Slashdot Mirror
Copyright Drama Reaches 3D Printing World
jfruh writes "Stratasys, one of the world's biggest 3D printer manufacturers, routinely uses 3D-printed objects as displays for its booths at trade shows. The problem: It's been using objects designed by popular designer Asher Nahmias, whose creations are licensed under a noncommercial Creative Commons license — and he says Stratasys's use violates the licensing terms. This is just one example of how the nascent 3D printing industry is having to grapple with the IP implications of creating physical objects out of downloadable designs. Another important problem: IP law distinguishes between purely decorative and useful objects, but how should the digital files that provide a design for those objects be treated?"
The models are copyrighted and licensed NC, but what about the resulting object? Precedent seems to imply that the resulting object cannot be controlled (e.g. the output of a GPLed program is not GPLed, so why should executing a program on a 3D printer be any different?).
The cad files or what ever they are to the object as source code is to a binary.
If someone put up NC licensed instructions for making a one of these designs, and I carved one out of a block of wood. Would I still be violating the terms?
What's copyrighted is the idea, not the physical manifestation or "input". If you take a downloaded copy of HotSummerBlockbuster 3.0 and burn it to a DVD, that DVD is still covered by copyright. Similarly, you couldn't download a copyrighted song, have vinyl plates cut from it, press records, and sell those. It is the creative work itself that is covered by copyright.
TODO: Something witty here...
Derivative works, and delicious plastic nanoparticles.
.
Maybe the discussion needs to be whether or not technology advancement needs to be slowed down in order for civilasation to keep up with the changes......
Precedent seems to imply that the resulting object cannot be controlled
So the input to the projector at the movie theatre is copyrighted, but the output projected on screen isn't?
Therefore it should be legal for me to record it on my cellphone and post it on youtube. or post 15 second bits recorded on a cellphone to instragram
IP law distinguishes between purely decorative and useful objects, but how should the digital files that provide a design for those objects be treated?"
Corporations: Treat possession of them as major criminal activity. Outlaw them. Nuke it from orbit, only way to be sure.
Academics: We should probably make a fair use exception, so anyone can do it for personal use, or if its a parody work... you know, non-commercial.
Slashdotters: Screw profits! Digital blue prints want to be freeeeeeeee!
Richard Stallman: We should join our hands together and sing songs, using copyright against them! By creating free alternatives to commercial products without restriction, we can build a stronger community.
Me: Until it can print a cat, the internet won't care.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Surely this has already been covered by existing laws about patterns, etc?
When the patent trolls begin crapping all over 3d printing it will be only the behemoths and shell "intellectual property" companies who control it..like every f*cking thing else of any scale.
/end grumpy rant
I submitted a post to Slashdot back in 2005 about whether printing a document using a GPL-licensed font would make the resulting document GPL.
This sounds like a similar issue.
http://news.slashdot.org/story/05/04/17/2118203/unintended-consequences-of-using-gpl-fonts
The general concensus from the previous discussion appeared to be that (a) the GPL wasn't intended to be used for fonts, and using it that way is a bad idea, and (b) the resulting document would probably not be GPL. Of course, nobody is is a position to make any definite pronouncements about it since this issue has never come up in a courtroom, as far as I know.
If you're a zombie and you know it, bite your friend!
OK,what about the phrase "... with a 3D printer" makes this hard for people to understand? Designers copyright and/or get design patents (which are different from functional (is that the right word?) patents) on their designs. They then license those designs as theys see fit. The licensee's manufacture them, and some of the artifacts end up at Target or Macy's. There is nothing about manufacturing with a 3D printer that changes the idea of a copyrighted/patented design that needs to be licensed in order to manufacture it.
Stratasys screwed up, pure and simple. They manufactured a design without a license. Perhaps they misunderstand CC licenses. Perhaps they are jerks.
In the end, there is nothing new here. Some designs have licenses. Some companies are run by people that are clueless and/or jerks.
The phrase "... with a 3D printer" is simply newshead velcro -- people use it to get a story published. Don't let those people weaken your mind.
The reverse also happens - you can get DMCA takedowns on objects to print. And this happened years ago.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/04/the-next-napster-copyright-questions-as-3d-printing-comes-of-age/
What we're seeing is basically the same thing with software patents - immense twisting of IP laws to cope with stuff that really never occurred before.
