That's kind of disappointing.
How to protect models from stealing?
Discussion started by marpro
Hey everyone,
I came across this very important question while I was looking what are the newest 3d uploads, there was this suspicious-looking image of a really good looking skull with snakes. The price was at 5,00$ very cheap for that kind of quality but not that uncommon on 3d selling platforms a 3d Modell on this quality level with such a picture. The picture is just a screenshot of the model in Window's own 3D Viewer.
That makes me wonder and I did a bit of research and found the person I did believe created this 3D Modell and told her that her model is uploaded by another person to be sold for a significantly lower price.
After just 10 min another Object was uploaded and it was another model of the exact same person which created the first one.
The "stolen" one:
https://www.cgtrader.com/3d-models/architectural/decoration/skull-snakes-3d-model
Maybe the original:
https://www.cgtrader.com/3d-models/animals/reptile/skull-entwined-with-snakes
And that makes me wonder:
Is there any method to protect your models from being reuploaded from any other person?
Thanks for any suggestions!
Answers
4
That's reality of digital content. It can be copied and multiplied very easily and there's practically no way to prevent that. On the other hand, those who are buying the models, usually don't look for pirated models and those who are downloading illegal assets, usually don't shop for models at all. So when you mode is pirated, it does not affect sales very much. I would suggest to look at it slightly philosophical :]
*you mode - your model
I tried, but unfortunately, it was a scam! ;)
Yes, seems legit, but if the price of your model is higher than it will be sold less often, doesn't it?
Another possibility is just to sell your models for as little as possible so your model is after all not worth to steal.
It is not easy (when competition in 3D market is becaming extreme) but I think it is up every seller to find some balance. On the other hand 3 times lower prices doesn't mean 3 times more sales. ))) And the last strategy of "as little as possible" is way to the hell and in long term insight unsustainable.
@marpro - People usually buy models not because they are cheap, but because they need them. Yours are unique, so you don't compete with someone with the same models. If you get regular sales, make an experiment - triple your prices (preferably for the same 3 months like last year so you have relatively similar base for comparison) and see how you like the results. If you are doing better, triple them again, repeat until satisfied ;)
You are wrong again.
Let me just repeat last comment:
Collector and spoiler: https://www.cgtrader.com/shurik-ryas
Collector and spoiler: https://www.cgtrader.com/micheldogary-1
Collector and spoiler: https://www.cgtrader.com/cadcart Collector and spoiler: https://www.cgtrader.com/grivajewel
And so further...
When some "wisemen" are talking about price regulating or dreaming about asking of proof of legal software, may be for CGT would be better just to set limit to daily uploads. It's totally not clear how designer can uploading 200-300-400-500-600 items weekly. I'm not the fastest modeler, but it's impossible.
@skapricorn You have some serious problems. It's already obvious to everyone that you are against everything I say, just because you don't want to pay for the software you make money with. I understand that you feel bad, because you have big competition in your sector and I understand that big part of it is using illegal sources, but a daily upload limit is the most absurd thing you can propose as solution. What about people who have worked for years and piled up a lot of models and now come to CGT - why would you want to limit them and how you think they will feel? If you recognize illegal content and have proof for that, just report them to support - when they have proof for 4 stolen models they ban the account - problem solved.
I agree with trimitek. He has a point.
You tell me. I felt so insulted by this offer that i almost dropped my beer. I honestly hoped that i will be given opportunity to offer at least 90% discount this year. Only 70%?! They must be joking, i'm out.
At least this year it is more transparent, last year there was higher discount then explicitely set by artist. But yes, it is ridiculous.
If there was option for lower than 30% discount, maybe I would consider participating in discounts. Giving 70% off is like screaming "Please rape me, I'm desperate!"
Hm and now the biggest competitor of CGT (everybody knows which market I am meaning) has now "Biggest black friday sale ever up to 50%"
This is madness.
BUT, you could increase your price in the first place to allow a 70% discount
Example:
Your Price 30$ -> increase it 100$ -> 70% discount = 30$ with %sign on it
And every customer just thinking, oh wow this otherwise expensive model is looking just ridiculously good and for this price? SHOPPING CART!
:D
4
Quote - "I think that the best option how to protect own work is selling for reasonable prices.
Lower price of product means higher possibility of misuse by unserious buyer.
In most cases pirate users will not buy expensive products to resell them illegally."
