Erroneous: Blender Model Repository Moves

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3d-models.jpg

**Looks like we got this one wrong and I personally blew it. It seems that BMR hasn’t moved, but is just off-line temporarily. The site I link to here is a private site NOT BMR. Sorry for the mis-information, we got a bit confused! I sincerely apologize to katorlegaz.com for all the trouble I’ve caused. From Andrew Kator:

While we appreciate the attention to our models from this post, I must point out (as has Bill) that our site is *not* the new BMR. At the top of the models page, above the licensing: “The Blender 3D Model Repository has moved, with a new version of the community archive hosted by new owners. Please change your bookmarks accordingly.” The community archive, meaning an archive of models created by people other than us, has moved. Unfortunately, the “new” BMR was hacked in early December. The last public communication from the new owners was that they would try to have the new BMR back ASAP. From our past experience from hosting the BMR, it is not a simple process to keep hackers and other problems at bay. I am sure that when the new BMR is back online, it will be better capable of handling the communities needs.

The katorlegaz.com site is well organized with a large number of categories and an extensive number of models. The site says the following regarding the models:

All 3D models on this website are original (created by [katorlegaz.com]) and in Blender 3D format.

  • These 3D models are Copyright © Andrew Kator and Jennifer Legaz.
  • These 3D models have been re-licensed, and the following licensing conditions supercede any previous licenses.
  • If all of the following conditions are met, these models are free for private, educational, and commercial use.
  • Public attribution is required for all 3D model use and output. Our authorship, copyright information, and a URL link to this website must accompany any public display or use of these 3D models and associated output. This includes derivatives of these 3D models.
  • These 3D models and derivatives may not be repackaged, redistributed, or republished in any form.
  • These 3D models and derivatives may not be sold under any circumstances.
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    • Jean_R

      Hope hackers will not strike again.

    • Lekane

      link is dead on their site :(

    • http://www.blendernation.com Bart

      @Lekane: you mean the link in ‘The Blender 3D Model Repository has moved’? That’s because it points to the old site which no longer exists (don’t ask me why they link to it ;-). The good news is that you’re already *on* the new repository. Just scroll further down.

    • Traligy

      very nice site thanks for the link.

    • rolandixor

      Confusing.
      Free for commercial use, but derivtaves cannot be sold?

    • http://www.blendernation.com Eugene (etr9j)

      @rolandixor
      Definitely a confusing license, but I think it stems from the previous licensing issues katorlegaz had with the models on their site.

    • http://www.freaks.wireless-dordrecht.nl qedqubit

      Sounds to me like if “Elephants Dream II:the awakening” (or whatever sequence title) gets made and they wanna use the blender model repository, the movie will be full of copyright http://www.blahblah tags all over !
      dammit !
      i (shame) never contributed anithing to the model repository, but iguess a lot of contributors who see their original model published under THAT licence will wonder ifthey have to re-label the thingies they made before under someone elses licence now.
      Sounds like a hijack to a paranoiacus like me.
      but then, i also believe it to be a neccasary evil,-as long as the words are tuned to something good like GNU licences are good.
      just that line where it says NO RE-modelling is offensive and unjust.
      For example: the original contributer X of model Y couldn’t legally do anything with model Y-b without also contributing this to this new ehr… modelmonger
      the word ‘ derivatives’ should disappear from the last 2 lines, it should be possible to build on something
      IF ANY ENTITY SHOULD HOLD PROPERTYRIGHTS OVER (collected) *.BLEND CONTENT,
      IT SHOULD BE THE BLENDER FOUNDATION (or the originalcreating individuals)
      not two individuals who can sell it in case of gambling-debts or some other human-weakness.
      not to people who just hostsome webspace but arent blender-organisation/foundation-related.
      okay-I took a quick peek-these people may be top-community members, but still, ownership by INDIVIDUALS?
      Opensource is connecting individuals on a very intelligent level, it won’t be longbefore yule b able2 typethe nameofthe object you want and yuleget a thmbnaillist of objectsto choose from–(from withinblender?)
      ow… and all made to the same scale of course, what’s one grid-unit 1m ? 1dm ? 1 cm? an inch ? a foot ?
      now these objects probably need to be made to the same scale
      say you’re a freelance commercial maker and they want some product in a 3d livingroom.
      all you need to do is collect some stuff into a scene, but everything in differentsizes at the origin.
      perhaps python scriplinks coud givethese objects some level of ‘self-reference’ so ‘car’-named objects appear on street-named objects and have sizes that match other surrounding objects you’ve imported
      dammit i dont mean to sound so negative !
      but i really believe the blender Foundation shouldown community content & noone else !
      also beingowned by the foundation there’s no problem in the future to browse throughthe repository from within blender itself, but with the outside licence that basically says ” yure free but not allowed to move”
      blender content is not even owned by the repository community but by two individuals who could be blackmailed by microsoft to hand over the paperwork(so they can oGL winCE and have a sleek&fast graphical mini-OS with lots of 3D content !)
      it soundsrediculos but i’m half serious (where’s my medicine?)

    • Alden

      What is this, the third repository? Have we taken precautions to make sure that it’s not going to get hacked again? Hopefully the license will prevent the previous legal problems.

