Commercial CAD Forum Sites

Yeah - Pretty Cheezy Indeed.

They did the same with my stuff from the sheet metal site.

And yes I think that it is shady too. I will not stop posting or supporting my site even with people like this out there.

I also find it ironic that I cannot access my own model on their site and I need to log -in.

For anyone interested the site that I saw this on was here:

I don't know who they are nor do I really care, but I also agree that this is "business" masquarading as "educational". My site has always been wide open, no passwords, no extra cheeze - it is 100 percent (or at least 99 percent - some link to people who sell stuff) educational and "user-centric".

What I don't like is that they appear to have taken these models and posted them as content on their own site, so this is my main issue with them. The models are essentially in the public domain once posted, but I count this a dishonest use of the content.

I also like that they have a "Submitted:" field that is blank. I think that the dishonesty is that it looks like some "anonymous soul" submitted a model for the public good and my guess is that these folks are out doing "data mining" for content and reusing our stuff for their site.

Ok - nuff said. I will not stop sponsoring my site just because of these types of "shady" people.

Matt - I really hope you can get your site back up in some format - I know a lot of folks who are not "shameless-thieves" who have benefited from your generosity.

Later,

SMA

Hi Matt,

I'm sorry to hear you're taking your site down. Hopefully it will be back up at some point?

I wanted to take a minute and thank you for all the efforts you've put into the SolidWorks user community. Some may not realize how involved you are. I'm not sure I can list all your efforts but here goes. Your seat on the SWUGN board, the SolidWorks user groups you run, the SolidWorks user groups you have started, a regular speaker at user group events & SolidWorks World, your contributions to a number of different CAD discussion forums, your blog, answer question related e-mails (some from me), your website, SolidWorks beta testing, etc. These things add up to many hours of hard work and you do it all for free because you love it. Myself and many other SolidWorks users are in your debt for your tireless efforts.

It's too bad some in the world take advantage of your efforts in order to turn an easy dollar. Having my own SolidWorks orientated website I know how much time can be consumed filling it with original content. Too my knowledge, no one has been "stealing" content from my site but I'll definitely be keeping a watchful eye. My site, like yours is 100% free. I do it for the same reason you do, to help people.

Thanks for everything Matt, hopefully we haven't seen the last of you.

Hi Rob -

This is pretty funny - sort of cosmic.

I saw a link to you blog site on this

site. This one has a the same "semi-commercial" look and feel (I don't count this person to be "evil" - heart seems to be generally in the right place). It uses a little "content snippet" on its front end, but the link takes you to your blog. Just interesting.

The site creator also contacted me as a "would you mind I if I set up a link" inquiry. I would bet that you were also asked. This one does not inflame me in the same way as the other one.

In any case Rob - I like that blogsite - it's visually appealing and a cool site. Thanks.

Later,

SMA

Thanks Sean,

I've been wondering if anyone has actually been reading the blog, apparently they have!

I was also contacted by solidweek and had the same feelings as you. The editor of solidweek (before the site was up) provided some of the models used for the PhotoWorks contest (the chess set, the lighter). With everything that has happened to Matt I've grown more cautious of allowing sites like this use "my" stuff. Solidweek seems a little different in the fact it's giving credit for work and if you click a link it's taking you right to "that place on the web" rather than just taking the content and then placing it on their pages as their own. Because of the PhotoWorks contest some of the images and file downloads on my site aren't mine. I try and give everyone credit who submits something to my site and one of my fears is something will be used from the site (without my knowledge) that is actually someone else's and they will not be credited properly.

Rob

Rob

No, it's not likely that I'm going away, I'm just going to reformat the site so it isn't so easy to take the content out of context. Both of these site "editors" have become more aggressive over the course of the past couple of days, and I'm trying to lay it out for them.

The material on my site was getting pretty old anyway and in some cases outdated, and needs to be updated. Other large projects underway at the moment are going to slow that process down a bit.

Matt

Thanks, Sean,

I've sent a lot of people to your site too. To me, that's what its about. The best quality information seems to come without the commercial entanglements.

As an aside, knowing you're a fan of high-minded reading, you should give The Modern Mind by Robert Watson a read. If I'm getting a bit eccentric recently it might be the fault of this book.