After all, you used copyright for stuff you wrote, and that stuff you wrote was typically a book, a play, music, whatever, meant to be enjoyed by others. Or it could be an ancillary book like an instruction manual.
And patents usually applied to things that did stuff (not counting design patents) - utility patents. Machines that took something as input, ground through it, and produced something at the output.
But now you have written things that do machine things - software that is hardware (e.g., RTL). Software that replaces hardware (e.g., in machines where software replaces complex mechanical movements), software that creates hardware (3D printers). It's really never occurred before in the known history - we have created something revolutionary - software.
Hell, even in the old CNC days the CNC code was never an issue since they're usually customized for the machine and generated (either manually or through automation) from the basic CAD file.
We live in interesting times ,and really, IP laws need to be revised because we can't squeeze software as either a copyright or a patent thing - it just leads to the mess we're in now.
You know the difference between commercially manufacturing a product and an estate sale.
So does the law. An estate sale is not commercial use.
Someone will probably make a free (beer and speech) version anyway when 3d printers basically take over the world
Precedent seems to imply that the resulting object cannot be controlled (e.g. the output of a GPLed program is not GPLed, so why should executing a program on a 3D printer be any different?)
What if the program is a quine?
It's often said around here that adding "on a computer" to an old invention doesn't make it a new invention.
Same with stealing. If someone earns their living designing things and selling those designs, you shouldn't steal them. Stealing on a computer is still stealing.
I think this is only going to get worse as things improve. When all you can make are low quality, tiny objects, of 1 (maybe 2 or 3) colours then nobody really cares too much if you copy their designs as you can't do anything terribly useful with them. But as the price comes down meaning they become more widely accessible, and the quality and size of output improves I believe companies and individuals will quickly become very interested in lobbying for IP laws against these printers.
Not that I want those laws mind you but given the way they are behaving with things such as movies and music I think it's inevitable.
Ryans Tutorials - A collection of technology tutorials.
Mod points, where are you? I need you!
Creating a work which is identical to another copyrighted work is only infringing if you copied the latter to get the former. If it's just a coincidence, or due to outside constraints such as efficiency, it's not infringing. Of course the more complex the work is, the harder it'll be in practice to convince a court that it wasn't copying, but careful record keeping can help. Is the IBM bios identical in any part to the compatible BIOSes first written by Columbia, Eagle, and Compaq? I don't know, but if so, their careful methodology to prove independent creation protected them.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
In Ye Old Days, instead of selling objects themselves, it was common for people to sell the designs of objects to blacksmiths, and make their money that way. This is surely just taking back the rules to the dawn of industrialisation.
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
A pdf file is a program, written in the postscript language, directing a 2D printer to create some 2D object. I can't print copies of someone's book and sell them without permission based on the argument that the book is the output of the PDF program.
I don't see how adding an extra D changes that. Some people, probably including Stallman, would say that authors (and programmers) SHOULD work for free, giving their stuff away. Maybe so. That doesn't mean they DO. This particular designer gave away his work to people who wanted to use it for non-commercial purposes. Good for him. He didn't give his work free to companies to use commercially. If you're going to make a living from my work, I get a cut, he decided. Fine, that's his decision.
Can we not also make a deal saying "I'll give you my designs if you agree not to sell the objects I designed"?
Probably, but that's not the kind of situation I was directly addressing.
A deal like that is a contract, as long as there is consideration on BOTH sides... something a lot of people tend to forget. I'm not saying there isn't any here, I'm just reminding that it is necessary. Okay. So as long as there is consideration and the agreement does not otherwise violate law, it's a contract.
But contracts have nothing to do with copyright law. (Except that First Sale Doctrine says there are certain kinds of contracts you can't make... and I don't think that applies here.) But what I was referring to was copyright law. The fact that an artist might enforce copyright on his drawing does not mean he can automatically enforce it on a physical object made from that drawing. By law they are two different things.
But again, that's aside from any agreement. I don't know of any reason that agreement would not be valid, if indeed that is the agreement that was made.
