Why do they call it “GrabCAD”?
Let’s say you want to start a business. The easiest way to start a business is to get other people to do the work for you. And even easier than that is to get other people to just collect stuff they find from anywhere and everywhere, and put it up on your site so you can say you’ve got a lot of cool content. Whew! Sure beats work, and having to know or do something! Brilliant business strategy. And no, I’m not talking about Megaupload. I’m talking about GrabCAD. Sorry, no link.
So, GrabCAD, if I downloaded all the code for your site, and was able to redirect your traffic so that people came to the Matt Lombard GrabCAD instead of your GrabCAD, how would you feel about that? I mean really?
If you were starting an up/download site, and you wanted to be seen as a legitimate business, wouldn’t you be aware that it would be possible for people to upload stuff that wasn’t theirs, and misrepresent it as their own? Or maybe you just don’t give a shit, because if its on the web, it belongs to anybody.
The actual GrabCAD site doesn’t have a mechanism to flag stuff as inappropriate. So I made a call to somebody I knew who is associated with the site. No answer. Found another number on the website. No answer. So I took it to Twitter. It’s not just the impersonal faceless Hollywood studios that are getting ripped off, it’s guys like me, and actually a lot of other people. How many people uploaded someone elses model of Audi TT, R8, Camaro, etc… ? There are tons of duplicate models up there, and its not because a bunch of people all accidentally model the same thing the same way with the same name. The owners of this site have to know that misrepresenting stuff is going to happen, but they don’t have any way to address it.
But as soon as I complained in public on Twitter, I got a response very quickly, and they immediately figured out that they needed to make some changes. How is that?
If I wanted the exposure of putting my stuff up on GrabCAD, I’d put my stuff up on GrabCAD. I know how. Having other people I don’t know do it for me, without asking, without giving me any credit, is not my idea of something I should thank them for. I do give a fair amount of stuff away. This blog is all give away stuff. I get to decide what I should give away, not some half-wit who is trying to get a badge for uploading a lot of crap that he never modeled.
On GrabCAD is a bunch of stuff from the SolidWorks training manuals. Not stuff that students modeled, the actual models given out by SolidWorks. People upload these, with no mention about who the creator was, and they get comments like “cool stuff”, “great models”, “keep ’em comin'”. So obviously no one is aware that the person posting the model had absolutely no role in creating the data that was being downloaded. You can tell who modeled something by right clicking on a feature, and selecting Feature Properties.
So, who else has models up there that people are misrepresenting? Mike Wilson, Dave Pancoast, Fred Koehler, Mark Biasotti, Matt Perez, whoever modeled those Audis, and a bunch more that I can’t just tell from sight. I’d bet that 80% of the models on GrabCAD are misrepresented (uploaded by someone other than the creator without credit). This whole event started because a reader alerted me that one of my books was up there.
If i compare free grab to payable solidworkses content central I really think that solidworks and other providers also screwed that up! CAD library should be free and easy accessable.
bye, Z
@matt
3D printing huh, hogwash
From that article > ‘The benefit to society is huge. No more shipping huge amount of products around the world.’
That is aside from tens of millions of personal printers and the materials required to print the goods….probably in bigger boxes than if you just shipped the finished item.
If you have a family you will probably need another room in your house dedicated to the printer working 24/7, and to storing all the materials – some dangerous.
Better have a TSA camera in there monitoring what’s made as well then. Wee Johnny might make real bombs for his printed toy aeroplane and try them out on Mrs Crab next door… Of course when Johnny grows up he can join the TSA and use a drone to do the job properly.
> ‘No more shipping the broken products back.’
Yup make another one and toss what might have been repaired in the landfill…no doubt its all biodegradable and environmentally friendly too.
> ‘We’ll be able to print food for hungry people.’
well what can you say….
“Whats for dinner momma?”.
“Well dear its pasta, like it always is”.
Unfortunately this is probably the same type of flaky reasoning/fantasy/tea leaf prediction/get into toilet paper and become a billionaire thinking, that got SW/DS involved in the cloud. Still that’s what you pay technology consultants for, and why venture capitalists are always close at hand.
Sure the technology will show up in various places but where its appropriate…
Is 3d printing the next big thing for consumers after the iPad? Probably not. Will that stop companies from trying to propagate ‘make your own Tupperware’ evenings? Nah – crazy world we live in…
If you don’t have an interest in these companies then you don’t mind if they go out of business trying. In the case of DS/SW…well…at least it looks like there could be a refuge for desktop addicts in SE.
http://geomagic.com/en/community/beyond-the-box/the-storm-clouds-on-the-horizon
Matthew brings up an interesting topic of compensation. It could be a new SW statistic for him to track and one that he would be happy to report was flat or trending negative….
Jokes aside, having seen people get upset over the use of their ‘doodle’ models, DS, looking on, must be very keenly aware of how much sh*t would go down if something really valuable of their customers got out of their cloud into the wild. Really it would only take one incident to kill their repute. Imagine the uproar and panic. No amount of compensation to an individual or company would offset the damage done to DS/SW themselves. Worse still you may not be able to ‘pull’ your own data until you were happy they had things under control again. Perhaps DS would have to shut down for a week to investigate…or avoid a bank run scenario….not good.
In the past SW have conveniently hidden themselves away from their customers in times of trouble until the fuss died down but they won’t be able to do that in the future. They will have to be seen to be out there naming and shaming, recovering data, being pro-active and…or will they?… my bet is they will put in the small print that complaints and any compensation (if they couldnt otherwise evade liability….) would be confidential ie such an unfortunate occurrence would be hushed up/buried. I wonder if secrecy is in the interests of other users. Who would be watchdog or regulator? Would it be a good thing to be oblivious to data leaks that might be affecting a company in the same building as you? While large companies could afford to defend their interests or seek appropriate compensation in court, independants could be ruined by the distress alone.
Considering how these corporations like to author one sided user agreements perhaps potential users of the cloud should form a ‘cloud users union’ and hire some legal representation to negotiate some fair and comprehensive agreements ahead of the fact.
BTW I notice how no apology has been forthcoming from Mr Skok for putting out an erroneous press release which states he was currently on the SW board, or a correction for the statement from Mr Meybaum here, that Mr Skok hasn’t been part of SW for ‘many years’. Mr McEleney….we don’t expect to hear from on any matter, its not his style.
That apparently clueless GrabCAD investors may have *unofficial* relationships with their previous CAD companies worries me.
