Copyright issues for 3D artist

General Forums Blender and CG Discussions
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Hi,

I hope you’re doing well

I’m an archviz 3d artist & I have a question to ask, and think you’re the one who can answer it …

Is it illegal to create and sell 3D models from scratch (furniture & scenes) of existing real-world items whose design may or may not be protected?

Also, using these models for educational purposes like a tutorial on youtube or a paid course.

I’m waiting for your answer, I’ll be so appreciative

best regards

Mohmed BENIANE - Benianus 3D

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@benianus3d

Behance: https://behance.net/benianus

Instagram: https://instagram.com/benianus3d

Whatsapp: +213658854636

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No, if they’re not protected, yes, if they are. To sell a derivative work of something copyrighted, you must have written permission from the copyright owner.

Be careful here- a paid course and a YouTube tutorial are not the same category of use- a YouTube tutorial is educational and a paid course is commercial. You can do whatever you want for educational purposes. You absolutely must have permission for commercial purposes.

P.S. if your YouTube video is monetized, it’s now commercial. Be wary, get permission when in doubt

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mhh, what do you think, how many of all models on turbosquid have the permission of the original designers or copyright holders?

maybe zero, something percent?

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The “if all your friends jumped off a cliff, would you?” defense doesn’t traditionally hold up super well in court :wink:

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Probably a very tiny percentage have permission. Well, the ones shared by companies who own the designs themselves, those obviously do, but outside of those I doubt many people bother.

That doesn’t mean it’s legal. People do illegal things all the time, and many get away with it (not that I think all laws are good; copyright law is IMO seriously overstepping its original bounds by now, but we’re just talking facts of legality).

All those 3D model sites are remarkably quiet about the legality, which is an indication that they’re just doing enough to cover their own behinds, but are not reassuring their sellers that they’re safe – which they would do, if that were so. They only say “you must hold the rights to your model” and provide some means for people whose IP has been violated to get it taken off. On every 3D model site there are lots of people asking questions like OP does here, but there are never any official answers.

It really only means that for the most part the copyright / trademark / patent holders are generally not pressing any claims, probably because it’s not worth their while to come down on small violators. Occasionally one hears of one sending a Cease & Desist letter, and IIRC it’s almost always related to their actual logos being used in a way that implies official approval of the model. So I’d be especially careful about that, and for the rest make up your own mind how you want to deal with the legality issue.

IANAL.

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You have to differentiate between industrial design and trade mark (Names and Logos)

Here is a copy paste from a legal document about “registered” industrial design.

What can be protected with an industrial design?

A design protects the aesthetic appearance of a product: the lines that define it, its outline, shape, colours, texture or materials, or its ornamentation.

Duration of protection

The protection bestowed by the industrial designs lasts for 5 years from the date the application for registration was submitted and may be renewed for one or more successive 5-year periods up to a maximum of 25 years from that date.

Once the industrial design has been awarded it must be renewed every 5 years, with payment of the corresponding fee.

Trademarks are a totally different matter and are much more restrictive, trade mark is the companies name or logo.

So to keep safe you can make an exact model of a chair that is more than 25 years old, but do not use the original companies name or logo.

There are also “editorial” licenses which restricts the use of the model to non commercial editorial use. A lot of people use this license to pass the “fair use” responsibility on to the buyer.

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Turbosquid:

  1. Depicted Intellectual Property. TurboSquid does not own or license any Depicted Intellectual Property. TurboSquid does not in any way make any representations or warranties about Depicted Intellectual Property associated with 3D Models. You are solely responsible for determining the need for and, if appropriate, obtaining any needed clearance, consent, or release to use any Depicted Intellectual Property in your Creations.

There is no “save” way… but using names or logos… just don’t… (or make it a for educational/news only license… :wink:)

For cars this is somekind of problematic because they often do have a logo on the bonnet/hood but you can recognize the producer anyway… and for example in movies there are also used…
But for example if you would make a car racing video game you should have some approval because you make money buy using the brand…

IDK how strict this is handled in ArchiViz… for example using any famous chair (where nobody can sit in because it is just uncomfortable but it costs a fortune and you are hip to have enough room to show all you dust catcher)… so you are avertising by using this brand…

Edit: ohh and then:

c. Business Logos. You may NOT use Imagery in any Creation that is a trademark, servicemark, or business logo. This restriction is included because the owners of these types of Creations typically seek exclusivity on the use of the imagery in their Creation, which is incompatible with the non-exclusive license granted to you under this agreement.

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There’s also the idea of “fair use.” For example, “for educational purposes.” The use is non-commercial and does not seek profit.

There’s a curious legal doctrine called “laches” which is a way that a company can lose legal protection because they “did not mind their P’s and Q’s.” Companies are always keenly aware of this. Various once-registered trademarks have been lost in this way: “elevator,” “escalator,” and “dry ice.” (How they’ve managed so-far to hold on to “Velcro®” is anybody’s guess … “hook-and-loop closure?”)