This isn't a new area of law. It's been litigated thoroughly by the third-party auto parts industry, which routinely makes copies of auto parts. Some auto companies have applied for design patents on some body parts, but to get a design patent, there has to be a significant difference over any other existing object. There are maybe 400 auto part design patents a year, and design patents are only good for 14 years.
It's different for decorative objects. Those can be copyrighted. But functional parts, no.
Can a scan of a real-world object be copyrighted when the scanned object is not? Not in the US. See Meshwerks vs. Toyota. A scan is not a creative work. It doesn't matter that it takes effort to create, and work to clean up. It's still not a creative work. The court followed the same line of reasoning as in Bridgeman vs. Corel, which established that photos of public domain 2D pictures cannot be copyrighted. (Despite much grumbling from the museum community, that decision has held up. Wikipedia relies on that. The National Portrait Gallery (UK) once threatened to sue Wikipedia. Wikipedia didn't back down. The National Portrait Gallery did.) That decision in turn relied on the famous Supreme Court case Feist vs. Rural Telephone, which established that phone books are not copyrightable as a constitutional matter. "The threshold for originality is low, but it exists". That's why everybody has phone book data, map data, and similar databases now.
Once consumer-grade 3D printers get good enough that they're used for something more than turning out plastic game pieces, this problem will decrease.
Why? If I design something, I don't want you to print that without paying me.
This is the equivalent to the argument; "Here, I'll let you see all my recipes, and you can even save my cookbook to your computer."
But don't you dare think about making blueberry muffins and having a bake sale; I will demand a cut from every muffin you bake using my design!
I'd have modded him and you too. His statement is spot on.
God spoke to me
Sorry... my memory does not work nearly as well as the cut and paste buffer which had the URL in it. Did I ever botch a name... Osamu Tezuka.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
It's free for you to use. It's not free for your company to use. See the difference?
http://soylentnews.org/~tibman
How can you print the object if you don't have permission to have a copy of the plans? Seems like copyrighted plans would prevent us from even having to argue about the resulting object.
http://soylentnews.org/~tibman
But architectural drawings, blueprints, plans, models, and images can be. Do you see the parallel?
The Law cannot be expected to deal with bizarre or paradoxical cases arises from people that insist on using weird licenses to protect their creations. What does "non-commercial" even mean? When the government goes after targets using laws with 'financial' constructs, it claims almost everything a Human might do has a financial value, even simply gaining a new friend.
How can simply printing out a design with no intent to directly sell the item be a 'commercial' use? Sure, the company 'gains' but so would anyone else using the design. I mean, if YOU used it, you would 'gain' from not having to pay for it. Does that money saving make your use 'commercial'?
It gets worse. Say the company gives away the objects it previously created for display. The person who receives the gift can hardly be prevented from selling it on.
Courts would have little sympathy with the clown that chose to use this license. It is not their job to unravel Gordian knots created by the complainant.
Surely the lesson learnt here is to insert a clause in FUTURE non-commercial licenses denying the rights to use the data set to create actual physical models. In the mean time, Nahmias should stop his childish whining - oh, i just noticed, he's one of those attention seeking perpetual victims form Israel- no wonder the owners of Slashdot are promoting this story. I guess it's time for Slashdot to roll out another Iran bashing story as the other side of this tedious propaganda ploy.
Perhaps they misunderstand CC licenses.
Maybe, maybe not. They were not selling the items. The items were on public display and there was no charge for viewing. The items were merely made by the printer they were selling. The CC license defines commercial use as "in any manner that is primarily intended for or directed toward commercial advantage or private monetary compensation." One could argue there is no commercial advantage since other 3D printers could create the same items, that the items merely familiarizes the viewer with what is possible with 3D printing in general. One could also argue that there is no monetary compensation for viewing the items and they are not being sold. I think there is ample room for misunderstanding the license, I'm just not sure which side is misunderstanding it.
Perhaps they are jerks.
Doubtful, they seem to be willing to keep things friendly. From the article: "Nahmais [IP owner] also posted an email exchange he said he had with Dan Yalon, executive vice president for business development and strategic marketing for Stratasys, in which Yalon says the company will be sure to ask for permission and give attribution in the future. In the email Yalon also agreed to donate a sum of money to a charity to make up for it, although Nahmias, via Twitter, said he's not sure if Stratasys has done so."
