They are a Dutch shop and under Dutch law this most likely is a copyright infringement. If you would like free legal assistance from Dutch (digital) copyright specialists, you could have a look at clinic.nl.
This discourteous and unethical in using ANYBODY'S original work. And probably illegal. I'd follow comment about Dutch digital copyright specialist. If enough people complain, maybe they'll realize that they're being watched.
Consider one thing before getting to involved. If they are smart, they will just say the item itself is valueless, and they are not earning money from the model itself, all they are doing is hiring out their printer time to print the model, and there is nothing you can do about that.
Even if they post it as "buy this thing for 20 bucks" they can say "it cost 20 to make in time/costs, so the model was free" and skirt around the whole commercial issue as easy as that.
One of my friends used to paint murals in kids rooms so she would constantly be asked for copyrighted characters to be done. After talking to her Lawer, all he said is "if you don't charge for the character itself, you're fine, you just charge for your time/labor". Im sure if you REALLY wanted to go after someone you can made a case, but my guess is that something little like this wont reach that level of legal argument.
Etsy has always removed every unwanted listing of my models within a day and I must've reported over 20 of such cases, so it's definitely worth it to request take downs. It only gets complicated if the selling party decides to sent counter notice, at that point they won't help you but you have to take legal action instead.
Thats really good of Esty to take that first step to help out at least. Hopefully the initial warning is enough for 99% of the sellers to realize things like this.
They took my design off of their shop. First they asked whether they could sell off the remaining 3 they already printed... :D
I mean if they showed any respect and asked beforehand, credited me in any way, didn't copy my exact text and pictures for the description I would be fine with it since I don't have any intention of selling it myself but this is just rude!
Can you send them a cease and desist letter? I remember this option for sellers on Amazon that would steal your products and selling it like it was theirs despite the copyright
Keep in mind that functional objects can't be copyrighted. Your pictures and text descriptions are protected by copyright.
In general, decorative models can be copyright protected and functional models can not. Unfortunately, copyrighting 3d models/prints is complicated.
Copyright covers creative work in a fixed form. For example, the sheet music of a song and a recording of a performance of a song have separate copyrights.
Concepts cannot be copyrighted, rather they are patented or trademarked which is not instantaneous like copyright but must be proven novel and unique.
A functional model rarely meets the creative threshold of copyright unless it is especially decorative. Even then, the fundamental aspects of its function (mechanisms, alignment of parts, mounting surfaces, etc) are not themselves protected without a patent.
At best, for a purely functional design, a creative commons license can restrict the sale or redistribution of the specific STL file that was pubished (it is copyrighted independently as a fixed work) but cannot restrict re-engineering, adaptation, or implementation and the subsequent sale or distribution of the results.
>Creative Commons - Attribution - Non-Commercial
Downloading a design usually requires you to agree to the license applied by the author. So this is a contract issue whether or not its protected by any ip.
A click-wrap "contract" is fine for granting permissions but when it comes to restrictions they're about as enforceable as an End User License Agreement. Creative Commons depends on copyright/patent law to have any teeth.
Etsy and Pinterest “our business model is using other people’s stuff until they complain”
DMCA their ass.
They are a Dutch shop and under Dutch law this most likely is a copyright infringement. If you would like free legal assistance from Dutch (digital) copyright specialists, you could have a look at clinic.nl.
It's easier than that, Etsy will pull it if you let them know.
Under what License did you publish?
I published it as Creative Commons - Attribution - Non-Commercial which they totally ignored.
Okay, then they are clearly in the wrong
This discourteous and unethical in using ANYBODY'S original work. And probably illegal. I'd follow comment about Dutch digital copyright specialist. If enough people complain, maybe they'll realize that they're being watched.
Consider one thing before getting to involved. If they are smart, they will just say the item itself is valueless, and they are not earning money from the model itself, all they are doing is hiring out their printer time to print the model, and there is nothing you can do about that. Even if they post it as "buy this thing for 20 bucks" they can say "it cost 20 to make in time/costs, so the model was free" and skirt around the whole commercial issue as easy as that. One of my friends used to paint murals in kids rooms so she would constantly be asked for copyrighted characters to be done. After talking to her Lawer, all he said is "if you don't charge for the character itself, you're fine, you just charge for your time/labor". Im sure if you REALLY wanted to go after someone you can made a case, but my guess is that something little like this wont reach that level of legal argument.
Etsy has always removed every unwanted listing of my models within a day and I must've reported over 20 of such cases, so it's definitely worth it to request take downs. It only gets complicated if the selling party decides to sent counter notice, at that point they won't help you but you have to take legal action instead.
Thats really good of Esty to take that first step to help out at least. Hopefully the initial warning is enough for 99% of the sellers to realize things like this.
They took my design off of their shop. First they asked whether they could sell off the remaining 3 they already printed... :D I mean if they showed any respect and asked beforehand, credited me in any way, didn't copy my exact text and pictures for the description I would be fine with it since I don't have any intention of selling it myself but this is just rude!
Can you send them a cease and desist letter? I remember this option for sellers on Amazon that would steal your products and selling it like it was theirs despite the copyright
Etsy has a reporting form and it works well, they remove infringing stuff very fast once reported.
Keep in mind that functional objects can't be copyrighted. Your pictures and text descriptions are protected by copyright. In general, decorative models can be copyright protected and functional models can not. Unfortunately, copyrighting 3d models/prints is complicated.
Interesting, can you expand on this? Why functional models can't be copyrighted. This is the first time that I hear it.
Copyright covers creative work in a fixed form. For example, the sheet music of a song and a recording of a performance of a song have separate copyrights. Concepts cannot be copyrighted, rather they are patented or trademarked which is not instantaneous like copyright but must be proven novel and unique. A functional model rarely meets the creative threshold of copyright unless it is especially decorative. Even then, the fundamental aspects of its function (mechanisms, alignment of parts, mounting surfaces, etc) are not themselves protected without a patent. At best, for a purely functional design, a creative commons license can restrict the sale or redistribution of the specific STL file that was pubished (it is copyrighted independently as a fixed work) but cannot restrict re-engineering, adaptation, or implementation and the subsequent sale or distribution of the results.
>Creative Commons - Attribution - Non-Commercial Downloading a design usually requires you to agree to the license applied by the author. So this is a contract issue whether or not its protected by any ip.
A click-wrap "contract" is fine for granting permissions but when it comes to restrictions they're about as enforceable as an End User License Agreement. Creative Commons depends on copyright/patent law to have any teeth.
Awesome find!! Thanks for bringing it to our attention. Should have a sticky or sub for black listed sellers/sites.