBay store may be shut down, but their main site is still up and they are still offering their services. 

Update: This Article https://technical.ly/philly/2016/02/26/just-3d-print-makerbot/ sheds a little more light on their "advisors" 

Autodesk Tech Support and the Creative Commons

Recently, a certain someone in my +DevWatch I won't name posted a journal entitled, "Uncopyrightable" announcing their uploads as being public domain and usable by anyone for any purpose. This in and of itself does not bother me; the first and last say in how one's art gets used always falls to the artist. Your art, your terms. The part of that journal that did get to me, though, was the reasoning behind the move, that copyright law is a hindrance to human progress. 

No. 
Simply no. 

Copyright protects the investment of artisans, be it only time or time and money. It guarantees them a means by which they may benefit from their work to enable them to keep creating content with as few hurdles as possible. There's nothing remotely wrong with this idea; it's basic sweat of the brow logic. Is it beneficial for their to be some flexibility in these terms? Absolutely. Again, it's the artist's terms. Can this system be abused? Of course it can, but we don't ban hammers when one gets used to bash in someone's skull. Can it have the reverse effect of causing an artist to stagnate by letting them rest on their laurels instead of pushing themselves forward? Sure, but remember what we said earlier about having the first and last say on what an artist makes? 

I could go on about this until the end of time and I practically have over the years, but I bring it up now not just because of the "copyright is bad" sentiment, but also because I spent the last week getting Autodesk to admit to what's apparently a known issue with their mobile app. It has to do with DeviantART and the Creative Commons. 

For the record, cards on the table, I HATE the Creative Commons. I hate every bloody thing about it. Put simply, the CC is nothing more than Copyleft with its teeth pulled out. It's a GNU in a china shop. It's a clumsy, pandering, pretentious implementation of a license system intended for software patents. I don't like it and I don't get why anyone uses it. I like Copyleft, and I like the GNU, but all the CC does is add condescending, dictatorial stipulations like "non-commercial" and "no derivatives" which may as well say, "I want free, non-critical advertising!" 
"But I don't want people making money off my stuff!"
That's what copyright is for.
"But I want people to share my stuff and do things with it!"
That's what fair use, Copyleft, and the GNU is for.  
Anyway, back to Autodesk and their Sketchbook app. Sketchbook has a really nice option to let you post your work directly to DeviantART, rather than save it to your phone's album and then upload it from there. I don't actually know if this has any real advantage apart from skipping a step, but I like the idea of these two entities cooperating, like Wacom support for Muro. However, I found that when I posted through the app, everything was slapped with a CC 3.0 Non-commercial sharealike license, the most worthless CC license of them all. Naturally, I was a tad annoyed by this. I don't mind that my 3D print designs on Thingiverse or Pinshape can't be copyrighted, but they at least give me the option to set my license (I go with GNU/GPL). After a few more tries on my Xperia and my iPad, all while carefully scouring the menu and settings, I went to tech support to get an answer. Here's what transpired:

ME: Whenever I submit to DeviantART through the app, it sets the default license to Creative Commons. I then have to go into DeviantART and edit the license there. Is there a way to change the submission settings in Sketchbook?

DL: Can you send me some screen captures of what is happening with you?

ME: Well, that's the problem, nothing is happening. The option to change the license when submitting to DeviantArt does not exist. I may as well simply show you the screenshots from your site.

I did send him some screenshots after this part, but I don't think they were ever received.

DL: This is what I get... (link to a BOX account I can't access even after I log into BOX)

ME: I can't open that link. I have a Box account, but it's not letting me see what's in the folder. Are you saying there is a way to change the license when exporting to DeviantArt?

5 Days Later: 

DL: Sorry - Try now! (another BOX link that doesn't work). I would get a video if possible via Quick Time (on Mac) (a link to Apple's support site). 

ME: I'm still not able to load the folder. Look, I'm trying to be patient here, but this is a very simple issue and it's taken you five days to try and send me a Box link I can't open. I've sent a screenshot of what I'm shown when using the "submit to DeviantArt" option. There is no option to change the license from the default Creative Commons 3.0 license to standard copyright. If it's buried in the menu, please just walk me through it. If the settings cannot be changed, please say so, that we can address this obvious fault in your app.

DL: There isn't a way to change the settings. 

This Is Not Sharing

Based on recent events on DeviantART. 
Look, whatever side of the copyright/piracy/sharing issue you're on, no one respects a plagiarist, especially when that plagiarist defends their actions when confronted by the original artists. 