Doesn’t hurt every now and again to have a wee wander around with our flashlight and look into the crevices…. 🙂
@Oleg Shilovitsky
Thanks, Oleg. Yes, I saw your post on the topic. Thanks for raising it up the flagpole.
Yeah, the leadership at GC has some learning to do.
To me, this isn’t a new problem. It’s just theft, which has been a problem since civilization began.
Matt,
I think you’ve raised a very important topic related to GrabCAD community building. I shared some of my thoughts on my blog yesterday – http://beyondplm.com/2012/02/01/grabcad-new-openness-and-future-business-models/.
In my view, there are two important takeaways from the incident – 1/GrabCAD needs to respect people and IP, since people are the source of content to build GrabCAD community around; 2/CAD companies need to think about next step in DRM technologies to protect IP developed using CAD systems.
Best, Oleg
@matt
Hey Matt,
just curious… who has copyright ownership of the many images placed by yourself and others on this website? If say, for instance, someone commenting on a post adds images to their comment using an image they don’t have permission to reproduce is this any different than your concerns here with GrabCad users?
Can you see that people can and have posted copyrighted material here on your blog and you, also, are responsible to remove any infringing material?
What measures do you have in place to stop people from posting copyright infringing material? I can’t seem any mechanisms that allow me to flag an item!
Will you be offering financial compensation to copyright owners as a result of your actions and those that you allow to post here?
Lucky they didn’t pass SOPA, your website could have been shut down.
I keep an eye on what people post. Most images are original, some are fair use, and I have attributed some I’ve used.
There is a constant and direct dialog with readers which you aee using right now, and my phone and email are on tbe contact page.
I’m not in the business of redistributing information, and I don’t make money from this site.
I have been asked to remove things a couple of times due to ownership issues, and I take care of stuff like that immediately. There is not a systematic digital Robin Hood thing going on here.
Notice that even my own writing done for TenLinks in today’s new post was reposted with permission.
@Greg
I am not reporting models.
My concern is how SW models can be shared by a company with important ex(?) SW people aboard with little regard of where those models came from. McEleney was probably the guy who got SW started with the cloud. Skok has to have inside knowledge of the SW cloud from his time on the board. Four of these guys have been involved together before in Cloudswitch. None of these guys are tech idiots.
Cloudswitch is all about handling peoples data. Should Verizon be concerned about where their data might turn up? Who knows….
What this incident tells me is that there is no likelihood DS can guarantee to keep our data safe come the cloud version of SW. When even the people who ought to know best either don’t know or don’t care when they make a substantial VC investment then its obvious the cloud is liable to leak anywhere.
I don’t think any current or ex SW employees should be involved in any ventures sharing SW files regardless of what those files are.
I will be watching carefully to see if any of these gentlemen turn up in any capacity behind the scenes come SWv6.
Basically I don’t want any of them within a country mile of peoples CAD data or anyone who has that responsibility.
People send me résumés all the time, looking for work. Though I don’t hire employees, I’ll sometimes need some contract work for high-burden times (like when every client needs something at the same time). Of the folks who send me items, some of those claim to be proficient with SolidWorks—so I simply ask them to send me a couple of models they’ve done that represent their abilities. What they send matters—a lot. I immediately step through the model from the top, down through the feature manager, to check efficiency, coherence, and sound method. Most of the time I do this, the model is trash (no offense to anyone). Seriously. It might look good as a dumb solid, but as a history-based model, making any future edits will be hell (and that’s what real-world design deals with all the time—continual edits).
So I tend to agree with what Matt said above regarding portfolio pieces. You don’t want to blend in with what everyone else is doing—since that’s generally not worth mentioning, and certainly not worth hiring for quality work. Instead, do something distinctive and impressive (think Mike Wilson’s level of work) and you’ll stand out as a good candidate for contract CAD work.
@Greg
Greg, I can’t speak for what you should do, I just know what I would do. I would not put up under my name a part I did using instructions. My neighbor, who doesn’t know a computer from a toaster oven, came over to my place, sat down, and with some simple instructions made some tutorial part. They don’t know anything about computers, CAD, design, or engineering. The models meant they could follow instructions. Nothing else.
I understand your pride in having created something. That’s the way I started too – first working from instructions, then copying stuff, then making changes to stuff, then making my own designs. But as I said to Adam above, the ability to follow instructions is like the ability to walk – employers just expect it from you, it’s basic, and they won’t celebrate it. If you put a bunch of tutorial parts on your website, it shows that you can follow instructions, nothing else. If you’re trying to get real work, I think having that kind of thing in your portfolio can only hurt you. Any interviewer who has a clue is going to see that stuff for what it is – a rookie flag.
Plus, if everyone who took training or did a tutorial put their finished parts on a download site, (and believe me, they are or were all on GrabCAD), that’s not very interesting for anyone to look through.
Are you entitled to publish that stuff? I don’t know, that question is “above my pay grade”. Is it a good idea to do it? I don’t think so. If I were running GrabCAD would I allow it? No, it would dilute the value of the site.
@adam, I agree with matt to a certain extent. Some of my tutorials take users 10-20+hrs to complete. That is a lot of time investment and does have the ability to maybe show off some rendering skills as well. I do think its slightly misleading to potential employers to see a large number of files that were step by step instructions. I like your idea about putting a disclaimer that they were produced from a tutorial and might help clear up some confusion. It’s always important to represent yourself so think of GrabCAD as maybe your portfolio. There is also a distinction between reverse engineering something. If you are ever short on models just grab something around the house and model it. Even something like a detergent bottle can show off your abilities in several areas. BUT as Matt said showing you can think independently and critically are worth a lot! I can’t show off anything I model for work so I model things like cars because they seem to draw the most attention 🙂
@Neil
@ Matt,
I agree with you, what grabcad are doing has to be done, but whatever idiot is going around reporting models needs to be sure before doing it that it is copied. I have just had a model taken off that I personally modeled following a tutorial within solidworks (the candlestick) in my early days of modelling. OK, so its only a stupid candlestick, but why cant it be loaded on the site?
@matt
Thanks for your feedback Matt. I do appreciate your honesty. I have left them up for the time being, with a note saying they are from a tutorial and referenced the book. I do believe there is some merit in these models to help others to learn and to just show I understand the software. Ha if only real design jobs came with simple instructions… then again we really wouldn’t be needed if that was true.
