All 3D models with links span 3 words; the first leading to MakerWorld, the second leading to Printables, and the 3rd leading to Thingiverse.
That’s right, I’ve officially made it as a 3D designer!
Someone apparently thought my models were so good that they decided they were worth using for their own personal gain, regardless of what licenses or copyright may or may not be involved.
Now in my long experience of being on the 3D printing internet, this sort of thing plays out in relatively similar ways. Someone with access to 3D print services or even a print farm itself decides that your model would be a good one to put on their site to sell, and they figure the money they stand to make from doing that outweighs the chance that someone might a) find out, and b) actually take legal financial action against them.
Then, when someone DOES realize what’s going on, they tip the creator off, and whatever may happen happens.
However, in my case, not only did I personally stumble across my models where they shouldn’t oughta be… it was at a local ramen shop, of all places.
But first, of course, a bit of background.
Hey there! I’m Carl, an amateur 3D modeler and hobbyist 3D printer. I’ve had a 3D printer since 2018, and despite no real formal training, have built up a modest amount of success online posting models for people to download.
And as it so happens, I also live on the remote Japanese island of Tanegashima. It’s a pretty quiet place, with a few notable characteristics–it’s a major producer of cane sugar, it’s believed to be the entry point for guns into the nation, and… oh yeah, it’s also got the largest rocket launch complex in the country.
If you’ve ever played Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald, it’s the real-life inspiration for Mossdeep City–the Mossdeep Space Center is based on the actual Tanegashima Space Center, a short 20-minute drive from my house.
So when Maker World announced its “Magnificent Hometowns” contest, I decided it would be cool to try and make a scale model of Tanegashima’s current launch vehicle, the H3 Rocket. So, I skipped on down to the gift shop, bought myself a 1:200 scale model, and got to work making a 3D model that matched the model one as closely as possible. Did the whole thing on stream, if you wanna see how it went. Uploaded the model, didn’t win anything, ah well. At least I did the thing. I thought that would be where it ended.
Fast forward a year+ later, I get a DM from a stranger on MakerWorld asking me about how I made my H3 model. He’s a graduate student, and is interested in trying to design and 3D print a functional H3 model rocket to see if he can’t launch it over 100 meters.
In an interesting twist of fate, we find out during our conversation that not only are we currently living in the same town, we’re also heading out on winter holiday to the same city! So we plan to meet up there and talk more then, and when the time came, I got my first hint that something was amiss.
He was telling me about how he searched up my model on Maker World after seeing it at a ramen shop in our town. To be honest, I’m not sure why I didn’t question that at the time. Maybe I didn’t want to derail the conversation. Maybe I just thought he was talking about my display at the culture festival, where I put a copy of my rocket up on display. Or maybe I just thought that I misheard his Japanese. Whatever the case was, I didn’t press it, and we said our goodbyes.
Fast forward again a few weeks, and it’s the day of the kite festival! I was heading there with my girlfriend and a few of the other English teachers on the island, so we decided to stop by and grab some ramen on the way. And on the way out, I noticed…. These, sitting by the register.
Now, my first thought was oh, cool, someone else made a 3D printed version of an H3 rocket!
After all, I’m not the engineer that came up with the original design, so it’s not like I hold a monopoly over all 3D models of the H3 rocket. And look! My model had a short nose cone and only two boosters, and here we have ones with no boosters, four boosters, a long nose cone and oh my god yeah these are literally my exact models with parts copied and pasted–
Sigh.
Before we go any further, let’s take a step back and talk about copyright. Now, I’m no lawyer, but as a maker, I have looked into the copyright system in general to make sure I know my rights and to know potentially what I’d be running afoul of when I do my own thing.
In America–and it seems Japan, at least in this case, is similar–the copyright of a work of art, whether it be a painting you drew, a story you wrote, or in this case, a 3D model you designed, is automatically the author’s. No need to register it with an agency; as soon as you make it, it’s yours. No one else has the right to reproduce your work, or edit it, or utilize it for their own monetary purposes, etc, without your express permission.
However, you as the author have the right to surrender part or all of your copyright as the author of a work. So if you want to let other people sell your stuff, you can do that, or if you want to let other people modify your work, you can do that, too. The Creative Commons is a pretty cool organization that aims to help people to share things they’ve made while also clearly defining what they’re ok with people using it for. If you’re a maker as well, I definitely recommend checking it out!