When I Get Mad (vent art)

This is how I troll people, apparently.
Some self-affirming hack on DeviantART was using a template editor to take artwork from the likes of Genzoman (one of the most recognizable artists on DA apart from SpaceCoyote or JollyJack) and make custom MAGIC: The Gathering cards (complete with a copyright notice attributed to Wizards of the Coast, making the whole "not affiliated" disclaimer more than a little suspect). After calling him out on padding his gallery with 60 of these things, he retorted with the classic, "I'm a fan paying homage." excuse that may have held water if he was just showing a tutorial or a single card as an example (another claim he made in his defense) of using the editor. I pointed out how broken his logic was, and asked why he didn't ask permission of the artists in question if he was so certain his intentions were pure. He proceeded to disable comments on all 60 of those uploads. In the few minutes between when he did that and when he actually took down all the cards, I made this one card-like object in about five minutes with a Sharpie and about half my full attention.
When I came back and saw he'd cleared away his padding, he asked a favor of me, that since I'd trolled him with such animosity (five comments on sixty uploads, one of which was suggesting he make a tutorial is trolling in his mind.) that I do the same for "everyone else" who makes cards as he had done. This makes two very stupid assumptions, that "everyone else" doing something diffuses his own responsibility, and that I haven't already confronted others of his ilk, thus singling him out. Well, when you try and justify your bullshit behavior with weak excuses and broken logic, of course I'm going to respond to tell you how broken and weak said counterpoints are. That's not trolling, that's a discussion. You just refused to realize you had no high ground, that the conversation wasn't going your way, and that on the whole it was about the only attention your gallery was getting.

A Question for YouTube (quasi-s.978/copyright related)

I'd never heard of this until a YouTube partner by the name of The Archfiend pointed it out. Apparently, a common (or once common) trend on YouTube was for people to post a comment, either on a video or a user's channel page, to the extent of "Sub4Sub" meaning, "If you subscribe to me, I shall return the favor."

For reasons that probably shouldn't have to be explained or explored in any great detail, this is really annoying, unfair, and, in the case of those asking, downright pathetic. Put simply, their channels are so bad, so borderline invisible, and so obnoxiously underwhelming that they have to ask people to subscribe to their channel in exchange for their pretend patronage.

Luckily, YouTube, in a moment of genuine interest in the goings-on of their site, decided this had to stop, and not only said as much, but literally found a way to prevent it. Now, if someone types "sub for sub" or anything along those lines, the comment does not post. The pathetic excuse for a human being begging for attention will get an error message that the comment cannot be posted due to an "internal error" which is a polite way of saying, "Get a damn life, you scum-sucking bottom-feeder." This technology isn't actually new, as many web-hosting services and a few online games have filters in place that seek out specific words and either erase them, or replace them with something else. It's typically reserved for obscenity and various foul terms, but YouTube has discovered it can also be used to keep people from mooching off of others. Again, genius.

YouTube also has a program that can "listen for" copyrighted music in videos and either mute the video or, as is more often the case, send you an e-mail asking if you'd like to allow a link to a legitimate download service (like iTunes or Amazon) to be posted alongside your video. Of course, it's not really a question, just a kind of gentle warning. They'll only post the link if they can actually get the rights to the song, otherwise they go with the muting option. In essence, they're trying to work with you, reach an agreement of sorts with the record labels so they don't take you to court for all you're worth plus interest. I've always felt the "free publicity" defense often used by people who use copyrighted music illegally in their videos is incredibly weak, tantamount to the spoiled child throwing a temper tantrum and screaming, "You never loved me!" but somehow YouTube has found a way to make it work. I may not approve of a compromise like this, but that's not the same as opposing it.

And yet, despite these capabilities at YouTube's disposal to help both its community and entertainment providers, I still see users posting full movies either in parts of around 10, or even, with the recent set of site changes of late, in single uploads. Granted, with the way the DMCA works, YouTube can't officially make a move against the offending user unless the original copyright holder files a formal complaint, a condition I consider akin to taking someone's car keys and throwing them in the river, insisting that it is not grand theft auto as the car is exactly where it was when the owner originally parked it and no one else has the keys. YouTube has created a kind of relatively safe haven for people to post videos that are not their own yet claims total immunity for what people do with it. Fair in principle, possibly, but jury's out on the practice. The point is, if they're willing to actively work and cooperate with record labels before any legal paperwork is filed, and set up parameters that flag comments for spam, why isn't there a means for automatically flagging videos that are of full-length feature films? Where's the misgiving about what exactly is going on with that user's channel? Sure, clips are tough to peg down as offending because they're only a short portion and often given at least a little context, such as hosting the video on a weblog for review or critique and putting a link to the journal in the description. Exhibiting the film in full, however, hardly counts as fair use, regardless of any attached analysis.

Copyright is far from a black and white issue, but it's not a complete gray area, either.