Prusa Research Releases New OCL License

Prusa Research has developed a new license, the Open Community License (OCL). A lot of standard open source and other licensing types have not been made with hardware in mind, or indeed have been made by people who don’t understand hardware. I’m all for open source, but I’ve been exhausted by the swarm of script kiddies that completely don’t understand how to run a hardware business and sensibly spread files and practices around the world.

Now Prusa has an alternative, and will debut the license, along with the CAD for the CORE One, CORE One+, and CORE ONE L. Some key features are that with the OCL, you can revoke the license if someone is a bad faith actor (which is not possible with Creative Commons) and that you are better protected against misuse. One direct event that precipitated this license was the case of Soozafone, or Gabe Rosiak, who shared his beautiful Lucky 13 and Dummy 13 figurines on Printables and elsewhere. These super well-made posable figurines are a joy to print and use. They’re very “maker famous,” and are some of the most popular models on Printables and won 3D Model of the year. Shared under a Creative Commons license, this model was well known and well printed.

Incredibly, a Fei Qin then obtained a US patent on the publicly shared figurine. As we can see, this person has a lot of other patents and if you look at some of them, they are definitely questionable. This is incredibly sloppy work by the patent examiners in question. But, it exposes a huge hole in the licenses we all use. Fei Qin then proceeded to send a takedown notice to the original creator to try to force them to take down their own creation. Wow. There are several Fei Qins, by the way, all of whom seem super excellent and useful people. At least one is not, however.

In this case, requests for examination were made, using screenshots of YouTube videos, Reddit posts, and Amazon listings as proof. This is an important thing to note for creators: doing things online and spreading the news around your new thing will not only help spread your thing, but also establishes that you made that thing at a certain date. This is not perfect, however; people can change Amazon listings, images, and linked images. But, do get the best proof you can of you making a thing on a certain date. Depending on where you are, you can also register design rights, which could protect you in a different way and also establish ownership of a design at a certain date. Notarized documents or arrangements with lawyers can also help. Much is still lacking in tools to help people share designs in a way that they want, inexpensively.

In this case, the OCL license is agreed upon when you upload, including specifies that the original owner can patent it if they wish and you can not, and that if you do patent it, you are in breach of contract. The burden of proof on this is much easier to divine and prove than prior art or other rights, such as design rights.

Soozafone says,

“Dealing with patent trolls targeting Dummy 13 has been a real headache, but I hope that my story doesn’t discourage my fellow creators from sharing your designs online. Instead, it should remind you that your work is worth something. You should never feel shame about protecting your creative work, because these companies certainly won’t feel any shame about stealing it. These days, I often feel like Dummy 13 no longer belongs to me. Sometimes this is a good thing: it feels like it belongs to our community of printers and remixers, who have taken it far beyond what I could have created as a solo designer. Other times it’s a very bad thing: like when a company actively harms our community of makers by greedily staking an unfair claim. OCL will not solve this overnight; I often tell people “a license isn’t a magic spell.” But OCL is one more tool that creators can use to protect ourselves, and one more step towards a future where we can share our work on our own terms, in the community we build together. I am extremely grateful to Josef and his team, not just for supporting me in my specific fight, but for standing up for all creators who deserve fair credit and compensation for their work.”

OCL therefore is a response to this case and many others like it. It is also something that fulfills Prusa Research’s own needs. The company explains that the explanation is meant to be easy and,

• ¨For Makers & Hackers: You have complete freedom to use, modify, and share derivatives back to the community.
• For Businesses: You can build and modify machines based on the source designs for your internal production (e.g., a custom print farm). Unlike vague “Non-Commercial” licenses, OCL explicitly allows you to make money using these designs to run your business; you just can’t make money selling the machines.
• The Restriction: You cannot commercially exploit the design files (selling the product or remixes) without a separate agreement.
• The Protection: It includes an explicit patent license grant, protection against AI data mining, and a codified Right-to-Repair.¨

I love that they snuck in a right to repair in there. It would be super sad if makers created beautiful, useful designs using open systems, only to see them become irreparable junk. An AI data mining provision sounds trendy but is also really smart. No doubt AI models have already mined patent databases, Thingiverse, McMaster Carr, and anything else. Just like those fun cat pictures, the global IP theft industry will come for your designs. And cobbled together, six fingers or not, it will be hard to see the difference between a slightly off AI copied design, and even harder to find the money needed to combat something like this.

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