Stealing something is taking it away from the previous owner. Copy is by definition not theft.
The printed object itself may be unbound from copyright violation, but if the object is deemed art and the motion of the printer is considered the performance of said art, then will we inevitably end up with something like a Spotify for 3D printing? This would classify the live printing of the object as a violation.
Obviously.... but this wouldn't even have become an issue if the designer hadn't made available a digital copy of their design.
I equated this earlier to someone sharing a copy of their brownie recipe with you, and then getting upset, when they learned you had cooked some brownies up according to the recipe and sold them at a bake sale.
Just like with a cookbook; if you become a legal possessor of a design or instructions on how to make something --- then you are legally allowed to make and sell the thing, and copyright doesn't stop you.
Not only does copyright not stop you, but the copyright holder is restrained by the courts from preventing you.
They could in some cases stop you by introducing a creative expression of solely aesthetic value (that you would be required to remove, to avoid infringement); or they could patent it.
But that's IT. To say you never owned a legal copy of the work --- is equivalent to saying the designer never made a copy available to you in the first place - in which case the whole idea of any restrictions is moot.
Of course, you could still legally produce the thing by reverse engineering the design, from a copy the designer printed, and print more of your own....
Ps - I realize that when I say the license is the contract, I'm assuming meeting of the minds. The license contract should be clear about printed renditions, so both parties know what they are agreeing to.
But a license is _not_ a contract (not in US law; it may be in other places but there usually all the other laws are different as well). A license is something that gives you certain rights that you wouldn't have without a license. For copyrighted works, you would have very few rights if you didn't have a license.
If a right you would wish to have is not mentioned in the license, and you don't have the right by law, then you don't have that right.
Creating a work which is identical to another copyrighted work is only infringing if you copied the latter to get the former.
May be true may be not... but for sure it's irrelevant for the matter at hand: in this case, the copies are obtained from a blue-print/design/etc by interpreting the "construction instructions" (using a 3D printer as an instrument).
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
I dont really see the legal issue here.
There are already lots of precedences. Knitting designs are one. Even though the pattern may be reproduced (the "program" that tells you how to make the sweater), actually reproducing a patented work is still not legal, regardless of how you obtained the means to reproduce it.
While I'm not a US patent lawyer, I'm quite certain that infringement has nothing to do with the METHOD used to infringe on a patent or trademark. And lets face it, 3D printing is just a tool.
Sure, there may be some IP associated with the program running on the printer (well, not here, as the author has decided to give the program away), but that doesn't exempt the resulting work from copyright law....
--- To err is human... Am I more human than most ?
Like the output of a program? It's a physical object. Of cause it's to be considered like a photocopied book
I don't understand what's the principal difference between a 3D printer and some other type of machine for manufacturing physical objects regarding IP laws. A press o lathe can also be controlled by a computer, you can load designes in it.
Precedent seems to imply that the resulting object cannot be controlled (e.g. the output of a GPLed program is not GPLed, so why should executing a program on a 3D printer be any different?).
Don't you hate it when those "power-users" in your company talk about computers? Does it make you cringe when they mix and abuse tech terms that make them look smart to the other users who have no idea what they're talking about, but to you, a real techie, it just hurts you inside?
Guess what, it's the same with law. Those who know about the law cringe when they hear those crappy pseudo-smart comments from the geeks and nerds who think they got it, but they don't.
The output of a software does not fall under the license of the software nor is it covered by the copyright that covers the software. However that does not mean it exists in a legal vacuum. If I write a piece of software that, in whichever way, creates a precise copy of Harry Potter as its output, that resulting text is still legally a copy of Harry Potter and me publishing it as a book would run afoul of copyright law.
That is what copyright law is about. You can't legally copy stuff that is copyrighted by someone else without his permission. It doesn't matter if you copy it with a photocopier, or by taking a picture, or by hand the way the bible was copied through the middle ages. It is the resulting copy that is governed by the law, not the means of getting it.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
It's the court system, as gamed by the cartels, that say that you need a license to use a copyrighted work.
The Berne convention specifically and explicitly says not.
We saw this coming a mile away - so did the Makerbot guy who sold out to Stratasys.
Not sure of the time of death for 3D printing, but the locale will be the Rocket Docket of East Texas.