@Adam Pohl
Adam, you asked, and I’ll do you the respect of being honest. I think if you modeled the parts straight out of the book, following the instructions, then I wouldn’t upload them, or even show them to prospective employers. If however, you did something significantly different, inventive, or experimental to try to learn something, I still wouldn’t show it unless it turned out nice and is distinctly different looking from what’s in the book.
Showing that you can follow instructions isn’t really worth much. Showing that you have initiative, can think independently and critically are worth a lot.
I know when you’re a student, all you have to show are class projects. If you have to take a weekend to model your toothbrush, that would be better than showing you can follow the instructions to model a casting from the book.
In a real job you won’t get instructions on how to model a part. You have to show that you can model stuff out of your head.
As a member of GrabCAD I use it to promote some of the stuff I did in school. Quite a few of my models are from a book called “SolidWorks 2008 for Designers” I’m curious to get your guys’ feedback because it is something you feel strongly about. Should I leave my content up? They are models I made from tutorials within the book. I find it quite offensive people upload other peoples work. These are not my original designs but I did model them and would like to show possible employers my capabilities w/ the software. Let me know what you think…
@Evan Yares
Evan, I’m not that sophisticated about stuff like legal things. I was married to a patent attorney, and it rather soured me to the law. Thanks for the pointer.
Their excuse is that their leadership is young, and saddled with values based mostly on trends and instant gratification. The investors, however, are older and wiser, and should maybe apply some adult supervision.
BTW I see Andy Payne was also involved in Cloudswitch…
Jon Stevenson, couldn’t find out quickly, but in passing, at one time he worked on Parasolid…and also for UG….and in each job in no small capacity.
Anyway all of these guys are currently into cloud tech in some way even if they cite having been in various CAD companies in the past for the GrabCAD blurb.
In no way are these fellows likely to be unaware of exactly what is required in regard of responsible hosting which leaves some serious explaining to be done.
@Evan Yares
I believe GrabCAD is responsible for proper due diligence (: research and analysis of a company or organization done in preparation for a business transaction…)
I didn’t know the exact requirements to send a DMCA takedown notice and I think it’s unfair to assume that I should.
Devon Sowell
As a sophisticated enterprise, and they certainly have a few very clued up people aboard, GradCAD should have been aware of their unsatisfactory hosting from the beginning.
It shouldn’t be necessary for people to send DMCA take down notices and neither should their operation assume that people must be ‘sophisticated consumers’ to get action.
From your wiki link >To qualify for the § 512(c) safe harbor, the OSP must not have actual knowledge that it is hosting infringing material or be aware of facts or circumstances from which infringing activity is apparent.
It would be a long stretch of the imagination to allow them to plead ignorance in that regard I think….
What is mystifying me is why this has become an issue?
Any company that hosts user submitted content should be intimately familiar with the safe-harbor provisions of the DMCA. GrabCAD has no excuse in this matter.
A sophisticated consumer (such as Lombard) should also know the general requirements to send a DMCA takedown notice. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_Copyright_Infringement_Liability_Limitation_Act )
@ralphg
Yeah its interesting that if you do a search using ‘Skok has some CAD cred’ or ‘David Skok Solidworks’ you find quite a lot of recent results saying he is a board member and also he was board member, some in the same week.
I also found one from June 2011 saying he had recently retired from the board….but that’s not many years ago is it?
Same article mentions Axel Bichara as being one of the first investors in Solidworks….
Intriguing really how these Ma. people get together.
Kind of leads you to ponder how the idea of SW in the cloud might have propagated.
There is another issue that has shown up. I made a tutorial for drawing a car. Several people have drawn this car following the tutorial and uploaded these models. These models are their own. I know because i have helped several of them personally along the way. One specifically was just notified by GC that their model was being removed because it wasn’t their own. I think it’s important for those bringing attention to GrabCAD about models that they are sure about this. Just because 2 people draw the same thing doesn’t make them the same model. Obviously that’s not always the case. GC does post publicly saying the model was reported as “not your model”. I think GC handled it well in this case so hopefully its resolved.
Hello Gabe,
When you have finished with the website alterations please go tell your boss Mr Skok that he has also been flagged as inappropriate and we want him off the SW board.
He should be taking action as quickly as possible because integrity is a priority for us.
I would hope not to read of Mr McEleney’s participation in any other business activities that might not look entirely appropriate either.
Going digital made copying trivial, and the “free” Internet made it seem legit. And so we get headlines today like “Buffalo Studios blasts Zynga for copying Bingo Blitz social game” and “Google Fires Kenya Lead Over [theft of] Mocality [data].”
Like Matt, I get ticked off when upload sites host my commercial ebooks for free, but there’s nothing I can do about it, because those sites don’t care — unlike GrabCAD, which can be pressured by public opinion into changing its ways.
@matt
Calling users “engineers” is as nearly as creepy as Bentley Systems calling its employees “colleagues.”
@Neil
If Skok is not on the board, then that adds to the other errors in the Matrix Partners press release regarding GrabCAD. Makes one wonder if Matrix knows what they are doing, making it look like they don’t understand the CAD market.
Hi everybody,
My name is Gabe and I work with GrabCAD. We just made live a new feature where users can report bogus/copied models. Although it appears that dezignstuff will not allow us to link to our blog, please check out the recent blog post on GrabCAD.com featuring the new capability. I’ve tried to add a screenshot of how the new feature looks, but I’m having trouble uploading it to this comment thread. Here is a link to the blog post: [LINK REMOVED, IMAGE INSERTED]
We are taking action as quickly as possible because this is a priority for us.
Thanks,
Gabe
> We started GrabCAD with very limited resources
Yeah $1.1m + $4.1m is pretty lean…must be sure you will get your money back and then some….
Looking at Atlas Venture I see Axel Bichara was involved with CloudSwitch. Thats where John McEleney was CEO….small world isn’t it.
….and at Matrix Partners David Skok was also involved in Cloudswitch…..very small…
I guess you would wonder if people were wearing more than one hat on that occasion too…..
What’s curious is that David’s profile webpage doesn’t list his being on the SW board. So is he or isn’t he? Hmmm, can’t seem to find a list of SW board members ATM… So either he’s claiming to be and isn’t, or he is but denys it now that it looks bad to be so in this case…
‘Skok has some CAD cred: He is on the board of Dassault Systemes’ SolidWorks, a maker of 3-D CAD (or computer-aided design) software.’ …..makes good reading….
