3DMagix: re-branding and selling the free software Blender

Posted on by

419-eaterWe had numerous reports of a product called ‘3DMagix‘ which is just a rebranded version of Blender that sells for $47.

For all the Googlers who are looking for 3DMagix: Blender is free, open source software. So save your money, and download Blender for free – it’s completely legal!

Can you legally resell Blender this way?

Well, yes and no. It is legal to rebrand GNU GPL software, but you cannot rebrand artwork, credit claims or copyrighted material. For an in-depth analysis of similar businesses, read ‘Luxuriousity, scam or open source leech?‘ by the Blender Foundation.

How can you help to stop this?

Send them a friendly email (or [email protected]) pointing out the legal issues of their business.

Help us become stay become the #1 Google search result when you search for ’3DMagix’. The title ’3DMagix, Rebranding and selling the free software Blender’ of this post was chosen for that very reason – people who are searching for more information on 3DMagix will see they can also get it for free. If you’re a blogger, link to this article and be sure to include the word ’3DMagix’ en ‘Blender’ in the link title.

Thanks :)

Update: AND THEY’RE DOWN! Read Ton’s comment below. Great job, everyone!

Be Sociable, Share!

    Twitter



    Please support us

    • Blender Defender

      It’s ok to sell Blender as long as you stick to the GPL, deliver the source code too etc.
      But he does only SHIT! He uses artwork of many artists, without permission! He is lying about many things.

      Anyone who discovers a illegal fact or a lie on his site, report it! Write e-mails to the artists, when you know them, contact companiys like MAGIX, i am sure they want to kick his ass, because the Name Magix is protected etc etc

      Show this guy, that he cant stand against a whole community. Show him, that he will fail!

    • http://jesterking.myopenid.com/ Nathan Letwory

      No re-branding of artwork and credits means that you can’t say for instance that your re-branded version of Blender was used for Big Buck Bunny or Elephants Dream or any of the other linked artwork for that matter. I would find it hard to believe there is anything on that site that was actually created with the re-branded 3dmagix version of Blender. This is totally unverified of course, but the entire website tells tales, so I’m pretty sure I’m safe to say that.

    • mia

      That’s sad, but he is clever enough to state that the sources are available on a download page (which I didn’t find).
      I think many people could find that shit by googling “advanced 3d animation”. 3DMagix is #3 in the results. Perhaps you could add that string to that article too ;)
      But I’m afraid he will change the name of “his” software to something different, if he gets too much trouble with 3DMagix

    • Tony

      This 3DMagix is not a good faith mistake. They/he is doing it on purpose and knows exactly what he is doing. On the top page of the website there is an audio recording of the “creator” claiming explicitly to have written the software himself. Also, take a look at the terms page:

      http://www.3dmagix.com/terms.htm

      This guy is actually prohibiting using material from their website in any other websites! Blender.org is in breach of his conditions! Also, it mentions “(f) software distributed under GPL license. Source code available at member’s download page.” but there is no publicly available webpage where this source is available. You have to pay to access the “member’s download page”.

      Honestly, it almost seems as though he got a lawyer to help him cobble together this bogus batch of terms. This is complete fraud and I’ve already reported it to the FBI. I really think that free software itself is threatened by these kinds of people, and if possible the community should come down like a ton of bricks on these kinds of hucksters.

      https://tips.fbi.gov/

    • Tony

      Also, he’s using a WhoisGuard account to conceal his identity on a domain name search, which is another sign that he’s aware that he’s operating a fraud.

    • luke

      it’s a sad website anyway. many people who are silly enough to actually buy the program would probably lose their money on some other internet fake too. I mean the constant “click here to download now” and the fact that their is no email address to email complaints should be fairly suspicious! Correct me If I’m wrong, but many of the Images weren’t even made in blender! But I must say that if there really are 6 hours of tutorials, he must have gone to great lengths to remove all references to blender. He has a link to the big buck bunny film, but it is to a version on his own website, which presumably has all references to blender removed as well. This guy has put a lot of effort into this project, if only he could have put it into something a little more legit!

    • Saverio

      Amazed..by the hundred of times the name blender appear on the page :DD
      shame on them!!!
      Let’s put an end to this shame…
      It’s impossible to email them :
      (From contact page) “To help combat spam which has completely cluttered my inbox, we’ve decided to switch to an online ticketing system.”
      I have an idea on the kind of spam he speaks..
      Absolutely absurd..

    • http://www.macouno.com macouno

      Ah yes, he’s using some of my art as well. And not adhering to the CC-attribution license. I’ve asked him to remove the work. If he had just told people it was my work (the attribution bit) it would have been fine, but he neglected to even do that…

    • http://www.blendernation.com Bart

      I added his email address to the post to be sure you guys can help him fix the issues on his website.