I agree with you, and I would go a step further: let's say technically the law has not been broken (but what about considering the finished object a sign of the violation and the downloading and use of the design the violation).
So what? the printer maker should apologize for not having understood the author of the design and make a deal. If they DID understand the author and worked around his wish, they should apologize louder. Failure to comply with the above has repercussion in MY opinion of such a company, I don't want to be their customer.
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
Easy to circumvent. Fred downloads the pattern, in the process promising not to use it for commercial purposes. Fred prints it out, and gives the resulting object to Jim. Jim uses it in his company's display booth at a show. The designer is using the licence to extend copyright into areas that it should not extend.
Or at least, that's what the man page for the copy of TeX on my NeXT Cube stated.
This isn't much different from that.
The company, as a commercial entity, has to accept that they don't have unrestricted access to items which are licensed under a non-commercial license --- they either need to comply w/ the license (properly attributing it in this case), or draw up their own version.
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
Although you are in theory correct on your facts, in practical application it is not so for digital works. Digital works are more flexible, allowing anything from pay-per-view to WTFPL.
You can do none of those things without first obtaining a copy and thereby dealing with copy rights. As Kindle and Nook users know, at that point each capability you listed above is negotiable. You can pay $65 to fully purchase a dead-tree edition of the book, or you can choose to pay $1 to rent the book for a day. Only the $65 copy can be loaned out. That's nothing new, really movie tickets are the same way - you can watch the movie, but not loan it to a friend. For twice the cost of the ticket, you can get the DVD, which is loanable. It's up to you what capabilities you want to actually have, or whether you want to save a few bucks. That choice is made when you get your copy, right?
No, however, if you think about "instructions" for other things, it can get complicated. If I sell/give you some sheet music, that doesn't automatically transfer rights to you to commercially perform that music. It's always been that sheet music is sold for you to learn and play for yourself, and maybe a few close friends. But you aren't allowed to go purchase the sheet music of your favourite rock band and go around performing it without another license. Whether or not music is a physical object is up for debate, but it is the result of the instructions. You could argue that it's like a recipe book. I've never heard of any recipe book saying you can make all the recipes in the book, but just don't sell them. What you do with the food is up to you. But you can't copyright the actual recipe anyway, so I'm not sure how much that really applies. When I think about all the stuff you can purchase digitally, most of it comes with a non-commercial, personal use license. Buying a CD/iTunes track doesn't give you the right to use it commercially. Buying a book from Kindle doesn't give you the right to sell it even print out a physical copy for your own use.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
I believe the design in question is an aesthetic one. It's only purpose is decorative.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
You've forgotten to layer on the fact that the designer has offered a general license to manufacture copies of the design so long as it is for non-commercial purposes -- a "Creative Commons - Attribution - NON Commercial License" (version not specified). You need to analyze whether the manufacturing -- not a sufficiently separated subsequent use -- of the copy violates the license. Nahmias seems to believe that his license controls subsequent use of the design. That is not true.
Copyright law does not give the designer of a sculptural work the ability to control the public display of copies owned by others. If you own it, you can display it. 17 USC 109(c). The other exclusive rights under copyright pertain to the creation of copies, not their subsequent use. 17 USC 106.
If the objects were created for display in a trade show, then there is an argument that they were created in breach of the license. However, if the objects were printed without the intent to sell them, use them for advertising, etc., there is a good argument that their initial creation did not violate the license -- which prohibits creating copies "in any manner that is primarily intended for or directed toward commercial advantage or private monetary compensation" -- and that later use for "commercial advantage" is not a copyright violation. It's the sort of grey area that drives the typical Slashdot reader nuts as they try to find the sharp separation between permitted and prohibited -- and come up with increasingly crazy ways to try to bend/break the rule ("What if you print 100 copies without intending to sell them, and then 5 minutes later decide to sell them...").
The "Restrictions" section of the CC BY-NC license is not a contract signed by the person using the design or a subsequent purchaser of what was made. It is only enforceable if what is prohibited is also prohibited by copyright law, and the designer cannot retroactively revoke the license after the physical object has been made. Stratasys did not "screw[] up, pure and simple." You would need to know much more concerning when and why the design was made before you can conclude that they've violated the license.
