I’ve come to find out DEFCAD has ripped my Projectile Dysfunction 15mm design and is selling it on their site. What can I do about it?
I’ve come to find out DEFCAD has ripped my Projectile Dysfunction 15mm design and is selling it on their site. What can I do about it?
Fantastic info and tips, thank you kindly. According to them, they can still monetize it even this the license it was published under. I’m on the fence on how I want to proceed. I design things for the people and the community and it rubs me the wrong way that these guys take advantage of it and sell IP they never touched. I need to figure out what license to actually publish my files under to prevent this in the future whilst allowing the community to build upon it open source.
If the license is NC, they can’t legally monetize it by demanding fees, that’s the whole point of the NC license. (I don’t remember where I found your file so I don’t know what license you put it under, but the other guy wrote that it was a NC license, so I’ll take his word for it.)
I would recommend registering your files with Copyright Office / Library of Congress immediately. I think I remember that your publication date was early August so you are still within the initial 90 day period. Copyright.gov has the forms and FAQs. The forms are self-explanatory.
It’s up to $15,000 of free money to you if you use the CCB, or $150,000 for statutory damages if you go with the regular federal court system – but you have to register the files timely for that.
DefCad has a long history of ripping off people’s designs in this manner. I remember people complaining about it regularly in /r/fosscad (RIP in pepperoni). Frankly I think it’s long beyond past due for someone to take them to task.
DEFCAD told you they could monetize your file that you licensed under CreativeCommons-Attribution-NonCommercial-4.0 Intl?
Disclaimer: IANAL.
Your artwork is being used to incentivize users to pay DEFCAD’s subscription fee in order to access the file. That’s clear violation of 1.i in the text of your license which defines NonCommercial as “not primarily intended for or directed towards commercial advantage or monetary compensation”. Using your design to entice users into paying a subscription for access is absolutely using it for monetary compensation. That’s like arguing that GamePass advertising that they have Halo is noncommercial use of the Halo IP.
They’re either seriously mistaken or willfully malicious. Getting into a legal pissing match with them is signing up for a lot, but you can also submit a DMCA at Cloudflare – their CDN – if they’re electing to give you the runaround.