In the case of my models, at the time of writing every single one I’ve uploaded is under the Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Essentially what that means is you can download, edit and even reupload any of my stuff, AS LONG AS:
You credit me wherever you post the models, linking back to the original
You don’t sell the models or their prints
You never share the models under a different license than the original.
If you want to do anything outside of these rules, you have to get express permission from myself. For example, if you want to sell my models, you can get permission by clicking on the “join” button on any of my Maker World models’ descriptions, and joining my membership.
Now, back at the ramen shop, I didn’t want to keep everyone waiting, so after asking a few questions, I found that they had indeed been selling them a while back. And also, if I was interested, I could take a business card of the person who “made” these models for them. Messaging my friend later would corroborate this story.
After kites were flown and I went home, I took a look at their Twitter account (thanks xcancel), and saw them with their brand-new Bambu Lab H2C, their trip to Tanegashima, and even them talking with a JAXA employee about the difficulties they ran into when creating the models.
The gall! Here someone was, downloading MY models, printing them, sharing them, and selling them, all without a shred of credit anywhere to be found.
Not to mention anything about the non-commercial license involved with the hobbyist version of Fusion 360 I used to make the models!
If some of you are like me, you might be wondering why I haven’t shared their name, and why you can’t go and mass-report them on any platform they might be illegally disseminating my work on.
And the reason for that is simple: I don’t want you to.
Not because I’m being overly passive, or that I don’t think it’s worth pursuing, or that I think things like this are ethical. It’s because of what’s written on the back of the business card I picked up that day:
“I am 10 years old”
🤦
Our little rocket pirate is a frickin’ kid!
So, to be clear, I really don’t believe they’re doing this out of any sense of malice.
Here’s how I the reality of the situation is:
The kid really wants to be an engineer. They love space and 3D printing, and luckily have parents with the willingness and ability (read: ¥) to support and foster that love to the extent of getting them 3D printers and even taking them on a trip to a remote island to go to the Space Center and even meet the some of the people working on coordinating the rocket launches. They probably looked up my model online, and wanted to edit it to make it look more like some of the other H3 variations out there. It took a bit to figure out how to edit them (it seems like it may have even been done in-slicer), and that’s what they were talking about on their Twitter account when they said they talked to one of the JAXA employees about it.
Then, in some way or another, they came into contact with the ramen shop, which prides itself on being the closest one to the Space Center (“The closest ramen restaurant to space!”), and they agreed to help out. I cropped everything other than the rockets out of the photo, but the text in the background said something along the lines of “help support a future engineer!” Seems like any proceeds would be going to a college fund, which isn’t a bad use for them.
Also, while they posted on Twitter a lot about the rocket, they never claimed that it was their design, just that they were printing it. In general it seems like they just found my model online for free, didn’t realize the license attached to it, and the rest is history.
So! What the heck am I gonna do about all this?
Well, any kid that’s interested in 3D printing and engineering is something to be celebrated, so I definitely don’t want to go in hot and send a cease-and-desist letter or anything.
I’m just imagining the poor kid crying and thinking they’re gonna get in legal trouble just because they liked tinkering around with some free-to-download models they found online. Not a good situation.
However, I do want to make sure they know about copyright and everything. If they’re going to be existing in the 3D printing space, it’s important they know about their own rights and the rights of others, so they don’t step on the wrong toes. I think it’s really cool they have an interest in this, but some people might not be so charitable. Plus, at the end of the day, I wouldn’t be opposed to giving them tips on how to make their own models, if that’s not already something they know how to do.
Right now, though, the plan is to maybe gather a bit more info about what all was going on at the ramen shop, and then shoot the kid an email talking about how I found it there, and was interested in what they were doing; asking about how they found the model they used, etc, etc. Presumably, they’ll confirm my suspicions (although it would be kinda hilarious if they said “yeah, I read the license and am using it without your permission; what are you going to do about it?”), and then I’ll follow up by asking if I can talk with their parents about it. Then, we’ll talk all about copyright and model creation, and we’ll all live happily ever after.
In the meantime, though, I’ve been inspired to edit my already existing model to have the choice of more engines, boosters, and a longer nose cone. I’m thinking of making it modular so you can swap out the parts, and update the text on the base accordingly. Watch out for that!
So that’s that for now! What do you all think? Am I handling this appropriately? Would you do something different? Lemme know!
Oh, and as always, drop a follow if you want to know how it all shakes out, and check out my models in the meantime!
If you’re on blogger, you can find the follow button by pulling up the sidebar.
Thanks for reading! See you next time~