Here's a link with a picture.
http://publicknowledge.org/node/7623
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
it's more like if using a cc licensed phrase was ok to use in marketing materials for a printer.
there's pretty much a consensus that using gpl to print an object doesn't make the object gpl.. most cheap printers run oss.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
I don't understand what's the principal difference between a 3D printer and some other type of machine for manufacturing physical objects regarding IP laws. A press o lathe can also be controlled by a computer, you can load designes in it.
well the real point is that CC licenses are really iffy in practice. they're not selling the objects, remember, they're just using a picture of the object in marketing materials.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
So don't commercial companies have to honour the no-commerce licensing of individuals?
They can't have it both ways.
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
No, it's called copy right because because it's the right to make a copy. It has zip to do with giving or recieving. You'll notice that "RIAA like bullshit" gets you busted in court because that's the law of the land and has been for centuries. That was law before the phrase "copy right" was used as a shorthand term for it.
You might not LIKE the law, but that's the law. If you don't like it, go back and talk to Queen Elizabeth.
An image file is nothing more the instructions to a graphics program of how to produce an image. It is the image that is copyrighted NOT the graphics file. That why re-encoding a file doesn't change its copyright. You might as well claim that the light emitting from your screen isn't the copyright image...
IF you want to challenge this, you should seek the "recipe" route. US copyright does NOT allow recipes that are mere listings of ingredients to be copyrighted. Is an image/CAD/MP3 file not merely a listing of inputs to the cook/graphics program/CAD/music player? Bit X tells the speaker magnet to move to position Y and foila, sound emerges same as if I combine eggs with milk and heat, an omelet comes out.
But this idea is nothing new, smarter people then me have thought about this AND come to the conclusion it doesn't work like this. A movie file is NOT a recipe for a light show on your monitor. It isn't the instructions that are copyrighted, it is the art. A CAD file for a simple ball is not copyrightable, a figurine is.
And this makes common sense because right now it is NOT allowed to scan a figure and reproduce it. So why should a CAD file, which could easily be produced by scanning not be copyrightable under existing laws?
I am not making a judgement here on right or wrong, I think the copyright system sucks BUT as it is now, 3D printing of other peoples creations falls under copyright infringement if they did not give you permission or made the designs open to all.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
In the end, there is nothing new here. Some designs have licenses.
:D
The underlying issue, yes, long resolved (we've had CNCs for decades, does all of Slashdot think these issues haven't already come up to some degree?).
The specifics here interest me more than the general score-vs-performance principle - In this case, we have an otherwise-permissive noncommercial use license on the designs. Even CC's website refuses to make a concrete stand as to what that really means.
If Stratasys had sold the models they produced, we'd have a much clearer situation here... But they didn't. They simply used them as not-for-sale examples of what their printers can do. Does that count as commercial use or not?
As the closest analogy I can think of, do you need to own the rights to Beethoven to demo your for-sale audio system playing his 5th? But even that falls short, because while any particular performance of that work most likely has a straight-up copyright on it, in this case we have an intentionally less restrictive license involved.
Then again, personally, I just don't care. Stereotypical or not, I very much fall into the Slashdot standard of "rule however you want, we'll still just copy it anyway".
That would work, if the judge were a complete moron. More like:
Fred and Jim select a design, looking under the category "CCL - not for commercial use".
Fred and Jim render it.
Fred and Jim knowingly use it for commercial use, in violation of the license they voluntarily agreed to.
Fred and Jim insult the judge's intelligence claiming that neither Jim nor Fred had any idea what the other was doing.
Fred and Jim end up paying treble damages.
You said "easy to circumvent". It's generally not a good idea to try to "circumvent" the law.
That only changes you from a law-breaker to a smartass law-breaker.
> But a license is _not_ a contract (not in US law; it may be in other places but there usually all the other laws are different as well).
I suspect you're thinking of a EULA hidden inside the box, which the customer can't read, and therefore can't agree to, before purchasing the boxed software.
Since the buyer didn't agree to the contract prior to purchase, it's unenforcable.
> A license is something that gives you certain rights that you wouldn't have without a license.