Do you not have a Copyright by the fact that you created the work under the current state of Copyright law from

or the which gets formal registrations?

see

Seems like to me that the =A9 symbol can be legitimately posted after every piece of written text that you produce.

see <

>

First Line "Copyright protection subsists from the time the work is created in fixed form.".

Bo

Sean-Michael Adams wrote:

Yeah!

"Reformat", and put in lots of =A92006 MLombard everywhere.

I haven't bothered with reading up on how copyright is used with images, but I guess I should do so. At some point, I expect to put up text, images and models myself to help show aspects of my design work, primarily for other designers benefit. I won't live forever, so I might as well pass some things along.

Bo

matt wrote:

Once you do post copyrighted work with the symbol, I believe it is up to you the writer as to whether you note the work can be used or copied for non-commercial use, and whether you require payment for commercial work or not.

Bo

Bo wrote:

If someone sets up a website and allows access to copy the information then it becomes public domain and anyone can use this information for their own purpose. It would seem the only choice is not to publish information that you do not want someone else to use in a disapproving manner. And that would defeat the reasons for sharing the information in the first place. I can personally understand why this would upset the originators of these models. It really comes down to wanting and expecting recognition for efforts.

Kman

Kman, you noted that making information public causes it to go into the public domain. The ONLY thing which I am aware of which makes information free for the public to use is an "Invention" which you put in public view, before you file a foreign patent on it. Under the WIPO & PCT, for foreign patents, you must file before public disclosure. The

goes through various U.S. filing requirements, but the only way to really protect inventions is to file before any public release of info, if you want to have a chance at maximum protection with foreign patent filings.

Brush up on copyright and trademark info here:

First Line "Copyright protection subsists from the time the work is created in fixed form.".

The copyright also covers words, pictures and 'sculptural' form.

I wouldn't be surprised to see 3D objects covered by Copyright, but I am not knowledgable on this.

Bo

Kman wrote:

Perhaps a sign up policy would helpful to access the site. At least you could control who has access, if you want to deal with all the details.

=========================================================================== Chris

I'd like to avoid that. The sign ins are part of what I don't like about the commercial sites. Plus, people will just sign up anonymously anyway, so you can never keep the people with less than pure intentions out. I'll just set up the format so individual pages cannot be linked. You get the whole site or nothing.

After the run-ins with one of the commercial sites that kept escalating, the guy finally sends me spam full of more advertisement, obviously because of the sign in.

As to the copyright stuff, copyright only has value if you are willing to litigate it, and a free site isn't worth litigation.

matt

I recently experienced a similar situation in a much more drastic tone. We paired up with another company to work on a proposal. In short, the other company needed our expertise, we needed their resources. Together we wrote the proposal and shortly before it was finished and ready for submittal, the partner backed out saying that they opted to not pursue this technology study at this time. Without their resources, we couldn't compete. Needless to say, we kept an eye on who won the award and since it was for government got a copy of the submitted proposals. Guess whose we saw? Our partner's, with all our original concepts but with their name on them. The real kicker was that we modeled some of the parts and rendered them to have nice images in the package. The images were exactly as we had in our copy of the proposal. From that point on, we place our logo in a conspicuous place on every CAD generated rendering that goes into any report, proposal, or other documentation. If they try to crop out the logo, they also crop out a piece of the component. Besides doing this for the images on your websites, it would also be possible to put a nameless feature buried in the history tree that defines your work. It wouldn't affect downstream CAM operations or other uses of the model, but would allow you to find that feature in models stolen from your website. I doubt the "editors" interrogate the feature tree of the models they steal.

--Scott

I'd like to avoid that. The sign ins are part of what I don't like about the commercial sites. Plus, people will just sign up anonymously anyway, so you can never keep the people with less than pure intentions out. I'll just set up the format so individual pages cannot be linked. You get the whole site or nothing.

After the run-ins with one of the commercial sites that kept escalating, the guy finally sends me spam full of more advertisement, obviously because of the sign in.

As to the copyright stuff, copyright only has value if you are willing to litigate it, and a free site isn't worth litigation.

matt