Plagarism in the open source field

There is something particularly annoying when somebody claims that your design is their own. If I design something and somebody copies it and gets rich I wish them luck - while cursing myself for not doing that myself. However, if somebody claims that something that I have designed is their design it really gets my goat. Spot the difference below:-

Plasticprince claims this as his eleventh design [www.thingiverse.com]


And this is plate1 from my design [www.thingiverse.com]


Just over two years ago I found that somebody else had copied the same bell and was manufacturing it for sale. When I contacted him he immediately credited me with the design and since the bells he makes are so good I have no probelem with that.

Mike

What a tosser, he's a bell end, maybe he copied the guy that copied you and now think you copied him, and gets hurt by it, do people actually pay to DL this? or he's selling them...to other bellend nutters, no ding dong on this bell...i'd rather have one in chocolate with foil on hanging from the tree.

The world of 3D printing is a strange one, who knows what will make money? Its opened up a large number of possibilities for weird hobbies -- Including bell lovers?

If you have enough twitter clout, it seems the best way is to name and shame. At the very least the drama of social media will give you more viewers / patreon tips / etsy sells, even if the thief never comes to justice.

To everyone else.... Oh well, better luck next time! Take it as a form of flattery? They really liked your bell.

Let me tell you how the internet works... If you don't want your stuff copied, don't upload it anywhere. If you want to sell your bells, sell the prints and keep the stl file off the web.

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Ultra MegaMax Dominator 3D printer: [drmrehorst.blogspot.com]

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Mechabits
................................................... do people actually pay to DL this? or he's selling them...to other bellend nutters, no ding dong on this bell...i'd rather have one in chocolate with foil on hanging from the tree.

Ah yes, bellringers??? But then, in a country with Morris Dancers, Train Spotters, Cheese Rollers and Worm Charmers it is a bit severe to call bellringers nutters - and even the Morris Dancers pale into normalicy compared to some of the denizens of our Western ex-colonies.

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the_digital_dentist
Let me tell you how the internet works... If you don't want your stuff copied, don't upload it anywhere. If you want to sell your bells, sell the prints and keep the stl file off the web.

I don't mind having my stuff copied, as Origamib says, it is a form of flattery. I understand that the earlier copier (now forgiven) [www.sterling-applications.com] has sold perhaps 50 at £97.50 each. My problem is only with people claiming that it is their design.

Mike

I hate to break it to you, but if you put both STL files into the same slicer/3d modeler they are different sizes. The bell.stl file from the Plasticprince files is not as tall as your bell from plate1 and appears to actually fit inside of your plate1.stl bell design.

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PDBeal
I hate to break it to you, but if you put both STL files into the same slicer/3d modeler they are different sizes. The bell.stl file from the Plasticprince files is not as tall as your bell from plate1 and appears to actually fit inside of your plate1.stl bell design.

Changing the height of something does not change what it is, nor does putting in an internal support. Not even changes that alter the size of the file matter. That the new bell is a copy is again of little importance, All that matters is that this was done with a trivial amount of work and that plasticprince claimed the design as his own. Ask yourself only this: Do you believe that it is mathematically possible for the design presented to have been independently designed?

Mike

This Bell Story has been raised before hasnt it, perhaps the first time? Seems to ring a Bell perhaps its just Christmas Advertising

Isn't that bell a copy of an actual bronze bell an artist created long ago?

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etfrench
Isn't that bell a copy of an actual bronze bell an artist created long ago?

It is not a copy. The old church bells were made by craftsmen who came up with general rules to get the right note and a good sound and the designs they came up with evolved over time:- where to put the thickest metal and the general shape. Each craftsman or factory had their own particular take on what was best and I have used the same method. Where they would use a curved wooden plates called "Strickles" which they rotated about an axle to make the shape in sand, I have instead used splines in Turbocad to generate the profile and rotated this to generate a 3D form. The bands around the bell are mostly for embelishment and are just a judgement so will difffer in almost every bell. The crown is unique and doesn't represent any that I have found in a lot of searching - it was partly forced by what was easily achievable in turbocad. It is also too small for a practical bell and even for my original model so was replaced by one with a more robust crown.

But once again, it is not the copying. There are models on Thingiverse which incorporate another of my bells without attribution and I am delighted that they were used even without attribution. It is a very different matter if somebody takes one of my designs and very trivially changes it and then claims it as their own - Thingiverse has remixes for that purpose.

