Possible Copyright Infringement/License Breakage

[kittrellbj]

Hi,

I know you can use the models in commercial applications and sell those applications. You can even make images from the models (i.e. advertising pics, etc.) and sell those. But, can you make a morph and then sell the model? Don't think so. It's not exactly a derivative work, it's not exactly your work (other than moving a few sliders and hitting export).

On Turbosquid, someone appears to have posted a model for sale that looks extremely, extremely similar to a MakeHuman model. The link to this model is http://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/hum ... obj/470681. I submitted a ticket to them, but they are having trouble making the connection. Maybe the team here wants to make contact with them if this sort of thing is not allowed (which I don't think it is). They need screenshots of the same work inside the tool, I believe.

It has already sold at least one copy. I say that because it has a review listed below it, and you have to buy it to review it.

[joepal]

Hm. Tricky to say without actually having the model.

However, it seems like a kind of daft offer. I mean, what he's selling is an "obj" file (at least from what I can see on the web), meaning no bones and no rigging.

I guess the question is a bit how he got hold of it. If he simply played around inside makehuman and exported a resulting wavefront obj, I can't really see that he's doing something wrong. The relevant license clause would then not be from GPL, but from the specific mesh license: http://sites.google.com/site/makehumand ... Human-Mesh

When you export, save, or in any way convert a MakeHuman data file, you may store any deformations that you have applied/created, along with the topology of the base mesh and any positional information that you have not materially changed. You are the Copyright holder of changes that you have made. The MakeHuman Team retains Copyright over the topology and the base mesh, but grants you permission to copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the generated materials over which they hold Copyright, including the topology and positional information constituting the base mesh provided that this does not prevent others from doing the same.

(my boldfacing)

In other words, he's perfectly allowed to sell his deformations, but as far as I can see, if someone buys them they can then re-sell the object in their turn.

[Manuel]

Yes, it's ok.
I hope people appreciate the freedom we offer.

Best,

Manuel

[kittrellbj]

Ok, just wanted to make sure on that.

[lovemakehuman]

You have to imagine that when the full version of MakeHuman comes out those sites are going to be flooded with meshes and their prices are going to tank.

[bchick222]

Haha, wow, it sure was strange to come to the forums after a while to see what all was new and to find this thread. I am the same bchick222 that has those models on Turbosquid. Rest assured though, I had sent an email to Manuel asking (very specifically too) if I could sell them. At the time I uploaded them I had been looking for a cheap human model that looked really nice that I could use as a base. Sadly, I didn't find anything I was interested in that was cheap. Then I found MakeHuman and figured I would use it to put some on there for free. However, I was told putting them on there for free wouldn't be good so I set a price. Yeah, I could have set the price to something like a dollar, but hey. I think I've made maybe $45 so far (~13 sales).

Good to know the community is on the lookout though. And I will change the description to include that it was made with MakeHuman as that really would seem fair.