Low price is hard to say. He had mainly jewelry models and price ranged around 10-20 usd per model.
Designer dissapeared HZ-NilooM
Discussion started by john-monne
Answers
Damn, in this case I am happy it was caught of course. Though, sigh, I do require those models. I cant find other designers offering the same ones?
where is this thread?
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This is the thread:
https://www.cgtrader.com/forum/selling-buying-3d-models/what-to-do-with-frauders
You can write to
skapricorn
He is the expert there and may point you to the original models.
Thank you so kindly for your input in this. It would be nice CGTrader would just notify buyers that came in contact with vendors like that.
You are welcome.
Yeah, it would be nice indeed.
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HZ-Niloom (and in the same time roza-jewelry) was seller of stolen models. If you are looking for cheap but good looking models and copies of branded items you can use CGT's search in printable category. You can check the box "sort by top selling " and probably with this kind of search result sorting you'll get exactly the same models you wanted from HZ-Niloom with the same (or with the very comparable) price.
Or you can try to find this user somewhere on another 3d-marketplace or using search on 3d-searching sites like yeggi.com. Usually sellers are registered on few marketplaces with the same nickname and are uploading the same content to all of those sites.
But buying stolen models from "designers" (that are not designers but thieves) you support thievery, dumping and killing the job of fair designers.
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And it is also a crime. Buying, distributing or being in possession of stolen material knowing that it is stolen is a crime, typified in the Lithuanian penal code with up to 4 years in prison. This can be applied not only to the buyers (of counterfeits in this case), but also to the sellers and to the markets (legal entities), who host this material and profit from it, if they protect the offenders and do not inform the authorities and to the rightful owner, as is his obligation. In cases of repeated cheats, and when there has been a previous formal claim, by the owner of the rights infringed or stolen, ignorance cannot be alleged and the crime is sufficiently proven.
It doesnt work that way in the digital world. Very different legislation (also different per country) come in to play. In most cases it would be enough to change enough about the product you sell. For example, you have a design for a ring and your neighbour buys it. Your neighbour then puts that ring design in a file in which it lays on a virtual table in a virtual house and sells that house as a product. Your ring is then a small part of a much larger product, legally it is then a new product and the ring becomes something in between "fair usage", What if i design the same ring as yours? Or similar enough? ..dont forget we are talking virtual products here. As well, when i buy a TV in the real world, i can resell it. But vitual items all of the sudden cant be resold and yet i own that file. There are many, many, many ins and outs in this subject. Once a designer releases virtually something, then that is it. Its out. Digital designers are not making physical products that are manufactured. Its copy paste without limit after initial design. Designers should just get paid for their time spend (as in one time payment) and websites such as CGTrader should for example be on a subscription basis to generate that revenue to pay to the designers for their designs. I would, and i assume most others, be very happy to pay a monthly fee to have free usage of the designs, knowing the designers are paid and I have to have no worries nor bad conscience of possibly buying stolen designs. At least this is how i see it :)
You are wrong. I suggest that you read the general terms and conditions.
Models cannot be sold or redistributed, except as an incorporated product, according to point 21.2:
21.2. The Buyer’s license to Product in this paragraph is strictly limited to Incorporated Product. Any use or republication, including sale or distribution of Product that is not Incorporated Product is strictly prohibited ....
Point 7 of the definitions indicates what an incorporated product is:
7. Incorporated Product - Product that cannot be extracted from an application or other product and used as a stand-alone object without the use of reverse engineering tools or techniques. For avoidance of doubt, Incorporated Product is such use of a Product that does not allow further distribution of the Product outside of the application or product containing the Incorporated Product.
The example of the ring, sold as part of another 3d model, is not a built-in product because the 3d format you use allows it to be removed without the use of reverse engineering tools or techniques. It could be sold within a game with a proprietary format. You could also sell it, if you are the one who modeled it even if they are similar, as long as it does not include a registered trademark, if you do not have authorization from the brand owner.
Also, according to the first paragraph of point 18.7, you can only make self-made and originals models:
18.7. By uploading a Product to the Site, the Seller represents and warrants that:
- the Product is his original work, and contains no copyrighted material of any kind that Seller is not the exclusive owner of, including but not limited to: music and / or synchronization rights, images (moving or still) of any kind, writings of any kind, and model clearances / releases;
Neither are you the owner of the models you buy, unless it has been explicitly specified in a custom license, (which are very rare), according to point 20.4:
20.4. Buyers do not own any Product and are only licensed to use it in accordance with terms and conditions of the applicable license. Unless explicitly provided for in custom license terms set forth in the special area “Custom license terms” provided by CGTrader in the Product description section of the Site, the Seller retains copyright in Products purchased or downloaded by any Buyer.