Something tat gives you certain rights is also a contract, in most cases. More specifically, a contract is something that gives you certain rights, in exchange for something, which you accept, on purpose. So a license is also a contract if a) it imposes some condition on the recipient, b) is accepted by the recipient and c) both parties intend to "strike a deal", to get the advantages offered by the license contract.
The elements of a contract, in simplest terms:
person A: I'll do X (or let you do X) if you do Y.
person B: Okay, I agree, I'll do Y.
A contract that is also a license:
person A: I'll give you a right to copy my work, if you refrain from commercial use. (Creative commons license, non-commercial)
person B: Clicks "I agree to the license"
The only questionable part is whether person B, in agreeing to the CCL, agreed not to render the design for commercial purposes.
They may have meant that they agreed not to sell the design itself. Clear wording in the license will fix that.
In a specific case, there may be emails where the licensee said they understood the license agreement to mean they couldn't
use the design, including printed copies, for commercial purposes. If so, they are in violation of the agreement. They made a
deal, they understood the deal they made, and they violated the deal.
> But a license is _not_ a contract (not in US law; it may be in other places but there usually all the other laws are different as well).
I suspect you're thinking of a EULA hidden inside the box, which the customer can't read, and therefore can't agree to, before purchasing the boxed software.
Since the buyer didn't agree to the contract prior to purchase, it's unenforcable.
> A license is something that gives you certain rights that you wouldn't have without a license.
Something that gives you certain rights is also a contract, in many cases. More specifically, a contract is something that gives you certain rights, in exchange for something, which you accept, on purpose. So a license is also a contract if a) it imposes some condition on the recipient, b) is accepted by the recipient and c) both parties intend to "strike a deal", to get the advantages offered by the license contract.
The elements of a contract, in simplest terms:
person A: I'll do X (or let you do X) if you do Y.
person B: Okay, I agree, I'll do Y.
A contract that is also a license:
person A: I'll give you a right to copy my work, if you refrain from commercial use. (Creative commons license, non-commercial)
person B: Clicks "I agree to the license"
The only questionable part is whether person B, in agreeing to the CCL, agreed not to render the design for commercial purposes.
They may have meant that they agreed not to sell the design itself. Clear wording in the license will fix that.
In a specific case, there may be emails where the licensee said they understood the license agreement to mean they couldn't
use the design, including printed copies, for commercial purposes. If so, they are in violation of the agreement. They made a
deal, they understood the deal they made, and they violated the deal.
So how is this different from me making a design for a cool look on a tshirt, or a skateboard, or whatever, saying you can't use it for commercial use, then having you print out and sell tshirts? Or use my logo as advertising printed out to entice people into your tshirt printing shop? The fact that it's a multi layer process isn't even new - screen printing has worked that way for ages.
> So what? the printer maker should apologize for not having understood the author of the design and make a deal. If they DID
> understand the author and worked around his wish, they should apologize louder. Failure to comply with the above has repercussion
> in MY opinion of such a company, I don't want to be their customer.
Indeed. Working out disagreements in a respectful, humble way is a sign of being what's called a "grown up".
"I'm sorry I offended you" is a sentence we should all use often, right along with "how can I help?"
"in that what is patentable is not copyrightable"
Wrong. Software patents, ring a bell?
No, the previous poster was right: patents and copyrights don't overlap. That doesn't mean that a single thing might not posses some qualities which are copyrightable and some other qualities which are patentable, however.
For example, in the case of software, a patent can protect the functional aspects of the program (so long as they're novel, non obvious, useful, etc.) while a copyright protects literal copying of the particular program as it has been written. If one wrote a totally different program from scratch which reimplemented the same functionality, it might infringe on the patent, but not the copyright. If one literally copied the nonpatented portions of the software (the parts that aren't novel, nonobvious, useful, etc.), that might infringe on the copyright, but not the patent.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Exactly. Greed is the ONLY reason copyright even exists in the first place.
-> (e.g. the output of a GPLed program is not GPLed, so why should executing a program on a 3D printer be any different?)
The output of a GPL program (a compiler for example) might not be governed by the license on the program, but might be governed by the license on the source file (the design). I can't take Open Source code, compile it with a GPL compiler and sell it for profit without including the source and attribution because "the output of a GPLed program is not GPLed".
