$10 for a single model… or $20 a month for four models? For some flexi toy with 20 separate variations that only have tiny changes?
I recognize this is a pretty minor issue in the grand scheme of things. There are plenty of alternatives - both free and paid. It’s just a frustrating trend I’ve been noticing. I’m all for supporting artists and recognizing the time and effort it takes to create the model. I have a handful of Pateron subscriptions/donations.
I don’t sell anything. I print for myself and for gifts. Not everyone wants to sell prints at flea markets, but it feels like that’s the assumption now.
Side rant: It’s annoying how the first thing EVERYONE says when seeing your prints is that “you could sell these!!” I know they mean well, like it’s a compliment, but it’s annoying when it’s insisted on as if they were the first people make such a profound thought.
Totally valid. And I tend to think CC BY-NC-SA is probably used more commonly than CC BY-SA. And I’d imagine folks tend to see that NC option and wonder why anyone would ever want to not do that. (I can certainly see why people would be like “Great. That’s all permissive licenses need: more Capitalism /s.”) Just to explain why I don’t usually use the NC (and please don’t take this as shade by any means):
When Linksys took a bunch of GPL’d code (including the Linux kernel), compiled it, stuck it on hardware, and sold that hardware to end users, they violated the terms of the GPL. The GPL has no non-commercial license terms, but it does require that the source code (or at least a written offer of source code) be conveyed along with any compiled versions – including compiled versions on devices sold. Copyright owners for some of that GPL’d code were able to go to Linksys and force them to release the source code of much of what was running on the devices, which enabled the creation of the first versions of OpenWRT (As well as off-shoots like DD-WRT and such).
Something similar is going on in the courts now with regard to smart TVs. With luck, we’ll have open source software distros for TVs similar to what OpenWRT is to routers.
If the GPL had forbidden commercial use, we wouldn’t have the cheap routers that an ordinary consumer could run OpenWRT on that we do. (And cheap devices and greater availability means more people engaging in the community, submitting PRs, and otherwise contributing and enjoying the freedoms afforded.) In short, commercial use can be a feature in service to end-user freedom. It’s not always strictly a bad thing for permissively-licensed works.
So, that explains why I almost always go for GPL licenses when writing software, but of course that doesn’t speak to 3D models.
With regard to 3D models, I’m just hoping that by allowing commercial use, it ends up raising some amount of awareness about things like Creative Commons and intellectual property reform in general. If I ever found someone was selling my models, as long as they give me attribution and inform recipients of the license, I’d feel good that at least a few normie non-nerds would have a chance of being exposed to the whole idea of Creative Commons and intellectual property reform in general.
Again, no shade. Just thought it might be germane.
That’s a good argument. I wasn’t aware of the history of OpenWRT. For software I generally used the MIT license in the past, though I am now shying away from it given that it seems a bit too permissive in my opinion. I should probably research the GPL licenses a bit to figure out if one of those suits my needs.