Angela Daly_Inside 3D Printing Melbourne
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- Researchers analyzed how intellectual property is shared on Thingiverse, the largest online 3D printing design repository, by examining license choices and interactions among users and between users and MakerBot, the owner of Thingiverse. They found that while most public designs use open licenses, 42% of all designs are kept private, and MakerBot has moved away from open practices around its own hardware and software designs. The analysis reveals inconsistencies between the rhetoric of open sharing promoted by Thingiverse and the realities of both user and company behaviors regarding intellectual property.
Angela Daly_Inside 3D Printing Melbourne
- 1. Darcy Allen @DarcyWEAllen Angela Daly @angelacdaly Cultures of sharing in Thingiverse
- 2. Swinburne SCIENCE | TECHNOLOGY | INNOVATION | BUSINESS | DESIGN Culture of sharing in Thingiverse - We conducted research to show how intellectual property is managed – and thus information exchanged – in Thingiverse - We look at how intellectual property in the form of design files is ‘shared’ among Thingiverse participants and between those participants and MakerBot (Thingiverse parent) - Analysis of IP provisions in T’s terms of use (and the disputes around them) and then empirical research examining licence choices for 68,000 ‘Things’ in Thingiverse (all data from Jarkko Moilanen) - Forthcoming academic journal article written in collaboration with JM (Tampere) & Ramon Lobato (Swinburne) 2 Overview
- 3. Swinburne SCIENCE | TECHNOLOGY | INNOVATION | BUSINESS | DESIGN Cultures of sharing in Thingiverse 3 What is Thingiverse?
- 4. Swinburne SCIENCE | TECHNOLOGY | INNOVATION | BUSINESS | DESIGN Cultures of sharing in Thingiverse - Most popular online repository for sharing design files for 3D printing - Owned by MakerBot, which itself was bought by Stratasys - MakerBot’s printers were initially developed based on the RepRap 3DP open source/open hardware project designs - Thingiverse is the design hub in MakerBot’s 3DP ecosystem – over 100,000 designs held – M provides online platform, users provide online designs for free – M doesn’t have to pay designers to create design files for use with their printers -> adding value to M’s printers (where the ‘real’ money is) 4 History and role of Thingiverse
- 5. Swinburne SCIENCE | TECHNOLOGY | INNOVATION | BUSINESS | DESIGN Cultures of sharing in Thingiverse 5 MakerBot’s sharing rhetoric “If you’re not sharing your designs, you’re doing it wrong.” - Bre Pettis We’re hoping that together we can create a community of people who create and share designs freely, so that all can benefit from them.” - Thingiverse
- 6. Swinburne SCIENCE | TECHNOLOGY | INNOVATION | BUSINESS | DESIGN Cultures of sharing in Thingiverse - We looked at ‘sharing’ in two ‘directions’: - ‘vertically’ between MakerBot & Thingiverse users (hierarchical relationship) - ‘horizontally’ among Thingiverse users (peer relationship) - What we mean by ‘sharing’ is the least restrictive use of intellectual property rights (mainly copyright) by MB & users over their creations - i.e. no cost to use IP (gratis); can reproduce, remix, use for any purpose the IP (libre) -> typically actions restricted by traditional/orthodox use of copyright law - This kind of ‘sharing’ of materials & software often attributed to maker and hacker communities 6 Sharing between and among MakerBot and Thingiverse users
- 7. Swinburne SCIENCE | TECHNOLOGY | INNOVATION | BUSINESS | DESIGN Cultures of sharing in Thingiverse 2012 was a game-changing year for MB – they got a US$10m injection of venture capital funding Causation or correlation? MB started changing their terms and practices around IP that year! 7 Sharing ‘upwards’: MakerBot & Thingiverse users
- 8. Swinburne SCIENCE | TECHNOLOGY | INNOVATION | BUSINESS | DESIGN - Unlike previous printers, MB did not release the designs for that printer’s components – move away from ‘open hardware’ ethic - Also released software to accompany R2 which was not open source - highly controversial among maker community Cultures of sharing in Thingiverse 8 Sharing ‘upwards’ controversy #1: Replicator 2
- 9. Swinburne SCIENCE | TECHNOLOGY | INNOVATION | BUSINESS | DESIGN Cultures of sharing in Thingiverse In 2012, Thingiverse updated its Terms of Use: “You hereby grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to Company and its affiliates and partners, an irrevocable, nonexclusive, royalty-free and fully paid, worldwide license to reproduce, distribute, publicly display and perform, prepare derivative works of, incorporate into other works, and otherwise use your User Content, and to grant sublicenses of the foregoing, solely for the purposes of including your User Content in the Site and Services. You agree to irrevocably waive (and cause to be waived) any claims and assertions of moral rights or attribution with respect to your User Content.” 9 Sharing ‘upwards’ controversy #2: Occupy Thingiverse
- 10. Swinburne SCIENCE | TECHNOLOGY | INNOVATION | BUSINESS | DESIGN - Changes: - Thingiverse could now assert moral rights over users’ IP - T could use those designs for its own commercial purposes inc incorporating them into 3D printer hardware Cultures of sharing in Thingiverse 10 Sharing ‘upwards’ controversy #2: Occupy Thingiverse
