YouMagine.
Sketch by Olivier van Herpt
Over the last few months, online 3D printing community YouMagine has been working on the 3DPL, a license for 3D Printed things, specially designed to allow people to create, improve and share more efficiently.
The 3DPL is the first and only license for 3D printed objects and intends to address the areas in 3D printing that general open source licenses do not cover. The idea is to safeguard and encourage content creation by inventors and designers and develop guidelines that ensure intellectual property disputes are resolved.
In a blog on the 3DPL, Joris Peels wrote: “We have a real opportunity here to lay the foundations for a world where much of the emerging technology landscape will be available to all under an open source license. A world where a good portion of the inventions made in the future will be shared and created through 3D printing.”
Some of the proposed guidelines suggest that the design must always be attributed and all derivatives must be available for sharing. If the creator requires that you include reference to be printed on or in the physical printed object, such as a logo or name, you are not allowed to remove that reference without the creator’s approval. Failure to comply could result in the offender being required to pay the creator three times the gross revenue made in any unsolicited sale.
The license is defined by the following types:
REMIX: With a REMIX license your derivative work must be available to remix and share by others.
REMIX — NON COM A REMIX — NON COM license restricts the use of the Design File, the modified Design File and any Designed Product to non-commercial use only. The Design File, the Modified Design File or any Designed Product may not be used with the intent of making money directly or indirectly from it.
REMIX — RIGHTS MELT REMIX — NON COM for 12 months melting down to REMIX after 12 months. With a REMIX — RIGHTS MELT license your design file is available as a non-commercial share-alike file for 12 months. After this period the license will automatically become REMIX.
Right now the license is in its beta phase and YouMagine is particularly interested in collecting thoughts from home 3D printer users, companies, lawyers, the open source community, inventors, artists, designers and makers to deliver a license that meets the requirements of the 3D printing community. The YouMagine team will host a Google Hangout on Tuesday the 17th of March at 8pm CET to gather ideas and then work through the possibilities with lawyers.
The 3DPL can be found here.
