+ If you find the model is stolen, save the link to the original and report it to support so it can be removed from the site. As a general rule of thumb: If it looks too cheap for the quality - the chance the model to be stolen is very high.
Purchasing Potentially Stolen Models
Discussion started by 3dsamuraiz
After doing some searching I noticed there are multiple complaints about stolen models being sold on this site. If I were to unintentionally purchase a stolen model from this site would I be susceptible to copyright infringement? What would be the best way to find out if the seller is the original creator? Thank you.
Answers
-3
Hi there,
Thank you for reaching out!
CGTrader constantly moderates marketplace to ensure models do not violate Terms and Conditions as fraudulent behavior is not tolerated and monitored consistently.
If you see or encounter any models you believe to be fraudulent or stolen, please report them us via support@cgtrader.com and Support team will advise you.
Kindly,
Austeja from CGTrader
Distorted truth. CGT moderates marketplace only after somebody reports it as inappropriate. "Somebody" = other user or somebody who represents the right owner (lawyers etc...). CGT does nothing without it and allows hordes of thieves to sell numerous copies of models that they actually don't modeled but downloaded from "twilight zone". :) (I respect CGT, but the truth is the truth...)
Sad truth :/
...
5
Don't be fooled or be fooled. CGT does not solve it because it does not want to and does not care, since it would lose most of its income. According to the sales statistics, the majority are from undervalued models, which is common for stolen models. Of the numerous sales of stolen models, of the more than 900 thieves eliminated last year, only CGT benefited. In fact, on December 21, 2020, it modified the terms and conditions to try to justify the appropriation of the benefits obtained from these fraudulent activities, (at the same time that it once again invites the thieves expelled). That is the sad reality and here is the proof (excerpt from a quickly deleted forum post, posted by one of the deleted users):
https://imgur.com/a/vBTyp3L
That message, which they were in such a hurry to remove, clarifies why thieves keep coming back again and again and why CGT has never blocked repeat cheaters, making implausible excuses and preferring to look useless, which is always better, than as what they really are. It may also explain why some of the hardest hit modelers have not posted models here for more than 2 months, but continue to post in other markets.
It also answers the question posed by @Luxeon and not answered by CGT. Profits from sales of stolen models are not returned to defrauded buyers or passed on to those who are legally entitled to them (original authors). It also reflects the little respect they have for buyers and even less for copyrights.
As for how they constantly moderate the market, I agree with what other users have already mentioned. Also, if it were true that they monitor the models daily, it is even more serious, because it would show that they are aware of many infractions, (prohibited in their own terms and conditions), but that they do nothing to avoid it, since those models are still here. Some examples published a few days ago:
- From models with logos from other pages (3dsky, 3ddd ..):
https://www.cgtrader.com/3d-models/interior/kitchen/kitchen-equitment
https://www.cgtrader.com/3d-models/interior/kitchen/kitchen-view
- From DAZ Studio, (which has already claimed several times):
https://www.cgtrader.com/3d-models/aircraft/other/futuristic-attack-helicopter
https://www.cgtrader.com/3d-models/interior/other/velodrome-track
https://www.cgtrader.com/3d-models/character/clothing/daz-female-outfit
- Rolls Royce (which has also claimed):
https://www.cgtrader.com/3d-models/car/luxury/rr-phantom-2018
- Pirated software (reported on several occasions and against which no action has ever been taken, which may also contain malware that seriously harms buyers)
https://www.cgtrader.com/3d-models/character/child/child-lowpoly-baby
https://www.cgtrader.com/3d-models/interior/house/pillow-519780c5-547a-46b9-97e2-1ac10b6b8e06
- Models that include brands and models with third-party copyrights, most of them without an editorial license, which can also cause great damage to buyers, especially the lesser-known ones, such as this one, from Core's Ton Dog City game Eye Games, also sold by the same user, who is the exclusive seller of 3dOcean (where if buyers are notified that the author is not the owner of the character):
https://www.cgtrader.com/3d-models/animals/other/cartoon-dog-2db712a5-be41-4d4b-b896-c41cf6c117ad
Probably this message will be quickly censored, as was the original one that I mentioned above, of which only the screenshot remains. They might even kick me out for saying the right thing, but that's not going to stop me. As I said, I am determined to end fraud and I keep my word.
2
I underline Tecna's message: Don't get fooled. - Do research.
There are still several forum threads about that theme on here.
And still many stolen or not modeled but morphed/modified meshes (derivative content) of well known content / brands which are not allowed to be sold outside their stores. Just did a quick search and saw several already.
Besides they get offered here for prices it's better for any customer to get the right software (e.g. Reallusion's CC3/DAZ Studio) and create e.g. characters by themself since it's not hard to do and saves money and possible trouble on the long run.