- 11. Swinburne SCIENCE | TECHNOLOGY | INNOVATION | BUSINESS | DESIGN Cultures of sharing in Thingiverse However, Thingiverse’s justifications for these changes framed in terms of ‘sharing’: The assertion of moral rights by the original users would be ‘fundamentally inconsistent with the intention of Thingiverse, which is to share things and their derivatives’ 11 Sharing ‘upwards’ controversy #2: Occupy Thingiverse BUT - backlash from users: Occupy Thingiverse Many users chose to remove their designs from Thingiverse site to give them more control than Thingiverse’s terms GitHub was a popular, ‘openness’ friendly, alternative
- 12. Swinburne SCIENCE | TECHNOLOGY | INNOVATION | BUSINESS | DESIGN Cultures of sharing in Thingiverse These examples demonstrate MB’s willingness for users to share with them, but no longer their willingness to share with users (aside from providing the Thingiverse platform) – representing a distancing from MB’s open roots 12 Sharing ‘upwards’: MakerBot & Thingiverse users
- 13. Swinburne SCIENCE | TECHNOLOGY | INNOVATION | BUSINESS | DESIGN Cultures of sharing in Thingiverse - ‘Primary’ Licences – Thingiverse users must accept the Terms if they want to use the platform vis-à-vis what MB can do with their designs. - ‘Secondary’ Licences – Choice of ‘secondary licence’ determines how other users use the Thing - Choice includes Creative Commons and a few free software licences Thingiverse encouraged the use of CC licences by users so “that anyone can use or alter any design” - Act as a general permission for others to use the work (in accordance with any stipulations) – normally copyright would require specifically asking the rightsholder each time - ‘Public’ / ‘Private’ Things - ‘Work in Progress’ 13 Sharing ‘sideways’: Thingiverse user licence choices
- 14. Swinburne SCIENCE | TECHNOLOGY | INNOVATION | BUSINESS | DESIGN Cultures of sharing in Thingiverse - Variety of CC licences, each with varying degrees of ‘openness’ - Most ‘open’ and high ‘sharing’ factors are CC licences which only require attribution to the original creator when using or remixing - Most ‘restrictive’ CC licences are those which do not allow derivative works (i.e. no adaptions and no changes) and do not allow the works to be used for commercial purposes - Also important is the ‘share alike’ restriction which permits derivative works but only if they are licensed under the same terms as the original work. This is known as ‘sticky’ as it ‘sticks’ to all future, modified versions of the original work 14 Sharing ‘sideways’: Thingiverse User Licence Choice
- 15. Swinburne SCIENCE | TECHNOLOGY | INNOVATION | BUSINESS | DESIGN Cultures of sharing in Thingiverse 15 Creative Commons Licences
- 16. Swinburne SCIENCE | TECHNOLOGY | INNOVATION | BUSINESS | DESIGN Cultures of sharing in Thingiverse - Empirical analysis of metadata of 117,450 Public and Private Things in Thingiverse - Information extracted by screen-scraping with a custom- built Ruby program by our collaborator Jarkko (extracting information from the site by parsing its web pages) - What does the metadata tell us? - Public, Private and/or ‘Work in Progress’ - For Public Things: - The licence chosen by creator - Number of ‘makes’ - Number of ‘remixes’ - Number of times added to a ‘collection’ 16 Empirical Data
- 17. Swinburne SCIENCE | TECHNOLOGY | INNOVATION | BUSINESS | DESIGN Cultures of sharing in Thingiverse 17 A Thingiverse Thing
- 18. Swinburne SCIENCE | TECHNOLOGY | INNOVATION | BUSINESS | DESIGN Cultures of sharing in Thingiverse 18 Number of Designs Release of MakerBot Customizer in January 2013
- 19. Swinburne SCIENCE | TECHNOLOGY | INNOVATION | BUSINESS | DESIGN Cultures of sharing in Thingiverse 19 ‘Things’ Over Time
- 20. Swinburne SCIENCE | TECHNOLOGY | INNOVATION | BUSINESS | DESIGN Cultures of sharing in Thingiverse 20 Top 5 Secondary Licence Choices Data: For ‘Public’ Things as of 11/2013
- 21. Swinburne SCIENCE | TECHNOLOGY | INNOVATION | BUSINESS | DESIGN Cultures of sharing in Thingiverse 21 By ‘Makes’ and ‘Remixes’ Data: For ‘Public’ Things as of 11/2013
- 22. Swinburne SCIENCE | TECHNOLOGY | INNOVATION | BUSINESS | DESIGN Cultures of sharing in Thingiverse 22 By ‘Makes’ and ‘Collections’ Data: For ‘Public’ Things as of 11/2013
- 23. Swinburne SCIENCE | TECHNOLOGY | INNOVATION | BUSINESS | DESIGN Cultures of sharing in Thingiverse - Surprisingly, 42% of files are Private – they have not been made available to other Thingiverse users via the platform - They are not ‘shared’ – or, may only be shared by a small group of collaborators who have access to login & password of that user account - Seems that over time, number of Private Things has been growing - Why? We are not sure! - But seems that ‘sharing’ among users not as prevalent/dominant as Thingiverse’s rhetoric suggests 23 Going against the sharing grain: Private Things
- 24. Swinburne SCIENCE | TECHNOLOGY | INNOVATION | BUSINESS | DESIGN Cultures of sharing in Thingiverse - Conduct of Thingiverse/MakerBot & users in terms of sharing somewhat contradictory/inconsistent - Thingiverse is the ultimate by-product of user innovation fertilised by open source/maker culture – but it is a commercial, proprietary platform owned by a large global corp with self-interested conduct vis-à-vis IP - Users also not consistently ‘sharing’ – while CC licences used for 89% of all Public Things, a large proportion of Things overall is kept Private - adds a thick layer of ‘off- stage’ activity to what is intended to be an open, transparent system dedicated to sharing 24 Preliminary conclusions
- 25. All graphs and tables used with permission of Jarkko Moilanen. @social3dprint blogs.swinburne.edu.au/3dprint