Mike

Hi Mike,

I'm feeling with you

Had some similar experiences of my own - some with minor impact, others with more ... several companies used ans use my ideas, designs or developments for their own comercial products without any mention or credits (be it monetary or symbolic) - some of them even despite prior cooperation

This was one of the reasons, why I've started to support "Open" projects and developments and force high-tech developments on hobbyist basis since 2005 -- and the main reason, I've joined RepRap

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Viktor
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Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]

Call for the project "garbage-free seas" - [reprap.org]

I can top that plagiarism although it's not 3D printer related. Someone in another part of the country copied a picture of one of the decks I had built from my web site and used it on their own web site. They then went on to say "This is an example of one of our decks that we built for Mrs xxxx". That's kind of bad enough but then they posted a fake testimonial from the non existent Mrs xxx saying how pleased she was and what a good job they had done !

The only action I could take was to contact his web hosting company and threaten them with breach of copyright for the image (which they immediately removed). I also sent him a "Cease and desist" letter and wrote to all the trade organisations that he claimed to be a member of but wasn't. I contacted "Trading standards" they didn't want to know, claiming that they could only get involved if a member of the public lost money and after the event. So AFAIK he's still out there conning people.

Oh, and since then I always put a copyright water mark on all the pics on my web site. It won't stop people copying them and claiming them as their own, but removing the "Copyright P.E.G. Services" watermark should make it difficult enough to deter them.

Most kinds of theft are for reasons that we may understand even while we condemn them: 'Their children are starving', 'He has a drug habit' etc., but claiming to have designed something by copying it seems very sad, strange and pointless in the maker and open source movements. Many, perhaps most open source things, such as that bell make neither the true designer, myself in this case, nor the imposter any money; so why do it?

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Shakespeare
Who steals my purse, steals trash, but he that filches from me my good name robs me of that which not enriches him and makes me poor indeed

Mike

Your bell was very difficult to replicate. it took me at least 5 minutes to model, and the render took 3 minutes

Ah but it's not the same, yours is more like a gnomes hat, maybe emboss a D on it?


Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/23/2017 05:30PM by MechaBits.

So you drafted this "bell" that looks like a copy of a real one DESIGNED, MADE according to certain rules by experienced craftsmen, artists who copied the original idea of a guy who invented the first one and you cry because yours was copied ?
Gee !

On the other hand, I see a piezo sensor that looks familiar, who copied whom ?

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/24/2017 11:20AM by MKSA.

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"A comical prototype doesn't mean a dumb idea is possible" (Thunderf00t)

We all stand on the shoulders of giants...

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Ultra MegaMax Dominator 3D printer: [drmrehorst.blogspot.com]

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MKSA
So you drafted this "bell" that looks like a copy of a real one DESIGNED, MADE according to certain rules by experienced craftsmen, artists who copied the original idea of a guy who invented the first one and you cry because yours was copied ?
Gee !

On the other hand, I see a piezo sensor that looks familiar, who copied whom ?

No, For the umpteenth repeat, I am pleased that he copied it, I am not pleased that he claimed to have designed it. Possibly going back to school to re-do that item called comprehension may help.
Editied out that last bit, it was unworthy. But please go back to my original posting and the CAD renderings. The point is that even for a simple item like this claiming undue credit is wrong -particularly when remix is an option.

Mike

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/24/2017 12:25PM by leadinglights.

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leadinglights

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MKSA
So you drafted this "bell" that looks like a copy of a real one DESIGNED, MADE according to certain rules by experienced craftsmen, artists who copied the original idea of a guy who invented the first one and you cry because yours was copied ?
Gee !

On the other hand, I see a piezo sensor that looks familiar, who copied whom ?

No, For the umpteenth repeat, I am pleased that he copied it, I am not pleased that he claimed to have designed it. Possibly going back to school to re-do that item called comprehension may help.
Editied out that last bit, it was unworthy. But please go back to my original posting and the CAD renderings. The point is that even for a simple item like this claiming undue credit is wrong -particularly when remix is an option.

Mike

You are the one who should go back to school because I just pointed out the fact you make a fuss for nothing considering you didn't invent the bell, didn't make one, just spend 10 minutes to draw one and publish it. That someone "copy" it without mentioning he took it from you, shouldn't upset you and you shouldn't have started this topic here and keep arguing despite all the other comments.

Now, it is a sad fact that some REAL smart ideas get copied without the inventor being properly "rewarded".
Definitely not the case here.
Anyway most of what is published on Thingiverse is useless if not plain junk and they copy each other often without even knowing it .

And we still don't know who created the very first bell !

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"A comical prototype doesn't mean a dumb idea is possible" (Thunderf00t)

If an artist paints a picture of a famous clock tower, does that give you permission to scan that picture and claim it as yours?

The original bell may not have any copyright clauses, the work that was put in to creating that specific file is a completely different story.