    • Johan

      3DMagix is such a lame name. I’m trying to think of a lamer name than that…and I just can’t.

    • Enger Bewza

      hes using a fake verisign logo, so i reported that, its in some subsection somwhere in that peice of garbage site.

    • Hedge

      Damn these wicked souls!
      They are true leeches.

    • trinity5150

      After reading a small fraction of that guys page, its obvious that its a scam. There are a lot of grammar errors for one. Also the testimonials are obviously written by one person. The entire page is written like a “work at home and get rich quick scam”. One of the pictures I saw in there was a screen shot of the game “Riven”.

      Its sad to see people abusing free software and scamming people.

    • Saverio

      It’s so sad that open software is exposed to such frauds.. :(

    • French blender addict

      This is simply inacceptable, 3smagix’s manager will suffer the community’s wrath ! Behold the power of Blender’s legion !
      :-(

    • Marcus

      so, what can we do about it?

    • Grind

      Someone with proper skills should DOS this page.

    • Pingback: » 3DMagix: re-branding and selling the free software Blender … » Free Software

    • RSS

      He’s going to sink. This is the Blender Community !
      I bet he doesn’t know that a large population is going to haunt him forever.

    • Tony

      Also, the 3DMagix should be reported to the Free Software Foundation here:

      http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl-violation.html

    • Tony

      Although, to be clear, before people start spamming the FSF, this should be done by the copyright holder. I think that any official Blender coder can probably do this.

    • http://www.michaelcrawfordportfolio.com/ Michael Crawford

      @ what tony suggested. The FSF has resources to go after these clowns.

    • GnomGames

      +1 I send them e-mail.

    • Wale

      WOW! I really dont know what this guy is thinking?
      Obviously wants to make some quick Bucks by scamming people.

      Did he think the community wont notice?

    • http://www.blender.com.br Ivan Paulos Tomé

      Phishing scam !
      I guess he knows what is doing, because at least, even if the fraud persist for some time, some people will pay for a software because they haven´t type in google ”free 3D modeling software”.
      But the case is that the person is making a great confusion, if he want´s to sell ”tutorials” and ”free packages” under a name called ”Big package for Blender ”, everything will be fine.
      Or then ”Blender lessons in DVD ”, no problem at all. But rebrand Blender ???

      WAR !

    • Thorack

      haha what a looser. Wait! b4 u continue… dl ur free animation modeling software bellow, and then bellow it says free dl 3d animation videos Lol can he make up his mind? :P he maybe dont know that there are some difrent with animation modeling software and animated videos :D

    • Skiri-ki

      Someone should write an article on Wikipedia about this. Properly done this should have the article on Wikipedia and this one placed very high in the Google results. I’m not really experienced enough to do this though.

    • seed

      Man, he is marketing Blender better than the Blender Foundation :D
      Ton should learn from him hehe

    • Anonymous Howard

      Maybe it’s best to just ignore the whole thing. I checked the site. It’s obviously a cheap shot. For one thing the web page is too long, too much scrolling. (I know some people’s blogs are longer, but this is supposed to be a commercial not a vanity site!)

    • debo

      hi guys, does anyone know where he is from, he is dark skinned but i love to know where he may be from and from there it is possible to narrow him down, of course he can be living any where aswell….what do you think

    • Anonymous Howard

      Maybe it’s best to just ignore the whole thing. I checked the site. It’s obviously a cheap shot. For one thing the web page is too long, too much scrolling. (I know some people’s blogs are longer, but this is supposed to be a commercial not a vanity site!)

      @Tony: The copyright on Blender belongs to Ton and the rest of the Blender Foundation. The FSF can only assist not initiated an action on the people behind 3DMagix.

    • http://www.blendernation.com Bart

      Update: we’re already #1 on Google for ’3dmagix’!

    • http://jesterking.myopenid.com/ Nathan Letwory

      @Anonymous Howard

      An to all the coders who have contributed to the source code.

    • http://jesterking.myopenid.com/ Nathan Letwory

      @Bart. Yay, that didn’t take very long :)

    • Thorack

      Oh btw I maild to clickbank where he promots his products from and told them the storie.

    • http://www.gordallottl.com Gord Allott

      Just to note, as long as the source is available when you recive a binary from them, they are not breaking the gpl, the gpl does not state that the source be available to all, just states that if you distribute software in binary form, you must also distribute the full source code.

      Its not correct to report these people to the Fsf, there is nothing they can do as long as 3DMagix comply with the gpl. What it is correct to do is to make this website the number one search for 3DMagix – at least then people can be informed of what it is.
      Of course any of the parties with artwork on there are free to contact this person yourself in order to make sure that the artwork complies with your particular licence.

