Legal 3D models from ral-life cars?

[PeterX]

Let's assume I would create 3D models of real-life cars or locomitives. And let's assume I would have gotten the explicit right to use them from the manufacturer. Would that be welcome in the open source community? Or would that be frowned upon because the models are under copyright?

Greetings
Peter

[Huitsi]

Said "explicit right to use them" would have to be a free license.

[PeterX]

Said "explicit right to use them" would have to be a free license.

Yes, You are right. I wasn't precise enough.

Let's assume the car manufacturer would grant me the right to publish it under an open souurce/free license. Would people still think "Bah it's non-free", because the manufacturer still holds the right to publish/use it non-free? I mean it's a bit like Qt, which has/had a double license.

Or maybe if I can get the manufacturer to do so, it's probably the same (and simpler) if the manufacturer themself simply publishes the car design under a free license, or?

Greetings
Peter

[Huitsi]

The problem is that you can still only license what you hold the copyright to, which would not be the whole (derivative) work, only your modeling. Whether "yeah you can do that" is an implicit license from the manufacturer is, I think, something to be decided in court. Keep in mind that for the model to be free, I would have to have the right to start manufacturing my own (free) cars based on it, which would be very risky on a non-explicit license.

The copyright holder would always have "the right to publish/use it non-free" – at least I don't know any license where the licensor would waive that right. That is not a problem.

[drummyfish]

Wikimedia Commons explains it here:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Comm ... tive_works

Basically:

• With cars it's a bit complicated as there's something called a utilitarian design to which copyright doesn't apply, e.g. a generic car shape can't be copyrighted, however it can be blended with copyrightable elements such as specific decorations in the design etc. It's extremely difficult to separate these. One judge's opinion will be different from another judge's opinion.
• A free work must grant the four basic freedoms, which it can't do if it's based on (is a derivative work of) something restricted by IP such as copyright, so if your model of an existing car (which is restricted by some form of IP) is to be free, the original author of that car must stick a free license to it, granting all four basic freedoms to everyone without discrimination. A one-time permission for you to e.g. include the car in your specific game won't do as that doesn't grant the four freedoms to everyone without discrimination. No car manufacturer will ever stick a free license to their car design.
• I don't recommend doing this and I will frown on this because you're moving to a grey area, you're potentially risking dealing with legal attacks from the companies (even in case you're in right), you put off many people etc. Also even if there is some peculiar law right now allowing you to do something, it's not guaranteed this law will hold in the future or in other countries, just don't rely on these as copyright laws are known to be changing retroactively. Just keep it safe, keep to the very basic concept of copyright and don't look for weird specific exceptions. Rather than deal with all this just create your own car design and everything's complpetely good.

[bzt]

Let's assume the car manufacturer would grant me the right to publish it under an open souurce/free license.

Yes, you can do that, just keep that permission in a fire-, water- and disaster-proof safe.

Would people still think "Bah it's non-free"

I'm sure there will be some people thinking that, but you can safely ignore them. There's no jury in the world that would question your usage as long as you have a written permission from the original copyright holder to do so.

Or maybe if I can get the manufacturer to do so, it's probably the same (and simpler) if the manufacturer themself simply publishes the car design under a free license, or?

That depends. In licensing terms it would be a simpler case, but I doubt it would be simple to get the manufacturer to publish their models for free.

Keep in mind that for the model to be free, I would have to have the right to start manufacturing my own (free) cars based on it

I don't think that's even possible. To manufacture a car you'd need a lot more than a model, you'd need actual blueprints and lots of engineering data and details. Basically to manufacture a car you'd need an AP203 and AP214 protocol compatible, fully detailed CAD model, not just an empty shell 3D model like the one you have in games. And those CAD models aren't for free, probably never will be, and there's no working free licensed SDK to read AP203/214 format either (so even if you manage to get the model, there's no free software to process, and you can't write one because that format is proprietary, documentation locked away behind paywalls).

Cheers,
bzt

[Huitsi]

To manufacture a car you'd need a lot more than a model, you'd need actual blueprints and lots of engineering data and details.

Sure, I would have to engineer a car basically from the ground up, however the original manufacturer might be upset if it looks (on the outside) exactly like theirs – ie. the "free" model. I realize this is a rather extreme example. The point is, for the model to be free, the original manufacturer needs to allow ALL uses and derivatives – preferably in the form of an explicit free license.

[bzt]

however the original manufacturer might be upset if it looks (on the outside) exactly like theirs

Yeah, they can be upset as much as they like, but there would be absolutely nothing they could do about it legally. (They could also hire people to set your factory on fire just like Edison did with Tesla's laboratory when he run out of legal tools.)

The point is, for the model to be free, the original manufacturer needs to allow ALL uses and derivatives – preferably in the form of an explicit free license.

Yes, you're 100% correct. But the assumption was that the manufacturer allowed exactly that: "Let's assume the car manufacturer would grant me the right to publish it under an open souurce/free license." Of course if the manufacturer only grants the right to just use the model and to just PeterX, then it wouldn't be free. But in this case they've specifically granted the right to publish the model and under a free license.