I don't think that price has anything to do with the probability of model being pirated. If that would be the case, then warez sites wiould be full of cheap models and not expensive cars from hamsters and squirrels. In fact, if you want to lower the chance of your models being leaked, then make crappy, worthless models and you'll be relatively safe :]
People often think, that pirates buy the model and then shares them on warez sites, but i think this is not how this works. Most likely majority of pirated models comes when various companies buy them for legal usage in archviz, gamedev, promo, etc. and then their immoral employees leaks those models, because they didn't pay their own money and they don't feel responsible.
Exactly. At least on the field of jewelry models, big part of it are leaked from different 3d-printing studios (usually stolen by printer operators etc.) And usually when seller provides only STL it indicates that model isn't legally clear.
Collector and spoiler: https://www.cgtrader.com/shurik-ryas
Collector and spoiler: https://www.cgtrader.com/micheldogary-1
Collector and spoiler: https://www.cgtrader.com/cadcart
Collector and spoiler: https://www.cgtrader.com/grivajewel
And so further... When some "wisemen" are talking about price regulating or dreaming about asking of proof of legal software, may be for CGT would be better just to set limit to daily uploads.
It's totally not clear how designer can uploading 200-300-400-500-600 items weekly. I'm not the fastest modeler, but it's impossible.
0
Trying to find authorship of "zbrushy scam" is meaningless. All this beautifully looking on renders, but cheap looking after casting and finishing models are on internet many years. And always on the top (because of sweet look on the rendered pictures). And technically saying about this pendant: if it is not assembly - it don't worth even a dime. And even it made as assembly, no images about it provided. Skull must be hollow... etc etc etc... The last picture contains evidence of how model is really bad. And not checked "intersecting triangles" options says about it. It's just crap for teenagers.
-5
What I firmly believe is that, they bought the model, so it belongs to them. Therefore the person can choose to do anything with it.
For instance, you go to the market, you buy shoes, and the person you bought the shoes from tells you that you shouldn't sell it. You would be like, bruv, but it's my money, I bought it, I own it now.
That's my idea and I stand to be corrected.
What are you talking about? When you buy the model with standard royalty free or editorial license, you don't own it, you just aquire rights to use it according to the license. You can't resell or distribute the model in any way, that leaves the files exposed. Please educate yourself about licensing and terms-and-conditions of the marketplace, before selling, buying and most importantly - spreading the misinformation publicly. https://www.cgtrader.com/pages/terms-and-conditions
That... would be a NIGHTMARE!
Depending on the license you choose. If you sell your product and you license it to clearly show that it isn't meant to be resold or used for any commercial need. Then that's Ok. But when it's not mentioned, it is assumed by the buyer that he is free to use the design anyhow he likes.
@LemonadeCG Try to Understand my point before judging.
For christ sake, stop inventing your own rules. It is very clearly stated under which license specific model is selling and unless it is stated otherwise by the seller, absolute majority of models (like 99.9%) on cgtrader are being sold under standerd royalty free or editorial royalty free licenses. Neither of those allows you to resell the models and most definitely you CAN'T do whatever you want with purchased models. I'll repeat once more - read terms and conditions and educate yourself anout licensing!
The only license that lets you do almost whatever you want with the model, is CC0 or public domain license. You would have very hard time to find a model under such license in cgtrader.
Comparing digital/intellectual and physical property.... MMMMMM TASTY!!!! It's so hilarious when "copyrighters" are comparing pirated software using with car stealing. And WAY MORE hilarious when some potential pirate (or simple non-educated man) starting comparing shoes vs digital models.
But my opinion is pretty simple: when customer is bought model for some project, then this model is intended for project. Client can make jewelry piece for his customers -- it's what this model intended for. Or client can use model for film or game -- it's also what models are selling and buying for. But when client bought or got my model for free and after it started to reselling this digital model -- it's true stealing.
Licensing -- is not about freedom limitation. Licensing must be a tool for protecting authors.
@skapricorn, that's exactly what licensing is doing - by limiting content usage, it's protecting content owner's rights.
@skapricorn Why do you think that you using pirated/stolen software to make money is different than someone using stolen from you 3D model to make money? What is the difference? (I'm not nagging, just trying to understand you.)
0
So it looks like everybody who is active in these forums today talking about these jewelry things.
So I have a theory in mind which clearly shows that CGTrader may not support these "jewelry studios" but they clearly don't punish them for stealing models, manipulate PublishingScore, etc.
