GrabCAD Community User Group

Is that true?

yes, it is.

all your hardwork goes into trash suddenly, because of such people.

thanks for the information

This has happened for a lot of years, very little you can do about it.

They don't do as well as you think.

Hello bro,

next time try to Defeature your Model if you use Solidworks

https://blogs.solidworks.com/tech/2018/08/secure-your-intellectual-design-properties-through-defeature.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CEgSuG6DcA

hope that help you

The attack, the best defense.

Perhaps one way to combat this situation is to aggressively advertise on these sites that allow piracy. Something like: "never buy a model that its real authors provide for free". Visit this link, verify that this model is stolen and get it for free from its true author.

If many GrabCAD users discover these plagiarisms, there will be a lot of publicity of the same type, but it doesn't even have to be many: those who are looking for models will surely not want to pay a penny for something they can find for free elsewhere. Perhaps, it will even end up being something beneficial for GrabCAD.

And the ideal would be, although I don't know its complexity, that in the future the GrabCAD platform provides "some kind of electronic mark" on the uploaded models that avoids fraud (selling something that is free).

I'm not sure what, but it occurs to me that it might be some kind of "internal, indelible property added to files" at the binary level, but visible from the OS to any user. I'm not saying it's impossible to erase by another expert, but it does "give a common thief work" who today simply downloads models and resells them effortlessly!!!

Putting actual physical watermarks on the model is good too. With the right software and a little work, physical watermarks can be removed, but most pirates won’t spend the time nor will they know all the places to look. Make sure people know the watermarking exsists or the pirates are likely to copy your work without knowing the risk. I almost always place several watermarks on my models. Some very conspicuous and easy to spot. Some are tiny and very inconspicuous. If nothing else it will help prove authorship.

As always, there is no foolproof defense. Do not ever publish anything that you absolutely can’t handle getting stolen. It can, and will happen. My best defense for items likely to get stolen is don’t offer it for free. Thieves are too cheap to even spend one dollar.

Dear Bob,

I agree with all your comments!

In my case, for 24 years, every day of my life, I give away absolutely everything I know and design to my students (fair and unfair uses are at their expense). And for 35 years or more all my professional designs arrive, with all the details in construction plans, to all the factories that then build them and benefit from it as many times as they can. It doesn't affect me either. At the end of the day, what little I know "I stole from the books"... and I am not the author of absolutely anything!

If you upload something on GrabCAD you MUST be aware about this possibility too. This is already a old story with a few new enraged victims. Is poping up every year one or two times. I started with the same feelings like you all others. I also was enraged about GrabCAD because it can't/don't protect our models. All this is bullshit. How do you expect that they can do that? We are living in a world that's not very different from the world before internet. I'm old enough to know that "world before the internet" too. What's the difference? Nowadays you can trip over it sooner than before. What can you do against them? The same like before. Nothing, if they are out of your reach. You want to make money with them? If so than are you wrong here. Is this world a bad place, populated with bad people? Yes it is! Get used of it. Will never change, not soon enough that me and you will be able to see it. And don't forget that you (and me) are also part of this world, so you (and me) are probably the same like the others. If not than be proud of you. At least you know that the thief shouldn't be proud of itself. Bob and Marcelo are wise guys. I think they said actually everything about it already.

It's a good option!

I have had many of my models stole and show up on a china web site that clones Grabcad and is claimed as model done by who ever. I did watermark renders but they render your model again. Engraving something just gets removed or filled. Granted Grabcad is a free for all you have to expect that. It would be nice if it is republished they give credit where credit is due to the original modeler.

Actually, I found that problem first, than I told everyone about it, and they posted this discussion

I think that guy wasn't a Grabcad member. Also that account has been already banned.

Thanks.

By chance I have noticed many users who appear as followers of others, but when you want to access their profile, the 404 error appears. I don't know if the same thing happens to you.

Some examples:

https://grabcad.com/297d1bc6-1

https://grabcad.com/1b8964c3-1

https://grabcad.com/19934864-1

https://grabcad.com/9d4ec5ea-1

There where I come from we have a proverb: "stupidity and luxury are expensive". It's that what Marcelo said already in his first posting.

If each one of us would set a price/minute for his personal time then would we see what a waste it is even to think about this topic more than two seconds.

There is nothing that we can change/fix and the "watermarking", in any form whatsover, isn't worth to waste even more of your lifetime to do it.

Price per minute... One of my models has well over 300 hours of design time. HOURS! I don't kid myself that I can prevent theft. The most I can do is slow the thieves down and help keep honest people honest.

The watermarking is more for pride of authorship. When I know I have multiple copies of my design on display to the public in various places with my name visible it makes it all seem worthwhile. Years from now when someone wants to know where a model came from, there should be no problem finding that out.

If your not proud enough to put your name on a project then it maybe it wasn't worth publishing.

I have mixed feelings on the question of pride. I am proud of my professional and academic career, not because it was a big deal, but because it meant great efforts in unfavorable conditions that required everything on my part.

When I filled out my GrabCAD profile, it seemed good to expose it, and I did it without thinking, with total innocence.

But later I happened to see the profile of one of our colleagues, Igor, (who probably has much more merits to be proud of): "I am a simple engineer from Russia"

After reading it, I decided to delete everything from my profile. Nothing changed about my pride for all that, but I realized that I didn't need to publish it or tell anyone who didn't ask me. It no longer seemed like a good cover letter to me.

I'm not saying that the same thing happens with the authorship of the models, as Bob expresses, especially since each one feels in a very personal way. The companies that hire me put as a fundamental condition that "along with the models and plans, I am giving them the intellectual authorship of each design" ... with which my pride in authorship was forgotten 35 years ago!

"Workers must root out the idea that by keeping the results of their labours to themselves a fortune will be assured to them. Patent fees are much wasted money. The flying machine of the future will not be born fully fledged and capable of a flight for 1000 miles or so. Like everything else it must be evolved gradually. The first difficulty is to get a thing that will fly at all. When this is made, a full description should be published as an aid to others.

Excellence of design and workmanship will always defy competition"

Lawrence Hargrave 1850-1915

If you don't want your models copied on other sites don't put them up.

Regards,

Why can't we put them up?

Users on GC actually steal and post others work back to GC, maybe best to start there.

This user Helicopter | 3D CAD Model Library | GrabCAD

stole from this user AIRBUS helicopter H135 | 3D CAD Model Library | GrabCAD.

Been reported many times and yet nothing done by GC.

I reported this model and hope GC will remove this

Still up nothing done......................................

Still up nothing done......................................

Reply

+

Yes I did it again.

Maybe we should tell GC Staff about it

I think this is a better option

Helicopter | 3D CAD Model Library | GrabCAD

still nothing done............................