We had many discussions about that before here and anyone just needs to search and compare models.
Just a bit of effort / time to put into google and research as Trimitek described in his first post above.
3
Please note, that we operate as a 3D model marketplace, which allows people to buy and sell 3D models - we do not create, own or sell models ourselves. As a digital content marketplace, we are doing our best to remove any content that was reported or detected by us as inappropriate or infringing, however, we cannot guarantee that all content will be problem-free and our liability is limited, as indicated in our Terms and Conditions (please refer to Articles 11.2 and 14.1).
Monitoring and moderating all the content on the marketplace requires a lot of time and resources and while we do our best to ensure that stolen content is unavailable on our website, considering the amount of content and its specifics, it is technically impossible to ensure full and complete coverage.
Understanding that, we are constantly cooperating with the community of the designers and we accept the stolen content reports from other users of the website, including people who are part of this conversation, despite the fact that they are not authors of the reported models, which according to the Intellectual Property law is required to submit a legitimate Copyright Infringement claim.
Considering the above, we believe that actions and statements coming from the user named “Tecna” are not correct, true, or justified. The majority of statements coming from this user are based on this person’s opinion and not on actual facts. “Tecna” is spreading misinformation and wrong subjective interpretations, presenting them as facts. We find these claims and messages defamatory, damaging the reputation of the company and disrespectful to its employees.
The first claim of “Tecna” states that we are not ensuring 100% care of stolen content moderation, because we would “lose most of our income”. Such a strong claim of course is not and cannot be supported by any data, this is only strong words that this person uses to present his/her point of view. The possibly stolen models make up a very small percentage of models sold on the site and many reported/detected stolen models are removed even before any sales are actually made. Furthermore, the buyers are refunded for such content, which means that not only we are losing the allegedly earned income, it has an impact on our reputation and future sales, thus bringing losses to the company.
Handling these cases (reported stolen content) – investigating, checking the provided facts and evidence, technically comparing the reported or detected content to the source content, communicating with the designers and buyers is an extremely resource-heavy activity, which costs the company a lot of money as well.
So we believe that such claims that company is earning money from such cases are untrue, defamatory and simply disrespectful, especially coming from the person, who is the user of our website and despite all of his/her strong beliefs and negative approach regarding our employees and company in general, still proceeds using our website, selling their models and earning money for it.
We have no clue what Tecna means by “sales statistics”, but this person definitely does not have access to our databases and company’s sales information. Such claims as “Undervalued models, which is common for stolen models” are not based on any factual information, the model value is subjective and every seller decides what price to put on their assets.
Cheaper models are better sold for the same reason why cheaper products in the store are sold better – they are financially available for more people than more expensive items. Furthermore, we offer quite a few sales, so participating designers sell their models for lower prices and as a result, you could say that many models are sold “undervalued”, however it has nothing to do with the authenticity of the content, but rather the marketing goals and choices of the designer.
“Tecna” statements about our Terms and Conditions changes in December are even further from the truth and we find them absolutely ridiculous, disrespectful, and harmful to the reputation of the company without having any relevant or appropriate background for this.
“Tecna” claims that CGTrader “modified the Terms to justify the appropriation of the benefits obtained from the fraudulent activities”. The changes of Terms and Conditions Article 3.6 were introduced as a part of a recent legal audit due to two simple reasons – 1. To have a proper legal background for not paying the earned royalties to people who were selling the stolen content or breached our Terms in another significant manner, 2. Establishing an appeal process to ensure that if a mistake has been made when making a decision, it is reviewed after receiving new information and there is a possibility to fix it.
“It once again invites the thieves expelled”, “why thieves keep coming back again”. The Terms and Conditions change was applied to all terminated users, many of them had nothing to do with stolen content and were suspended due to multiple other reasons (fraudulent activity, underage users, embargo country users, etc.), which are not even taken into account by the user “Tecna”, who bases the accusations on their own personal point of view and without any actual information in regards to the processes in the company, legal background and actual reasons for the regulatory changes.
While “Tecna” strongly believes and shares this publicly as if it was an actual fact that this change resulted in the reinstatement of multiple accounts and “inviting thieves”, we can ensure, that this could not be further from the truth. We have received many requests from the designers to review the decision made in the past in regards to their membership suspension. None of the users (zero) who have been selling stolen content have been reinstated and were able to use the site again. We have reinstated 2 seller accounts in total, which were both suspended for wrong reasons (one seller was reported for selling stolen content but it turned out that the reported source models were his own models on another website, on the second case it was confirmed that the source models are very different and it was reported by mistake). So basically, this change had no impact on the sellers that were correctly identified as infringers but allowed us to restore wrongly suspended users, which was one of the main intentions for this change in T&C.