‘Mr. Skok [and McEleney] have not been part of SolidWorks for many years.’….is a little confusing to behold….
What’s obvious though is these venture capitalists go into something to make money out of moving along start ups so its hard to reconcile why they would get into open source which is mostly about ‘free’ unless you skim the IP and repackage it in some way for your own benefit. There are people out there that try to sell Blender (much to peoples outrage) for example but they have to attribute it and follow the license terms correctly.
You wonder too why they would want to host rather worthless files for sharing in the sense they are not really of anything you could make for sale. I guess its purpose is to be a honey pot to attract ‘engineers’ to contribute to their crowd sourcing so you probably could say for instance that Mike Wilson’s models were used to lend credibility to the venture, a bit of window dressing if you like.
Probably they don’t care what the models are or where they came from provided it gets people involved and participating in the real scheme.
Really you suspect its a bit of a cunning and ruthless way to get design work done and trawl for ideas all on the cheap.
Is this the sort of business practice you would want to encourage? Most likely not.
@Hardi Meybaum (from GrabCAD)
Hardi, I hardly know what to think. You continue to call users of your site “engineers”. Do you have any proof to back that up? I’m sure there are some engineers, but far fewer than you think. There are some 3D hobbyists, a lot of students, some industrial designers, mechanical designers, drafters, and some engineers.
Anyway, I just reported an additional 60+ links to stuff that is inappropriate on your site. There are tons of things I didn’t check. I didn’t check all of the gun models of exactly the same gun. I didn’t check some of the Audis. I didn’t check all the airplanes of exactly the same model. There’s a lot of stuff I didn’t check, but as it is, most of the models found in the SolidWorks training manuals are currently on your site, even as you claim to have taken off all the stuff that was improperly uploaded.
Don’t play innocent. I don’t buy that you didn’t expect people were going to upload stuff that wasn’t theirs. You, and your investors must have known this was not just likely, but inevitable. The lack of a plan from the beginning makes you complicit in the illegal uploads.
You say you haven’t earned money from the traffic. $4 million is a lot of money for a site like GrabCAD. Especially when you pay nothing for content.
Yeah, you and Kim Dotcom. Open discussion is great. We do that here too. Open trading of any and all files regardless of ownership should be a place where it’s easy for a legitimate business to draw the line. How can we consider GrabCAD to be a legitimate business? I just sent you 60 more links to copied data. How can we consider GrabCAD to be a legitimate business? Why would a real professional want to risk their reputation by associating themselves with your site?
Well, glad I could help. Don;t know why they listened to me and not to a bunch of their actual users.
Yeah, which brings up a delicate point. “Your” stuff is some of the stuff I’ve reported as not belonging to the person who uploaded it. In particular the Cyberman Head, which has been on Paul Salvador’s site for as long as I can remember, and the Xbox controller which Mark Biasotti did.
I know Paul is usually about as happy as I am when his stuff shows up in unexpected places. Mark, I’m sure doesn’t care, and would even encourage spreading his stuff around. None of that matters, though. When you upload something, the picture of the model is right next to your name, and it looks like you’re taking credit for it. Just leave it alone. It’s very simple. If you didn’t create it, LEAVE IT THE FUCK ALONE. It is neither your responsibility nor your right to redistribute all the SolidWorks models on the freaking net. You can do what you want with your own models, but leave everybody elses alone.
Matt,
You have effected a change to GrabCAD that the GabCAD community could not!
Several months ago there were a string of comments from many of the key members regarding this issue of crediting the original creators of a models. There were many good points and what it means to operate in an open-source environment. One counter point was the fact that really great models were being made available to the community.
Besides the obvious assignment of credit to the original creators, there is a bigger picture to the GrabCAD community. It is the ability to building more complex and detailed CAD models then what could be done by a single person.
A part-time project of mine is to created a complete model of a Bultaco Motocross bike. There is little to no information for the details, however others have created parts & assemblies that I can use to build this ambitious project. In the end I plan to give this completed project back to the GrabCAD community. There will always be people who will try to take credit for other peoples work, but we all know that they will not last long.
Therefore it seems a much better approach to share ideas and creative works with others than the alternative.
According to the Matrix press statement of the 5 Jan 2012 Mr Skok is on the board of SW ie he is actively involved in the affairs of SW presently. This is deliberately mentioned to add credibility to his enterprise.
If it is not relevant then don’t use it. Same with Mr McEleney.
Actually GradCAD is up to its neck in relations with SW the company by default.
Being in the position of sharing SW models in a personal enterprise which apparently has had little regard of the source of the files, and being on the SW board that has oversight of the cloud initiative where customers will expect and get the highest standards of security and confidentiality, is not compatible, and he ought to voluntarily exclude himself, or he will be removed, I suggest, by SW acting wisely in their best interests.
There can’t be any credibility extended to assertions of effective SW cloud security while he remains.
Given that one of the fundamental objections of customers to CAD in the cloud is uncertain security SW had better consider very carefully the circumstance of any outside association of anyone involved in SW affairs regardless of who they are or when they were aboard.
There are only a handful of people involved in this, however none are amateurs. Given that, GradCAD’s conduct so far might be best described as negligent and are worst dishonest.
I am not confident that at a future time further more serious transgressions might occur.
In short it is not acceptable for David to wear two hats. It is also not acceptable for John to associate with the company while it is sharing scavenged SW files given his past employment status and likely ongoing relationships with present employees. If he still has aspirations to play some role in providing a cloud service to SW then he is definitely out of order. Both of these gentlemen seem ignorant of a conflicted or potentially conflicted interest they have demonstrated. Persisting as if this is not a legitimate issue would not be a good idea.
@matt
Hi, I’m co-founder of GrabCAD. To begin with, I want to thank Matt for highlighting this issue for us and apologize for getting your last name wrong; there is no excuse for that.
Second, I want to apologize to everyone whose models were uploaded without permission.
We do not support engineers taking credit for models originally created by other people. We should have built in control from the beginning, but we trusted that every engineer would act out of good will. Clearly, that was a bad decision.
We started GrabCAD with very limited resources. Our mission is to help engineers do their own work more efficiently and provide an environment to share knowledge that would save time and effort for many others.
The only way to continue to do that is to resolve the current issue. This is what we have done or are planning to do to fix things:
– We have already taken down all the content that we have found or that people have pointed us to. If you see a file that does not belong to its original author, please let us know at info@grabcad.com.
– We have asked several community members to go through as many files as possible to identify additional cases and notify us.