Remember, all 3D design is naturally considered a craft. Artistic reservations and allowances do not apply here, especially when it involves the unapproved use of a licenced file.

Thank you ohfurryone,
Perhaps I can stress the point with a "whatif". You make drinks and sandwiches for some guests but somebody else picks them up and gives them to the guests claiming that they made them. A story both trite and banal, but if it happens to you I suspect you would be annoyed.
The point of putting the bell example on this forum is that the intellectual property of the open source movement(s) is offered freely with no expectation of reward and little expectation of attribution - what none of us expects is somebody claiming that our designs are theirs. Contributors to RepRap and other open source should always flag up transgressions.
Just in passing, the time to design the bell including the crown was from one to two hours - it would have been shorter except for a problem with splines in Turbocad which caused a discontinuity in the bell form visible both in my design and plasticprinces design. Research to get a feel for what looks right perhaps another two hours and calculating the center of gravity so that it would swing right in the frame perhaps another hour. Not ten minutes then.

Mike

But one thing to note, it's not your file that he's claiming was his own. The bell from your file is different dimension-ally so whether he adapted your file or recreated your file, it's not an exact copy of your file, so your sandwich analogy does not fit.

Sure, it sucks he might be claiming your design, but I've taken some original parts from my 3D printer that someone else designed and reworked and re-engineered them to fit my machines in a better way or for an additional purpose and then republished the new modified system as my own. How is what I've done any different that what someone else may have done with other RepRap parts or designs? Or even your bell. And in my case, I even started with the original design file from the original author and then made my changes as I saw fit.

It seems like a lot of people are missing Mike's point here - it's not about the bell, or how long it took to design the bell, or exactly how unique the bell is. His point is that if you start with a design someone has graciously posted for everyone to use, with only the small caveat that you acknowledge the source, you acknowledge the source. How hard is that?

I'm sure we all get Mike's point, I definitely do, the puns about the bell are just a bit of fun in a vicious world.
Be it web domains copied, brand names & images copied, stolen 3d design images used for crowdfunding campaign, i've had it all,
cant really put any of that on my CV & it doesnt get me any work, I dont want to be satisfied with facebook likes, or subscribers, or followers...but when thats all there seems to be in this world where we feed the machines & corp's, a little credit could go a long way...
ya never know, but I doubt it...

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PDBeal
But one thing to note, it's not your file that he's claiming was his own. The bell from your file is different dimension-ally so whether he adapted your file or recreated your file, it's not an exact copy of your file, so your sandwich analogy does not fit.

Sure, it sucks he might be claiming your design, but I've taken some original parts from my 3D printer that someone else designed and reworked and re-engineered them to fit my machines in a better way or for an additional purpose and then republished the new modified system as my own. How is what I've done any different that what someone else may have done with other RepRap parts or designs? Or even your bell. And in my case, I even started with the original design file from the original author and then made my changes as I saw fit.

I think you'll find that is also plagiarism...

On PDBeal's post above I am on his side. Almost everything since the dawn of humanity, and possibly before, has an element of copying to it. In most cases though, people will try to put an element of their own personality into the copy making it unique.

Unfortunately plagiarism is a lot like pornography, everybody knows it when they see it but few agree if a particular thing is or isn't plagiarism. In the case of the bell my take is that the visual aspect is substantially identical regardless of the change in polygon count or a visually insignificant change in height.

Mike

Ok maybe not all of us get it, but someone is definitely taking Liberties

If it's got no crack, send it back, it's a fake.

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leadinglights
Thank you ohfurryone,
Perhaps I can stress the point with a "whatif". You make drinks and sandwiches for some guests but somebody else picks them up and gives them to the guests claiming that they made them. A story both trite and banal, but if it happens to you I suspect you would be annoyed.
....
Mike

That rings a bell ! It is called "socialism", despicable indeed !

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"A comical prototype doesn't mean a dumb idea is possible" (Thunderf00t)

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leadinglights
There is something particularly annoying when somebody claims that your design is their own. If I design something and somebody copies it and gets rich I wish them luck - while cursing myself for not doing that myself. However, if somebody claims that something that I have designed is their design it really gets my goat. Spot the difference below:-

Plasticprince claims this as his eleventh design [www.thingiverse.com]

And this is plate1 from my design [www.thingiverse.com]

I see you added a comment to his object pointing out the plagiarism, including a link to yours. I'd do the same, and let users decide. Or on TV report his thing to the Admins since it's in breach of your license (CC - Attribution- Share Alike).

If someone is trying to sell your design, add a comment pointing out that it's plagiarism *and* a ripoff of the end-user since it's available for free, again including a link to the free source.