Coming back to the moderation of the marketplace, we have already explained earlier the actual situation and that it is in our best interests to remove the stolen content from the marketplace. We have moderation tools that are based on detecting keywords, images, etc. and we are constantly monitoring the marketplace, however, none of the technical tools like this can ensure flawless content matching and as discussed earlier, for this reason, we are also always reacting to user reports in a timely manner, which also shows our engagement and willingness to remove the stolen content from the marketplace.
User “Tecna” is sharing few examples of missed possibly infringing content instead of reporting this content to us for review and removal just to support their aggressive approach and position, but it does not actually prove anything other than the fact that we can’t ensure 100% detection of the content (which is not even technically possible).
We will of course review these links and will take actions on any of these models that should not be published on our platform, as we do with any other content that we are detecting ourselves or we learn about in any other way, including user reports.
We are supporting free speech and we believe that it is absolutely fair to express your dissatisfaction or negative comments in regards to the company services, platform functionality, raise various questions and issues. There are plenty of critical opinions and comments on this very forum, which is a part of our website.
However, we believe that sharing false claims and spreading misinformation publicly just to present a stronger subjective point of view is not justifiable. Misinterpreting and distorting the facts, specifically looking for the information with the only goal of damaging the reputation of the company, showing disrespect to company employees is not and should not be considered free speech.
User „Tecna“ has already shown the bad will and harmful intentions towards the company and its employees on multiple occasions in the past and this last message is just another evidence and a perfect example of ill-intended actions that are now lasting for a while. By saying that “this message will be quickly censored” or “they might even kick me out” “Tecna” seems to be aware that his/her message is crossing the line of free speech and is not a regular opinion, but rather a quite aggressive attack against the company and therefore might result in some repercussions.
We have no plans of censoring this thread or deleting specific messages, however, considering all of the above, we reserve the right of suspending the user “Tecna” as a very rare exception in this website and community for continuing false accusations and unjustified claims, misinforming and misleading other website users, general disrespect for the admins and employees of the platform as well as intentionally and continually damaging the reputation of the company.
Please note, that this forum is designed for the interaction between website users rather than to get CGTrader support or position, so if there are any questions in regards to our service, policies or any specific situation, we would like to encourage all users to contact our Support via email or web widget (clicking a Help button on the right of the page) and we will do our best to help and advise you.
Adomas
CGTrader Team
2
I understand both sides, but I don't think Tecna purpose is to harm CGT reputation.
Those accusations come from the frustration that thieves still exist here and from the outside it looks like CGT reacts, but do not proactively work to solve the problem.
I'm sure we are not aware of a lot of things that happen behind the scenes there, but this needs to be discussed without emotions and accusations from both sides.
1
- All points of view are subjective, but my statements are based on facts. Many people are aware of these facts and there is numerous evidence, which may be provided in due course, if necessary.
- Neither you comply with its general terms and conditions, nor do you enforce them. These rules are contrary to the law in some points. And as you know the scope of the law is greater, that is why you have included point 16.3 in these regulations.
- Your statements are contradicted in many points and by simple logic, not all can be true.
- At no time have I been disrespectful to anyone, but if you are not able to solve this problem that has persisted for more than 10 years, (and it is getting worse), it is clear that you are not efficient, (intentionally or not ), and they are not taking all the necessary measures to avoid repeated and imminent infractions, (I refer back to the facts).
- Nor do they want to admit their responsibility, (that they have it), from the reform of the 2019 law, (whatever their internal regulations say).
- By statistics I mean those that are accessible to any seller, which I suppose will not lie. All users here know that 99% of the models that are sold below their value (which includes hours, work, licenses, taxes ...) are probably stolen. You also know what a fair price is and in fact reflect it in your rates.
- As I said, I am talking about the 900 offenders eliminated for selling stolen content. You, like me, know this to be true and there is also evidence for it. Many of these offenders have been eliminated up to 10 times, (many of them are still here), with the same stolen models and you have always made excuses to justify your incompetence, (yes, incompetence) when solving this problem. Another example would be the more than 15 users who sold the same vehicle simultaneously, (with identical images), which you were not able to detect either. Keyword detection doesn't seem to work either, just search for the word "Lamborghini". Do you expect to be congratulated for doing your job well? it won't be me
- You say you have received many requests from designers to review the decision made in the past regarding the suspension of your membership, what you do not say is that they have done it after you sent them an email. The screenshot that I put is from one of those users, (as I said, many of them are still here), and in their case they did not support freedom of expression, because their message was deleted. In this case they have not eliminated it and so everyone can see it and draw their own conclusions.
- If you want to remove me, you can remove me, but do not say that it is because of false statements because they are not, and I will demonstrate it where necessary.
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