– We will launch functionality to report such content automatically.
– We will add extra notification to the upload form to let users know that this kind of activity is not permitted.
– We will work with our lawyer to improve the language and policy to address people who share files that do not belong to them.
According to the information we have, all files that were not created by the person who uploaded them have been taken down. We will continue to take down all files that do not belong to those who upload them.
Below please find our response to the issues previously noted:
Devon Sowell
“When ‘Venture Capital’ enters the game, the rules can change not always for the good.”
Hardi: No rules have changed; none of the investors support activity where people upload content that does not belong to them.
Neil:
“I expect Mr. Skok will be removed from the SW board at the earliest opportunity.”
HardI: Mr. Skok and McEleney have not been part of SolidWorks for many years. GrabCAD does not have any official relationship with any of the CAD Companies.
Matt:
“I do think that GrabCAD actively owes some people some hard cash.”
Hardi: We have not earned any money from the models or the traffic, but if the authors contact us about compensation, we are happy to consider that.
“A good percentage of the best models from SolidWorks training classes were also uploaded to the site. In some cases there was a mention that it was a training part. In others, not.”
Hardi: We have taken all those models down.
“If the law gets involved… well, I don’t even know what to say. I think a good public (verbal) flogging of the site’s leadership will bring more changes than legal threats. Although I would not rule out legal threats. With all of the backers who really should know better, I’m very surprised that the site got as far as it did without some sort of mechanism for reporting stolen data.”
Hardi: We are big believers in open and public discussion and are doing everything we can to resolve this issue. We did post about this to the GrabCAD community; see [link removed – Dezignstuff will not link to sites with stolen data]
Again, we feel bad about this issue and should have taken steps to address it much earlier. We do believe that majority of the GrabCAD community are using and will continue to use our product with good will. We are confident that we are building the right tool for engineers.
We are open to all solutions. Please leave comments with your solution, or e-mail me at hardi@grabcad.com.
I’ve been on the side lines of a few Start Ups during the past 13 years. When “Venture Capital” enters the game, the rules can change not always for the good. In a few cases, the needs of the Board/Stake Holders come before anything else; i.e. such as actually not intending to create a long term viable business. In the short term the Board/Stake Holders can do quite well and in some cases they don’t care if the business is successful or not. They just move on to the next Start Up and “lather, rinse, repeat”. After 10-15 years and 5-7 Start Ups, they can walk away with a nice nest egg. Seen it.
Another consideration is that Venture Capital doesn’t always come in a lump sum, rather it’s paid out as needed or in scheduled amounts. The entire publicized amount may not be actually given out. But upper management and board members usually pull a nice salary. The workers, however may get low salaries and “preferred stock”. If the company fails, the workers lose the most because the stock has no value.
Devon
>a good public (verbal) flogging
I expect Mr Skok will be removed from the SW board at the earliest opportunity.
Let it be known to DS/SW that your customers will not accept questionable conduct from any persons who through current or past involvement with DS or SW may have access to their existing or future data either directly or through other persons. At the least this incident exposes his poor professional judgement or awareness. If Mr Skok isnt removed immediately DS can kiss their credibility as a secure cloud provider goodbye. On the other hand users should probably thank David and John for exposing how vulnerable their data is to abuse/misuse and not just from a low level employee going rogue for some beer money either.
DS had better have a water tight and squeaky clean plan to safeguard data in place well before the launch of SWv6. As part of that commitment SW should be requiring GrabCAD to remove any of the SW training models or unauthorised user models that appear on the site and making that directive public. SW need to be seen to be actively engaged in asserting their own IP rights and those of their customers and if necessary getting involved in data recovery on their behalf.
This is going to fall under their responsibility in the future with the cloud so they might as well warm up on this case…integrity matters. We are all watching to see if it matters to DS/SW as well.
@Curt Moreno
Protect them from what? Public discussion? I should say not.
Take down notice? They didn’t have a method to be notified.
If we have to resort to depending on the law, we’ve got a more serious failure than I can address. I think the prospect of losing their funding is far more compelling than common decency or the law. Publicly demonstrating how systematic their carelessness is, and how many potential users they are stealing data from provides a better motivation than anything the law can threaten.
To GrabCAD’s credit, they have taken down, as far as I can tell, every link that I have sent them of stuff that I can tell was not created by the person who uploaded it. I can only point out parts that I recognize, a good many of which I was the original author, and some of them were SolidWorks copyright, some were Wiley copyright, and some just stuff I did for my own entertainment. There were a fair number of models from other people that I have seen over the years.
GrabCAD only succeeds if the “community” wants them to. The dumb asses uploading stolen stuff are generally not able to make their own stuff. So if GrabCAD annoys community members who can actually make their own stuff enough, it will hurt participation.
Frankly, the attitudes of some of the uploaders points to this problem being simply immense. I only can identify a small number of the parts, but I’m positive if you took out all the parts uploaded by someone other than the author, you’d be removing a very significant number.
I do think that GrabCAD actively owes some people some hard cash. They are on the map in part because of super high quality models were stolen and attracted people. Mike Wilson’s models are wonders of technique. Many of his best ones were being used on that site to attract traffic. The site shows a picture of the model, and a person’s name. On GrabCAD, Mike Wilson was never credited for any of his models.
A good percentage of the best models from SolidWorks training classes were also uploaded to the site. In some cases there was a mention that it was a training part. In others, not. Many of the parts still have identification of Dan Pancoast, the training guy at SW.
Something I haven’t made a big deal about, but is what started this rampage is that a pdf of one of my books was uploaded to the site. A commenter to this blog alerted me to the problem. I get alerts like that from time to time, but rarely about sources inside the CAD community. After I found that, I found several parts distributed with several of my books.
If the law gets involved… well, I don’t even know what to say. I think a good public (verbal) flogging of the site’s leadership will bring more changes than legal threats. Although I would not rule out legal threats. With all of the backers who really should know better, I’m very surprised that the site got as far as it did without some sort of mechanism for reporting stolen data.
I’ve read a great many of these comments and understand that mixture of outrage, indifference, and opposition among those who feel they have had their intellectual property misused. However what I do not see is any mention of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act of 1998.
I am not a lawyer and I am sure that someone with a law degree or who slept at a Holiday Inn Express will correct me, but doesn’t Section 512 protect GrabCAD as long as they respond to take-down notices?