If you’re just doing yet another model of Yoda®, but not attempting to make money from it it is unlikely that Lucasfilm Disney really cares at all, nor has to.

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All of the branded stuff is illegal to sell.
Most of the time companies just doesn’t care, but there were cases like with BMW that pretty much all of the car models were removed from major sites like Turbosquid or Hum3D after the legal team has contacted them.

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Is building architecture also copyrighted?

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Sometimes. Depends on the building

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Especially for famous architects… yes…

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Not all. The ones I checked EULAs/ToS all say that you have to have all the rights to publish work. They are not enforcing that automatically, as that’s a mess. Also I doubt any of those sites have enough money to hire enough content moderators to do the checking (all of it would involve actual humans taking to a person uploading 3D model, checking legal documents, etc.).

(I’m not saying that this is great business model from ethical perspective, just it is what it is)

They are actually, at least if you naively read term of services of those sites… Which is really a problem, as sometimes some sellers are ripping models from other places (e.g., games) and reselling them on those sites. I remember at least a few cases on unity and unreal marketplaces where that was the case. One was even given away by Epic as ‘free for the month’ pack (Epic at least in that one case sent e-mail to all users, but usually they just quietly take it down).

In theory if someone comes after you, you can go after the company/person that sold the model to you (which isn’t the platform - at least isn’t according to EULAs, just the person/company that uploaded the model). But I doubt that would even cover your legal costs.

Yea, and that’s the way to proceed really as I don’t think there is any other way (aside from having huge content moderation teams). Some sites do investigate even if just random user flag the asset as IP violating, but it usually takes couple of weeks.

Also copyright is usually a civil law matter, so the actual rights holder should really go after people ripping him/her off. Which just shows the age of copyright laws as IMO it’s totally unreasonable to think that any small content creator has resource to police whole internet by himself.

+1 for pointing that up, but it’s way more complex than just those two categories. I’m not a lawyer, but IIIRC there are also provisions related to design patents (15 years of protection) and general copyright (translating from one medium to another, like physical world to 3D is usually treated as derivative work).

You hear more about branded stuff as being illegal to sell because companies are legally obliged to protect their trademarks to not lose it IIRC. There is a lot more stuff that’s violating some form of copyright than just branded stuff.

Btw. one more thing, is that it’s even messier if you realize that for example ‘fair use’ mentioned in this thread most likely refers to US copyright law. Which covers only tiny portion of the world population and different countries have different copyright, some having sth similar to fair use, some don’t.

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And fair use only applies in non-commercial settings, which completely invalidates it in the context of this discussion

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You sell it… you better have a license…

Expect if it’s “pure” art “only” and not for commercial use… (expect selling the one ar piece). → problematic: prints (also 3D) of your art//
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What if I’m an architect and I want to visualize my project?

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American fair use actually does allow commercial use. That’s why a show like South Park can parody Disney’s Mickey Mouse without needing to gain a license for it. Other types of transformative works like educational content, etc. also allow this.

The trick however is to prove that it is fair use. For stuff like 3D models it is hardly ever fair use because taking someone’s work and publishing it as your own does not fall into fair use. However, let’s say you are making a video where you transform the material, i.e. making a parody machinima ala Red vs Blue, or make educational content where you break down the model to see how it was made, you could potentially argue for fair use to use commercially.

However, fair use is a case by case basis. The law as I have understood it over the years is not super well defined, so something is not fully fair use until being convincingly argued for in a court of law. If previous cases that are similar to yours when arguing fair use, then it’s going to be easier to prove it.

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The biggest problem with that- although you’re entirely right- is that fair use isn’t a protection, it’s a defense. You can still go to court, it’s for a judge to decide if it’s fair use- but you still incur the legal fees, which is something Disney has notoriously leveraged. They’ll sue people doing perfectly innocuous things that a judge would absolutely declare to be fair use, and keep legal pressure on them and keep it out of court until the sued party runs out of money, gives up, and concedes. It’s an effective tactic, Nintendo does it a lot too, but a truly disgusting one

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Well afaik in doing so…

As long as copyright - trademarked laws are not being contravened in the process others had previously commented upon upthread, then yes you’re good too go.

But really I’d suggest seeking professional legal advice rather than online opinions from a bunch of strangers.

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As I said, the Doctrine of Laches is what drives a lot of enforcement decisions. If you do not consistently enforce what you claim to be “proprietary rights” against every potential violator that you become aware of – if you do not with a level hand treat all of them the same way – then the law can conclude that those rights are not in fact important to you, and you can lose (!) them forever.

It’s a doctrine designed to keep IP lawyers in business. :slight_smile:

Kodak® Corporation deliberately introduced and heavily promoted the term, “snapshot,” in order to protect their trademark against those who were then, in common conversation, saying “kodak it.” If the term “Kodak” had indeed become a generic phrase, the corporation would have lost the proprietary rights to its own name. It almost happened that way. (We now see this today in, “Google it.”)