@john-monne I'm not the fan of "copyright" as it exists in our world. I believe design can not be stolen, sold etc. Design is just a one of the results of free creative process. But in case with HZ-niloom and roza-jewelry (I think it's really the same one person) they was selling not designs (nobody sell s design here, except private projects) but MODELS and not just models but models that were stolen. So here is the difference between selling models made by fair designer and selling models that were downloaded from "gray zone" (usually this stuff is floating year by year from one dirty forum to another and back).
Tecna, you are confused between terms and conditions of a site such as CGTrader and actual laws. Its kinda unimportant what CGTraders claims and wants. I gave you general examples of possible usage within laws of A country. Someone could freely download files from another website with different terms and conditions. CGTrader is not a country, nor a law maker.
@Skapricorn. In the end there is no such thing as a free creative process when you break it down to the core lements. We are all influenced by all around us. If I would have only been exposed to for example works of Giger, my designs would be heavily influenced by this style. (just like his style was influenced by others). And my design could very easily be flagged for broken rights boundaries. How about tools used and the "creative" property on those? I know I am broad stroking a lot of things here, but I get the feeling that designers have a bit of an illusion that they create something so unique that the deserve special protections. We lost a bit the plot with this whole in the current conditions of our fine world. As i stated before, designers should just get paid for a time spend on a design and that is it.. done.. no longer yours. Its just a matter of time as well that AI designing will overtake it all. The future will tell that tale. Anyhow, to come back on your thievery and selling. I asked you to let me know who owns the models you have reported and removed? Do you own them? If not, then in whos name are you doing this all? But more egocentrically.. where do i get the models that have you have removed? If you do not know who owns them, how can you report them stolen?
Not similar but completely identical. I don't know what logic they both used when they uploaded the same model in the same minute (literally). And most of those models was many times suspended in many stores of other pirate-"designers" here on CGT.
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Guys thank you all for your input. Admitted I am no pro in all these websites and happenings on them. All I know is that at the moment i need a specific kind of pendant style and this vendor was the only one that offered it. I just did a 2 hour search through yeggi and again on CGTrader but it has come up empty. I have to say as well that in my search last week where i found his models, I didnt come across his models somewhere else. Who determines that they do not belong to this vendor? And why is this person not offering these pendants / jewelry himself? Who then owns all these designs for which he was removed? I dont care if i have to buy them on CGTrader or directly from the people who made them. I just want to buy them.
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@john-monne (I'm making a new comment here instead of replying above, because I will not get notifications otherwise (it's a forum bug))
You are looking at this only from your personal interest perspective and I can understand that, however I'm sure that if you try to look deeper into this you will understand that both customers and designers have interest to eliminate thieves.
I'll try to explain the whole picture:
1. You are presuming that we are selling hundreds of copies of a model that we create (actually some amateur designers presume that too), but that is extremely far from the true.
My average stats for the last 9 years, roughly show that only around 5% of the models get more than 10 sells (total - that makes ~1 sale per year - for only 5% of the models). Some models never get a single sale.
2. Models do not have eternal life once created - TurboSquid released an analysis for their entire database some years ago and estimated that a 3D model lifetime is around 3 years on average - reasons: the requirements of the industry change, software versions change, etc.etc. I'm sure that gets shorter now.
3. The models price that you buy from these thieves now is that low, just because they do not spend any time in designing and modeling - they just download them from a pirate site and upload - that is all that they do.
They also do not pay for software licenses needed to create those models and that is why they can afford to sell them at that price.
Those who actually spend time to design and model can not compete with this pricing, they will be losing money if they do.
Now I'm sure that you don't care and don't want to know that, you just want to buy a model that you like and cheap if possible, but if this continues in the end there will be only thieves left and noone to create them.
Therefore thieves will also don't have from who to steal except from one another (we are now partly in this stage) and there will be no new models for you to buy.
Those terms and conditions, copyrights and laws that may seem weird and obscure to you are created to prevent this, not to make designers rich.
Unfortunately, designers in the 3D World are not celebrities driving Lamborghini..
Just like in the real world it takes a lot of time, education, talent and a lot of hard work to create something that people will want to buy.
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