<Devil’s advocate>So, he didn’t strictly copy your design, but came up with a derived work?</Devil’s advocate>Still your original Creative Commons license included both Attribution and Non-Commercial clauses, so the “My brainchild!!” claim would be strictly verboten, and I doubt the USMC would be directly fabricating this in production so contracting for manufacturing would probably run afoul of “non-commercial”.
The major wrinkle would be sustaining the claim of infringement unless you could find evidence that Cpl. Brain Boy accessed Thingiverse and downloaded the design. Because otherwise, a claim of independent development and convergent design might seem credible to a jury (assuming it gets to that level).
The final design iteration had a normal V-Tail, that is the one that is currently available for download. You can see it on the video of the first test flight. That is the configuration used for the “Scout”, except for the motor being on the nose.
Yes, I sent an e-mail to that address earlier today, Autodesk is using this for PR so that’s something that needs to be cleared up:
About an hour ago I went through the messages I received in Thingiverse, the site that hosts the files, I found that McNeal did actually ask me for some additional files last year, the username was a combination his two initials and a string of numbers, but following the username to the user profile showed the full name.
So… yeah, there’s no unscrewing that pooch.
I sent a message to the guy to see how he can right the wrong he did. Let’s see what happens.
I’d say give everyone involved a decent 10-count to acknowledge the issue and do something approximating the right thing. And if that doesn’t happen, find a nice tech media outlet who would enjoy embarrassing a multi-billion dollar tech company and an organ of the State for sponsoring piracy.
Also, you might be able to stir up some righteous geek indignation by pointing out how the CC license is being trampled.
As rabid as Autodesk has traditionally been about its own IP, you’d think they’d be a little sensitive to the PR blowback possibilities.
Yes, that’s what I did with the e-mails I sent, encourage people to start a dialog to set things right in a gentlemanly manner.
So far only Autodesk has given me an answer and it was basically a CYA saying they just provided the tools. I pointed out that as it may be still they are using this for PR and what about that?
BTW, Ale, does the quoted price of $613 per unit sound right to you? I don’t know anything about the cost of the printing or the electronics, but that seems high to me.
The person I’d contact is Fr. Robert Ballecer, SJ, host of Know How on the Twit.tv podcast network. His Twitter handle is @padre, SJ. His show is all about 3D printing and building drones (he’s sometimes known as the “Quad Father”).
Quoting myself, his Twitter handle doens’t have a space in it - @padresj. I figure this is his beat, the conjunction of 3D printing, drones and the moral issue of taking someone elses work without attribution. He hosts several shows on Twit and his page is Fr. Robert Ballecer, SJ
I’ve been reading this thread, and if the story pans out, I would expect you could get interest from a media source with a higher profile than just a podcast. In short, why waste such a good story on a podcast when you could get coverage, say, in the Military Times, Wired Magazine, or even The New York Times.
It’s the most popular show on Leo LaPorte’s podcast network which produces 50+ hours of programming every week generating more than ten million a year in revenue. To call it a “just a podcast” is a little silly.
I mentioned Padre simply because he knows both 3D printing and drones, and presumably can speak authoritatively about the moral issues as well.
Potentially ending someone’s career? I have no idea what penalties exist for violations of the Marine’s moral code, or even if plagiarism is a violation of it.
He’s the one responsible for that. All Ale would be doing is reporting the facts and trying to get restitution. It was his action that would violate the code, and his action that would lead to his punishment.
I do not like the argument of acting like the messenger is the cause. The fault is on the guy who breaks the rule/law, not the person who reports that they did so.
I don’t know either, and furthermore, I don’t think I, or you, or Ale, needs to know. The marine who submitted this design? He’s the one who should know that.