– KFD –
Many years ago, I, along with a guy called Edwin Giezeman, release an application for free that converted Autocad 2000 dwg files to Autocad 14 or lower dwg or dxf files.
The software was a bit of a success and had we charged for it, we might have made some decent money off it, but we didn’t and we didn’t.
Anyone could host the software, but the one stipulation was both Edwin and I always be credited as the people behind the software.
Over the years, I have found the software on various sites, but inevitably, the read me doc will have been edited to remove both myself and Edwin from it, only to be replaced by the name of some loser trying to claim credit.
The software is nearly 12 years old now, but it still annoys me what some people will do just to build up some kudos…… I feel your pain Matt.
GrabCAD investors > John McEleney, the former CEO of SolidWorks.
Why does this guy seem to turn up in all the wrong places?…..
A while back it appeared like he might have been in on the ground floor to make a buck from cloud services for SWv6, but a bit later he had (discretely?) moved along. Now he seems to be involved in deriving some income from a collection of freely sourced models and engineers….
John should have a few more clues about conspicuous propriety. He would probably recognise some of the SW models they have/had if/when he saw them, from his days gone by at SW….
It kind of looks a bit incestuous too to have someone from the board of SW there as well.
Who wouldnt look at this and think a few good old CAD boys were about making a bit of enterprise on the side.
There are already repositories for open source stuff. I really wonder why you would want to make an enterprise based around open source. It must look like something else to capture for strategic reasons and obtain a revenue stream from. Perhaps we should use the word ‘exploitation’? Really it shouldnt come as a surprise to realise its just another manifestation of the same CAD-serf revolution started back in ~2006, probably involving the same person.
People should be vigilant about their data and scrutinize who has interests in the companies that hold it. When SWv6 arrives you better believe a condition insisted on by users will be that DS/SW undergo independant audits conducted on a regular (or is that random) basis.
Who can have confidence in SW keeping their cloud data secure when a past CEO and present board member readily invest in a company that passes on existing models without verification of any right to do so.
I am not sure a content flag after the fact is good enough either. If I discover my SWv6 model leaked somehow onto the internet, its already over. Who is to say stuff won’t leak directly to a competitor behind the scenes via some inside contacts….
Not impressed, then again I haven’t been impressed with DS/SW affairs for a while now.
When you come across dubious things like this it only spurs you to walk the other way a little faster.
Some of the people involved in GrabCAD shouldn’t be while a part of their business is filesharing because of past or existing employment or association. Perhaps we should look a little deeper to see who is behind Atlas Venture and NextView Ventures as well…
BTW I think we already determined in a previous topic here open source CAD isn’t likely to be a goer for a number of practical reasons. Don’t know why you would want to throw $4m at it on top of $1m…then again us working out the cloud was a bad deal didn’t stop them from messing up there either.
@ralphg
Wow, the fact that these guys have investors starts to turn a mild annoyance into a little anger. There is far too much clueless-ness going on here for there to be real money involved. The writer of the article doesn’t seem to know the difference between open-source CAD and give-away CAD data. I’m frankly surprised that anyone would put money into this kind of venture, especially if that site is going to flirt with the illegitimate side of things, especially in an age of SOPA, PIPA, and ACTA. Those things are going to become law, despite the cranky children stamping their feet. Investing in this is touchy unless you have a leader with a vision for keeping things legit.
Anyway it’s hard to see why you might need $4 mil to start a site like GrabCAD. They’ve got a couple of employees. I guess they need to hire someone to delete all the copies.
One of the funny things was that after the blog post where he said they were turning over a new leaf, Meybaum wrote a second blog post which featured one of the guys who uploads models as being of such great quality. It turned out that this fellow was uploading Mike Wilson models. Just can’t catch a break, I guess.
And then he refers to all the users of the site as “engineers”. That grates me a little. Most of them are no more engineers than I am a water lily. The ability to upload files does not make you an engineer. The ability to run CAD doesn’t even make you an engineer.
Meybaum is not the kind of guy I’d give $4 to much less $4 mil.
If GrabCAD has investors, and they are profiting from a lot of models appropriated inappropriately, that’s the kind of thing that lawsuits are made of.
Perhaps you could contact the people funding GrabCAD with your concerns: http://www.matrixpartners.com/site/press_detail/2092/
“David Skok, the general partner with one of those backers, Matrix Partners, has joined GrabCAD’s board. Skok … is on the board of Dassault Systemes’ SolidWorks…”
“Other GrabCAD investors include Atlas Venture; NextView Ventures; John McEleney, the former CEO of SolidWorks; Jon Stevenson, a former executive with PTC; and Andy Payne, who co-founded Open Market.”
AutoCAD can attach digital signatures and passwords to DWG files to prevent them from being modified or copied.
Firstly thanks for Matt to pointing the issue for us. Please find our answer here:
http://blog.grabcad.com/2012/01/content-on-grabcad/
We have been manually removing the content that people have pointed to us and the solution to flag content will go live next week.
Among the crap in a Solidworks file is a bunch of data about every subdirectory the file has ever seen and every version of Solidworks that has touched it, along with many of the deleted features. You will be able to tell if the file was one of yours.
@Mark Burhop
I really don’t know. I wish the answer were just to appeal to people’s sense of decency, but that’s probably not going to work. Maybe public flogging. A black mark on your Google record. We’ll take away all the gold stars that upload site gave you. Throttle your internet connection. Make them move out of their mother’s basement. I don’t know how to get through to people with no values.
I am curious about what the solutions are, like the “water mark” one and being able to somehow flag the content mentioned above.
People making pictures, movies, books, song, software, cross stitch patterns (my wife’s area) have been fighting these problems for years. I wonder if there is anything to learn from them as this problem creeps into mechanical design.
@Matt
There are lots of ways to add info to the part/assembly files but i can’t think of any way to share the actual parts and have that info “stick” so it can’t be changed. If you export defeatured parts or other formats like Iges its not as much of a problem. If you open an Iges file up in notepad you can see who the author is.
I wonder how much stuff from 3D content central ends up on grabCAD? My company has been stuck on Solidworks 2008 forever, but I believe some of the newer releases of CAD software you can add DRM to your models. I’ve also seen models that have been “water marked” in certain ways with proprietary information so there is no mistake who the model belongs to or is owned by.