I can't use the IBM logo for my own personal use because I 2D printed it myself. Manufacturing does not wash away any need to respect I.P. rights.
> If I inherit a sculpture from my grandfather, can I sell it?
..."
Yes, that's not commercial production of the sculpture. You know the difference between a garage sale and a factory.
What makes you think judges don't? Note you can sell a book in your garage sale too, there's nothing new here.
> If someone gives me a sculpture, can I put it on the shelf behind the counter in my shop?
Again, of course, nothing new here. Unless of course you agree not to put it up for public display.
Then your question becomes "can I make a contract agreeing to do something, then disregard my agreement?"
> It's ridiculous, and I don't think that a judge would uphold that a licence on a design could restrict use of the physical object that that design describes.
The binary code on a DVD describes pictures on a screen. "Licensed for private home exhibition only
Here's a link with a picture.
Well... that particular piece would not appear to have any useful function. Therefore, it could be deemed completely an aesthetic piece, so it would be copyrightable..... and indeed, the author would have the exclusive right to authorize the display of the work in a public place; with the possible exception of someone displaying a legal copy case for certain purposes such as advertising that the copy is for sale by showing it in a store display case with a price tag.
I agree, the 3D printer part is a red herring. There's nothing even remotely new here. May as well talk about hammer and chisel and a block of marble.
However what may be confusing is what it means to be licensed for "no commercial advantage". Selling copies of the object would be right out, but would just displaying the object as an example of what could be made with a commercial product count as commercial advantage? Could you include a picture of the object in an advertisement for a chisel? Of course it may seem perfectly clear to some non-lawyers but would this really hold up in court? What if I printed the object for my private use but then I died and someone inherited that piece of art, could they then display it in their store window to attract customers?
(On the other hand, it is a bit odd for the artist who freely shares non-commercially goes and removes all designs from a 3d printing sight just because someone used it commercially; this seems the opposite of sharing. It seems the artist gives less priority to the thousands of users using the object appropriately than the one user who did it incorrectly.
"If someone designs things and makes a living selling those designs ..."
Guess what. When you take away someone's livelihood, you're taking something from them.
Stealing my car would damage me much less than stealing my life's work, the things I've spent years authoring. I understand you want "free" stuff, so you try hard to convince yourself you're not really stealing. The thing is, at some level you not only know that what you're doing in theft, you know what that makes you - a thief. That may be why you're a sarcastic jackass - because knowing that you're a thief puts a man in a bad mood. When you stop being a thief, life is far more pleasant, because you know you really are who you wish to be.
I'll listen to the Supreme Court over some random internet jackass... and the Supreme Court has ruled that copyright infringement IS NOT STEALING.
If you don't like that FACT, take it up with SCOTUS.
This space available.
If you're getting that from the textbook first sale case, read the opinion you think you're citing. The ruling was that selling a book you've bought is neither copyright infringement nor theft.
On the other hand:
In Metro-Goldwyn Mayer v. Grokster, Justice Breyer, joined by Justices Stevens and OConnor, said, "deliberate unlawful copying is no less an unlawful taking of property than garden-variety theft."
That's just the most recent time they said copyright
infringement is stealing just as much as any other form of stealing. Seriously, the best way to convince yourself that you're not a thief is to stop stealing.
So if I get source code and make a program from it, I'm free to do with the program whatever I want, unrestricted by copyright?
There is an argument that the executable code is covered by the copyright too as a compact representation of its source code. If that's the case, No.
However, you are free to compile and use the source code, AND do what you like with the output of the program, unrestricted by the copyright --- assuming the programs' input does not contain something copyrighted, and the output is not the program's code.
E.g. You can't necessarily use blogging software however you want, because the output may be HTML with separately copyrightable elements such as images and Javascript files produced verbatim from resource files provided by the author of the software.
So Nahmias aka Dizingof suddenly becomes famous from companies like Stratasys showcasing his designs as some of the best in the field, showing the capabilities of the top end machines, and so he turns round and in return for all this free publicity, decides to sue. What a wanker. If it were not for Stratasys, we would never have heard of the guy. Crawl back into your fucking hole you miserable little ingrate.
Wrong. It applies to any public performance. It's just that if the band is playing in a pub to ten people and a dog it isn't worth going after a cut of their free beer..
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."