    • Bill

      As I understand it, this is NOT a new Blender Model Repository. Users cannot submit new models and i don’t think it was intended to replace the old BMR. This is just a page of free models created by the operators of the Kator-Legaz site, which coincidentally hosted the first BMR.

      Therefore, it is only these models which are under the stated license. Other people who create models can use whatever license they wish, as their models will never appear this page. The models that are there now were created by the owners of the site, so they can be licensed however they wish.

      So I guess the title of this post is just confusing, as this does not replace the BMR. If we called it something else, like “New source for free Blender models” it would be less confusing. I hope some of that made sense.

    • http://www.freaks.wireless-dordrecht.nl qedqubit

      aah ! phew
      i’m glad i was wrong !
      i thought other people lost rights over their brainchildren.
      (a thousand apologies)
      so if theres anything left at the BMR, is that stuff ‘owned” by anything?
      aw never mind
      glad it got straightened out.

    • Luigino

      As Bill said, this is not a model repository for users to submit their own models. And the site in http://www.e2-productions.com is down.

      The Blender community needs one new BMR urgently.

    • Jean_R

      @ Luigino

      BMR is down because it has been hacked, no news from the author of the site. :/

    • http://Whatweneed Tobias

      Inkscape[1] has some nice things, that Blender is missing:
      1. defined metadata in .svg files (Inkscape uses RDF in the SVG Files)[2]
      -> we need it in .blend files

      2. an metadata editor in Inkscape where you can enter your name, keywords etc. and select a license
      -> There we should use the Creative Commons[3]

      3a. The Inkscape-Team has started the “Open Clip Art Library”[4] where they collect SVG-Images. The new version[5] uses ccHost[6] a very nice tool from Creative Commons[3]
      -> We “just” need to add support for .blend files to ccHost, and we have a very nice Blender model repository.

      3b. Another nice thing with metadata in Blender files is, you can extend desktop search tools like Beagle[7] to find your files.

      3c. And if we add the metadata into the rendered bitmaps too we could even find them.

      [1] http://www.Inkscape.org
      [2] http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-primer/
      [3] http://creativecommons.org/
      [4] http://openclipart.org/
      [5] http://openclipart.org/cchost/
      [6] http://wiki.creativecommons.org/CcHost
      [7] http://beagle-project.org/Main_Page

    • http://www.katorlegaz.com/ Andrew Kator (akator)

      While we appreciate the attention to our models from this post, I must point out (as has Bill) that our site is *not* the new BMR. At the top of the models page, above the licensing:

      “The Blender 3D Model Repository has moved, with a new version of the community archive hosted by new owners. Please change your bookmarks accordingly.”

      The community archive, meaning an archive of models created by people other than us, has moved. Unfortunately, the “new” BMR was hacked in early December. The last public communication from the new owners was that they would try to have the new BMR back ASAP. From our past experience from hosting the BMR, it is not a simple process to keep hackers and other problems at bay. I am sure that when the new BMR is back online, it will be better capable of handling the communities needs.

      Best wishes to everyone for a happy new year.

    • http://www.katorlegaz.com/ Andrew Kator (akator)

      To clear up the misunderstanding, especially as noted by “qedqubit,” Kator Legaz *does NOT host the BMR*. The licensing conditions are for *our* models, which are the only models available on our website.

      I understand the confusion, however it is inappropriate to accuse of things when we have provided 217 original models to the community.

      “not two individuals who can sell it in case of gambling-debts or some other human-weakness.
      not to people who just hostsome webspace but arent blender-organisation/foundation-related.
      okay-I took a quick peek-these people may be top-community members, but still, ownership by INDIVIDUALS?”

      We are the people who made those 217 models, as noted in all pages on the site. It is a shame that instead of implying negative things, you did not thank us for creating and hosting the BMR for 13 months and spending thousands of dollars on legal fees to protect the rights of Blender 3D artists who previously contributed to the BMR.

      It is bad enough that we will be paying off lawyers until the end of 2007, but accusing us of profiting from the Blender community is not only offensive, but slanderous.

      I hope that the admins here change this content of this news post to correctly reflect the nature of our model archive. That would also decrease the “hate messages” we have gotten from our website over the last day.

      Again, happy new year!

    • http://www.katorlegaz.com/ Andrew Kator (akator)

      Thanks, Eugene ;-)

      Apparently the misunderstanding was common. I also posted on Blender Artists and changed the KL model index to help explain better.

      As with everyone else, I am also looking forward to the BMR “having a new life.” We would never have started it if we didn’t believe the resource was needed. Our mistake was to do such a project without the financial resources necessary, because we didn’t predict the legal issues. I gave all of our new licensing and legal discoveries to the new BMR owners when they decided to “take up” the work.

      I agree with many of the comments that an “official” Blender Foundation resource might resolve many issues, however all I can do at this point is make our own models available as an artistic resource.

      Regards ~

    • rolandixor

      @tobias

      I agree! should not be hard: blender’s wonderful SDNA should make it easy. Although a think an extensible text format would be great too. It would just have to be encrypted or whatever.

    • zimbloggy

      yeah, when i saw the that article i was so excited… but then it just put a link to the old site. and then i was like, “am i missing something?”
      why doesn’t somebody open a filefront.com category for it and then people can put their models on that?

    • apple

      good

    • http://www.free3dmodels.fleshsoft.eu iulian

      :)

      another web site with free models : http://www.free3dmodels.fleshsoft.eu