@matt
🙂
@Matt
“Seems like the winning designs lacked the desired functionality and manufacturability the contests were originally looking for.” Indeed, recently checked out the boarders of such a competition my self. At the end, the requirements were completely put a-side and the winning designs where just redrawn copies of already on the market available items not meeting the stated requirements ( maybe without knowing of the designer ( kind of reinventing the wheel ), but surely with the concurrence knowledge of the company . I re-draw-ed my entries , put a link of such a copy, and even refused the price money of my third win ( it was a good novel design but it didn’t meet the required manufacturing costs, the other two non winning did meet ( outreached ) it. One of them was even downloaded 200 times…) .
This was striking : ” It is very probably that in the future we do not use any single proposal; instead we make a combination from our existing structure and many proposals. ” Wonder what would happened if that was stated at the begin of the competition.
On the other hand , as a entrepreneur myself, i have to congratz them with their massive collected seed-funds. The competitions are only the little peanuts. In the land of the blind the one-eyed man is the king, and they are definitely one-eyed, not idiots.
The GrabCAD contests are dumb anyway. Seems like the winning designs lacked the desired functionality and manufacturability the contests were originally looking for. Sometimes I think they won just because of the amount of time they spent on the renderings instead of focusing more on the function, design, and materials. Some of them won because they shamelessly worked in the company logo into the design or into the background of the renderings. Maybe I’m wrong, but seems more like a photo rendering contest than an engineering design challenge. Then there was that Damixa challenge where over 300 designs were entered and they didn’t like any of them. Really? Seems to me like they just got 300 ideas without having to hire anyone.
This is kinda of already in use with the grabcad “insiders” selection. Although its mainly been pointed at spammers on the site for the time being & how GC can improve the site more.
@matt
I like the idea of a board of users that maybe approve models with maybe the exception of contest uploads. Having no Mod control over the uploads on the front end makes the issue a much much harder one to control for sure.
It would be nice with some sort of neutral media like 3dvia composer or eDrawings where other users could see rendered images, rotate the model and look at details without actually having it. That would be a great interactive CAD portfolio site.
Notice a problem here?
Mr. Meybaum says “Matt Perez of Dezignstuff…”.
He is quickly falling into the “utter brainless idiot” category. This is on top of calling SolidMuse the wrong name as well SolidMOuse. A CEO with a learning disability? Maybe he should hire someone to type for him.
Not that it’s not flattering to get confused with Matt Perez, he’s a great guy, and makes cool models. But don’t blame Perez for the problems Lombard caused.
SSSHHEEEEEEEESH!!!!
@Matt Perez
Yeah, Matt, that’s a good question. I don’t want to get involved in “the law” on this. “The law” is ineffective, no one trusts it, can be expensive, and should be reserved for cases when the site owner has no common decency. A flag with a comment, and the site should take down offenders within 1 day. In fact, I’d like to see a panel of users (moderators) who are trustworthy and accountable to the community and can take down stuff immediately, or at least make questionable items pending some review. My blog makes me approve certain posts all the time. Minimal crap gets through.
To get results from GrabCAD, I had to stand on the desk and yell in Twitter to get anyone’s attention. I’m resorting to public discussion here on my blog to drive home to GrabCAD that this is not a casual request. It seems to be working, but talk is cheap. Let’s see what they DO.
I think its important to make a distinction here after looking over the posts again. Part of Matts main gripe has to do with models supplied with his books/material. There is absolutely no reason people should be uploading these files. Once I upload models of my own free will to GrabCAD or any other site, at that point who knows where that will go. I know there are people in far away lands that rebrand models and materials i have created for profit. My site is free and my models are free so my only hope is that people can find them for free first before they pay a con artist for my 2nd hand stuff. Taking tutorial files from Matt or right from Solidworks help file is just plain lazy.
The gains for uploading someones models to GrabCAD are really small, if any. I don’t know why people would do it but it happens. There is no monetary compensation for it. Really the only way I know this could be handles is by the creator submitting a complaint and action taken from there.
There is a very clear line with something like this. Someone who simply uploads another users model can’t do it for themselves. I don’t upload anything that can be produced or really is anything more than a training tool. Some of the comments i’ve seen lead me to believe that there are tons of production ready parts on GrabCAD that have some sort of monetary value and can make anyone rich if they just produce it. I personally don’t see this. I just see a bunch of expressions of what can be done. If you freely upload a “new” production ready document of some miracle part anywhere I think that’s on you.
So i guess the question here should be “how would you approach the policing problem here?” I mean its easy to say GrabCAD isn’t doing it right, or they need more action. So how do we do it? Some sort of legally binding document?
lol
If you’re going to comment here, it’s best to actually read the article you’re commenting on first. If this comment is directed at you, you probably have no idea what I’m talking about.
In answer to a few things…
I didn’t say Matt Perez was uploading stuff that wasn’t his. Matt can make his own stuff, so he has no need to do that. I said that Matt was one of the people who have made things that other people are uploading. Matt doesn’t seem to care, and that’s ok.
If we decide just because we can’t stop people from doing things they shouldn’t that we’re just going to stop trying, then the bad guys have already won. We can shutter the police and courts and stop making laws, and just give everybody AK’s cuz you’re gonna need em. Hello Somalia.
Anyone who hires someone just from what they’ve seen on GrabCAD has got a screw loose. Somebody uploaded a toothbrush I have in my surfacing book. The site shows a picture of the part and then has the word “By:” followed by someone else’s name. If you download the part, it’s not even like they modeled the part from my instructions, they just uploaded my part directly. Someone else uploaded the trowel part from the same book. They had at least taken the time to remodel the part themselves. Anyway, don’t hire either guy thinking they know how to come up with those kinds of models. The toothbrush thing pissed me off. The trowel thing, not so much. But you shouldn’t hire either person based on those two models.
The owners of the site are 100% culpable for whatever is up there. The owners are the ones benefiting from the content, and they aren’t doing anything to police the content. If you create a system where it’s easy to do the wrong thing, and then act surprised when people do the wrong thing, you’re either a moron or playing silly games.