I did write this theory in another forum but here it is again:
I could imagine that it is accepted from CGT because of one simple reason: CGT promotes itself as the biggest 3D Model Website in the World. To be the biggest Website you have to have the biggest amount of 3D Models. And who are the guys who uploaded the most models? You are right these incredible diligent "studios" which uploads thousands of models every month.
So far so good, but is there any evidence to that?
I think it is, and it lies in the analytics:
In the analytics which is provided by CGT itself, you can filter for the Category whit the most Models, so I did:
1. jewelry 45012
2. gold 42798
----
3. furniture 34768
4. interior 31934
-----
5 diamond 27353
6 jewel 26501
7 jewellery 26120
8. wedding 23440
9. ring 23305
10. gem 19089
and then the other categories like character, fashion modern, and so on appear.
But you can clearly see the ridiculous amount of a minimum of45000 jewelry models with which these "jewelry studios" inundate CGTrader.
But I can hear you, "THAT is no evidence, there could be way more jewelry designers out there and you just focusing on these studios because they are the #1 in uploading models", and yes that could be the case.
But now think about that:
If they upload this impressive amount of jewelry models to get money they would benefit of upload these models on other sides as well and guess what i did, right i just looked at some of these other sides outside:
Turbosquid: 8648 jewelry Models.
3D-Export: 7777 jewelry Models.
And of course the "best performing artists" on cgtrader could be on the other sides as well but if they have these models already uploaded on CGT they would probably use the same description fo these models, because, let's be honest they don't really write detailed descriptions for there model :
The best selling Ring of michaeldogary-1:
"fixed with magic Experimented with the machine printable"
If you search for these descriptions on google or other searching websites you found nothing, just cgtrader models.
Just curious...
Ouh, for the numbers:
TSqd "furniture": 116227
TSqd "character": 47938
3DExprt "furniture": 17349
3DExprt "character": 8941
Thieves selling stollen assets, isn't exclusive phenomena on CGT. This is happening on all marketplaces. There even are places where stolen content is majority. And it's not fair to think that CGT is covering thieves because they want to be biggest marketplace. Selling stolen digital content is very easy, but try to stop that is much more harder. To be fair, cgtrader is one of the best marketplaces in regards to fighting piracy. Go to turbosquid forum and talk about piracy publicly, you will be warned to stop immediately and if you post the links to stolen assets in TS, you'll be banned from forums. Try to report stolen model to sketchfab and you'll be told that if you're not the owner of that asset, you can basically go f*k yourself. Cgtrader at least allows to discuss about the issue freely and usually they readily removes reported assets and/or whole accounts.
I did not want to say that CGT covering some bandits for its own advantage, I just wanted to say that it must have a reason that these jewelry spamming "studios" seem to upload only on CGT.
In terms of discussing and forums or report models CGT is for sure one of the best.
One of the reasons might be, that of all general purpose 3D stock marketplaces, 3-print content is selling best on cgtrader. I have much harder time to sell 3D-print models on turbosquid. But it's just my guess. It's also possible that cgtrader did some promotional campaigns/advertising to attract sellers of specific content. Mass uploading of jewelry models to cgtrader is fairly new phenomena. I think it started somwhere a year ago. Too bad that it catched attention mainly of crooked sellers.
CGTrader allows discussion, but also allows flood of stolen models without any control. It's bad.
At first: batch upload MUST BE BANNED at least as it works now. It became the main tool of shitsellers (look at champion of last week store: no standards and even big part of collection don't have pictures!!!) When pirates don't care about stupidous "publishing score" and other "vanity reflux" and uploading 1000 models per hour, normal designer must to do lots of preparings and physically can't to upload more than 3-5 models daily (and I can say: 3-5 daily is also bad, because it's more risky for quality). End at the end we can see what we have: tons of shitty, cheap, stolen models and behind those tons of shit fair and legal stuss is just INVISIBLE independent on publishing score, rating or whatever else.
I don't like, when CGT suspends my models because it contains some brand logo or because model looks similar to some brand items. But I accept and understand it: Law is Law. Anyway I'm selling only models that I modeled (contains it logo or not) and I have nothing to shy or to be ashamed for.
If CGT in some moment will decline and ban all this bulgari's and tiffany's, I'm ready to accept this decision and I will be happy to sell my DESIGNS (not MODELS). But only on fair and equal conditions for all TRUE designers and without any presence of pirate-studios. When pirates are the kings of ratings -- here is no chance to survive or to playing fairly. I'm selling replicas only because it's things that customers are buying. Yes, feel very pleased after each "like" or after warm comments under my own design. But likes don't giving possibility to pay my communal bills.
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