Now if the manufacturer would have published the models themselves under a free license, then it'd be easy, since they are the copyright holder, no questions asked. But if they instead grant the right to PeterX to do so, and later the manufacturer gets upset then PeterX (not being the copyright holder) would have to prove on court that he had that right granted, and that he gave the license to manufacture those cars legally to you. That's why it is so important that he must keep the free-license publishing permission safe. (Simply put if the permission gets burnt in the factory fire, then the manufacturer won, both PeterX who published the model and you, who started manufacturing those cars would be screwed.)

Cheers,
bzt

[Huitsi]

It think they would sue me, not PeterX. In any case, the question becomes whether any reasonable court would see things the way you do. I don't know the answer to that.

[bzt]

It think they would sue me, not PeterX.

In this example, you have used a free licensed model to manufacture cars. You did nothing wrong, those CC0, CC-BY, GPL, etc. free licenses grant you the right and freedom to do that, so the manufacturer will loose the case in no time (in the USA at least, even a big money corp like Cisco lost against FSF). The manufacturer knows that, that's why they would attack the publishing of the model under those licenses, rather than attacking the usage of free licenses themselves.

In any case, the question becomes whether any reasonable court would see things the way you do. I don't know the answer to that.

As for CC I know for a fact that in general (not applied to software specifically, see below) almost every country accepts that to some version at least. Here's a detailed list by jurisdictions. This means if you can prove that you have used a CC licensed model for manufacturing, and that you haven't violated the terms and conditions of that CC license, then the jury in those countries will agree with me. As for countries not listed, who knows?

Now for GPL, you have a good chance in the USA and probably in the UK. In Europe it's a bit complicated, the Software Directive (2009/24/EC) states that ideas and principles underlying any element of a computer program are not protected by copyright. However the final software product is protected, and any form of distribution to the public is the exclusive right of its author (which means the authors might choose the license however they wish, and if not allowed by the license, but you have a written permission from the author then you can distribute the software). There's also EUPL (a specific European Public License for software), which incorporates many free licenses including GPL among others (but not CC).

For all the other free licenses (BSD, MIT etc.) and the acceptance of free licenses in other countries, I have no clue (but I'm no expert on international software law either, I only know my own country's laws and those countries which my former employer made business with).

Cheers,
bzt

[Huitsi]

I still think it depends on what the permission in the fire-proof safe actually says. It would be hard to argue that "you can make an X-licensed model of our car" is not granting (a permission to grant) a license. "You can make models of our cars for your open-source racing game", on the other hand isn't such a clear case. Does that give permission for anything other than creating and distributing the models alongside the game?

Somewhat tangentially, have the implicit licenses like most* GitHub contributions "have" ever been tested in court?
*) I made that up but it certainly feels true.

[PeterX]

There more I listen to this discussion, the more I suspect there are some legal pitfalls which can't be controlled to 100%. In other words the manufacturer has ways to stop me. So it seems now to me that the solution is to offer models separate from the normal project and under a closed liicense. Whenever a manufacturer comes up and wants to stop me from distributing it, I simply remove his/her models from the package.

(Maybe this is similar to the legal problems MAME witnessed.)

Greetings
Peter

[drummyfish]

The best solution is just to avoid this by creating your own car, it's not that difficult and you can still get inspired by an existing car. It's a completely superior approach: you have a work that's completely your own, you can license it absolutely anything you want, no copyright law in the world will restrict you from using your own work, you avoid any and all legal headaches, there's not even a remote possibility of someone wanting to sue you, no question of moral rights etc. Drawing your own shape of a car is not even as much work as actually modelling it, it's almost a negligible extra price (it's not like designing a real car that needs to be designed with physical and engineering restrictions). You also bring a completely new piece of art to this world as opposed to just mechanically remodeling something already existing. I can't see why someone wouldn't choose this way over the alternative.

[bzt]

I still think it depends on what the permission in the fire-proof safe actually says.

Yes, absolutely. All I've said is only true if the permission explicitly grants right to "publish under free license" which was the assumption. If it permits something else, my argument won't stand.

There more I listen to this discussion, the more I suspect there are some legal pitfalls which can't be controlled to 100%. In other words the manufacturer has ways to stop me.

Sadly that's true. We also assumed a fair court, but those big money corps are rarely playing fair, they often bribe the judges and pay an armada of lawyers to find loopholes in the law, something that you can't control and something that would always make the big money corp win against poor nobodies. In this messed up world of ours, you only have rights in theory, but save a very few exceptions, in practice only the rich have rights.

So it seems now to me that the solution is to offer models separate from the normal project and under a closed liicense. Whenever a manufacturer comes up and wants to stop me from distributing it, I simply remove his/her models from the package.

Yes, this is uncomfortable for the end users (because they have to install the models separately), but definitely works, and many free and open source projects choose this way to avoid legal problems. It's a viable compromise I'd say.

Cheers,
bzt

[DrAltaica]

It think they would sue me, not PeterX. In any case, the question becomes whether any reasonable court would see things the way you do. I don't know the answer to that.

In what country are you protected from unreasonable courts? Don't you remember Kim Dotcom His house was raided on behalf of the USA for complying with the FBI's request of leaving some pirate songs online so that the FBI could investigate who was pirating them. Bleem! was legal there was no question about the courst have always rules that making compatible computer systems was OK. Nintendo lost the copyright to the startup screen because they required games to show first thing or the GB wouldn't play the cart.