Ok, here’s Hardi Meybaum, the guy in charge of GrabCAD. First of all, “SolidMouse”?!? It took me a while to figure out that he’s talking about SolidMuse, Anna Wood’s site. That’s where this guy found the ScoobyDoo model, but it’s not where it came from. It came from http://www.mikejwilson.com/. Mike Wilson is one of the guys who inspired me to do what I do. There are a handful of other guys out there who taught me the underlying foundation, like Keith Pedersen, Ed Eaton and a few others. Mike Wilson does iconic stuff. Stuff that no one else could do. He is also pretty generous. On his site he says you can use his stuff without restrictions except not for profit. Meybaum is profiting from ScoobyDoo. Any way, this just points out the complexity of this whole uploading stuff that isn’t yours scenario. How far back was the guy who uploaded the model morally required to check? He should just know that he didn’t make the model, so he shouldn’t get the credit for it. For someone else to put their name in front of the ScoobyDoo model, or the Mach5 model (also on GrabCAD) is just wrong. No one else could have made these models, they are classic Mike Wilson. No one else should get credit for them, or “badges” or gold stars or whatever. Anna Wood’s use of the model as a performance benchmark is legitimate. She doesn’t take credit for it or profit from it, and I believe her use is in the spirit of Mike’s intentions.
There’s law, and then there’s common decency.
Anyway, it looks like Meybaum is talking about some changes to the site. I’ll wait to see what happens. Until then, I consider the GrabCAD site to just be another half-legitimate file sharing destination. Cadooku was a similar sort of venture and is now shut down. It would not hurt my feelings if people with such casual disregard for authorship were to follow Cadooku. Let’s see if they can get their act together.
To be honest I don’t have time to discuss this with my “insurance agent” & also have no need to to be quite frank.
GC is clearly working as a community but some people just don’t respects laws and disclaimers.
One thing to keep in mind is most of these challenges aren’t asking for production ready designs. Most ask for a concept or a design that could be manufactured. You can tell the level of the user by how they approach the problem. I think its great for employers and great for users that just want to get something on their resume. Users don’t have to upload models. You can upload images of your work if you want. This allows you to put your name out there as a designer or engineer, show off some of your work and have potential employers see what you can do.
I participated in a few challenges but put in very little time. I enjoyed the problem solving aspect of it but I certainly wouldn’t try to make a living doing this sort of thing.
@Rob
Rob, you need to research and fully understand Product Liability in respect to Design, Testing, Research and the credentials of the Designer/Design Team. I have and I’ve discussed these issues with my Insurance agent, have you?
Devon
Why is it high risk? They won’t offer out jobs to members with no models either.
@Rob
Yes, I signed up a few months ago, I haven’t uploaded any of my models. I thought it would be a source of work, but I found the work offered to be very low paying and very high in risk/liability.
My Insurance agent has recommended I do no Crowd Sourcing/Contest work at all, too risky.
Devon
Are you a member Devon?
The GrabCAD Challenge is also very disturbing. Here’s a quote from their site;
“GrabCAD challenge saves you from hiring engineers and have a contest with hundreds of participants instead. You set the conditions, you pick the winner, GrabCAD takes care of the rest.”
This is an accident waiting to happen; using Crowd Sourcing to design consumer products. I’ve posted/tweeted about this before. It’s dangerous(literally), illegal, and breaks all rules/laws that deal with Product Liability/Insurance.
These GrabCAD guys are total idiots.
Devon Sowell
I have been a member of GrabCAD for awhile now. I joined to share my models. I have some SW models of cars I uploaded as well as some stripped down IGES versions of other cars. My models were either part of a tutorial or training for the most part. Before GrabCAD I never gave out my models so I knew they were all my own. There are also several other important parts to the site I think you guys are missing. Let me say that other than being a member I am not affiliated with GrabCAD in anyway. GrabCAD has contests and job opportunities that give lots of users a chance at showing off their stuff. They have brought in several big names for these contests and had some serious prizes. If people are misrepresenting themselves just to get badges it will come back on them eventually. I know what I can do so why worry about what Joe Nextguy can do. While the site might not be perfect I think they do a good job with it. Honestly once you give out a model how can you expect it to stay hidden away. And im sure they are working on a way to find the authenticity of models, but without something being extremely public in the community how would you really know?
Last point. I have 24 models online and i’m ranked 130 out of 85000. I was in the 40s at one point. If someone uploads enough models that aren’t their own people are going to notice. I have specifically had users who have finished my tutorials ask me if I minded if they posted their models to GrabCAD. These weren’t my models but their finished versions of my tutorials. Focus on the good they are doing and help figure a way to make it better. Its a great resource and I would hate to see it lost…
Not all grabcad users upload others models…
I believe matt perez is not one of your “culprits” here either.
If anything i use grabcad a portfolio base for perspective employers to see & I also use it for the work that is posted through the site.
I agree with your problem with people uploading others work but tbh no one is ever going to be able to stop this, it’s all over the web. If you don’t get it on grab cad you can easily find it else where. At least grabcad are not letting users sell other peoples creations!
Also badges are not provided for mega upload… yes you get one for the first ten models or what ever but the other “achievements” are such as rendering others models, answering other users requests, adopting new services provided to the site.
Peoples opinions are rash when it comes to GC. There are disclosure documents that are agreed to, thus what you upload is your own content if the user can’t keep his word thats not GC’s problem. Although i believe people like Gabriele swx should be removed from the site as they are a prime example of what you are discussing.
@Lou Gallo
The benefit is you get “badges” for uploading stuff, and for getting other people to download stuff. Built on a similar model in that respect as Megaupload. Encouraging uploading without any checks or balances.
I’m all for giving stuff away, but I’ll give away my own stuff, and I’ll decide what to give away. I don’t need help with that.
I covered them after about six months. Uploaded some of my models and had some interaction. Wonder what the benefit of uploading stuff there that is not your own unless you explicitly give credit to the creator.
That is the tough thing about running community sites is keeping the trolls and bandits out or under control. What I don’t get is the reason to do it? To fake your skills so you can land modeling gigs? I think it is like YouTube where people just upload stuff they don’t own to get views. Too bad. The concept is good but the execution and controls seem lacking.
The measure will be in their response.
Not cool.
Why is it so hard for people to credit creation where it’s due? Why misrepresent?
Yeah now it seems to me I looked there a while ago when they first publicised it (did a post appear on the SWforum? have to check back..) and noticed some of Paul Salvadors stuff. When I said that and that Paul didnt allow use of his models for that purpose the guy was pretty ignorant and said Paul would need to complain himself or something… Think it was the Aeriks200 that caught my eye.
Edit: I was mistaken it was 3dworldclub see https://forum.solidworks.com/message/237361#237361. seems they removed it but it might have been moved or renamed. Gotta watch these people.
Very unfortunate. Hopefully Grabcad gets it act together so it doesn’t turn into a Warez site.
Or maybe just do an Indent of your URL on all the major surfaces?