      Coming from the Ubuntu community, we have had our fair share of people like this, the best thing to do is to educate and hopefully the wider public will learn.

    • Bastian

      Lame! This is why GPL sucks. He is also selling Anim8or and some other software too. See here:
      http://www.3dmagix.com/orderstep2.htm

    • Tony

      @Anonymous Howard,

      Why would it be best to ignore it? It’s clear that this guy is putting forth an effort put together a major website, conceal his identity, and use SEO techniques to maximize his hits. He’s going for visibility and in doing so, he’s presenting images of Blender and Blender-related artwork in a way that damages the brand and that any company would scream bloody murder over.

      Blender itself is still in the stage of gaining legitimacy in the “mainstream” software world, and in fact no other open source artist-oriented software has even gotten this far. This kind of thing makes people distrustful of open source software and its ability to protect itself.

      Furthermore, if this character was really unscrupulous (and he clearly is) he could very easily go on the attack (best defense!) and try to claim that others were infringing on his own terms, which are clearly written on his website. Obviously he wouldn’t have a leg to stand on in court, but he could cause some real headaches.

      I say come down on him like a ton of bricks.

    • http://www.antOons.org antonvdh

      see this:

      Domain name: 3dmagix.com

      Registrant Contact:
      WhoisGuard
      WhoisGuard Protected ()

      Fax:
      8939 S. Sepulveda Blvd. #110 – 732
      Westchester, CA 90045
      US

      Administrative Contact:
      WhoisGuard
      WhoisGuard Protected ()
      +1.6613102107
      Fax: +1.6613102107
      8939 S. Sepulveda Blvd. #110 – 732
      Westchester, CA 90045
      US

      Technical Contact:
      WhoisGuard
      WhoisGuard Protected ()
      +1.6613102107
      Fax: +1.6613102107
      8939 S. Sepulveda Blvd. #110 – 732
      Westchester, CA 90045
      US

      Status: Locked

      Name Servers:
      NS265.HOSTGATOR.COM
      NS266.HOSTGATOR.COM

      Creation date: 19 Dec 2008 18:28:47
      Expiration date: 19 Dec 2012 18:28:47

    • http://www.chibiyugi.deviantart.com Senshi

      *sigh* It’s people like this that make me lose hope in humanity =\ So…. Torches, anyone?
      Seriously though: This is just ridiculous. I hope he’ll get stopped soon x.x
      Him: “Stop me? Why? This is madness!”
      Us: “Madness? THIS! IS! THE BLENDER COMMUNITYYYY!!!”

    • http://magix3d.com Mike Hunt

      I just purchased a copy of this software – it’s pretty cool. I don’t see why you’re making such a big fuss about it. Managed to get a copy of the VIP pack for only $77 – a bargain.

    • GnomGames

      Mike Hunt, and, what differences between Blender & that magix?

    • George

      Grrrr. It’s insulting to see the degree of plagiarism this guy went to just to make a buck. I scrolled the webpage and caught “Noob to Pro” along with many other familiar phrases in his spill. This guy can’t even come up with material for his own website (it’s all copied from others), let alone author a program like blender. The fact that he’s taking credit for work done by so many volunteers, though, really ticks me off.

    • Tony

      @Gord Allott,

      Good point about the source, I suppose. The artwork is still all copyright infringement, and the numerous lies on the website still make it clearly fraudulent. It is also damaging to the Blender brand with screenshots of the software itself and images associated with Blender.

      The documentation, images, and animations on the website are mostly infringements of the Blender Documentation License, also:

      http://download.blender.org/documentation/html/appendix_licenses_bal.html

      But this is probably not of concern to the FSF.

      @antonvdh

      That’s the contact information for WhoIsGuard, which is a DNS anonomizing service.

    • Tony

      @Mike Hunt, whatever you do, don’t put a cracked copy on bittorrent or they’ll really come after you.

    • Pingback: Omar Abo-Namous » 3DMagix: Just Blender renamed

    • http://www.antOons.org antonvdh

      Yes I see now.
      Posted it to soon.

    • AlexGustafson

      clickbank and paypal are the services used to sell the 3dmagix stuff. If you are the owner of the copyrighted material featured on the page or being sold you can report it to the following link:

      http://www.clickbank.com/dmca.html

      that might be the easiest way to shut this down.

      paypal probably has a similar link, haven’t found it yet though.

    • http://www.antOons.org antonvdh

      I think it is hosted by : http://www.enom.com/

      Domain Name: 3DMAGIX.COM
      Registrar: ENOM, INC.
      Whois Server: whois.enom.com
      Referral URL: http://www.enom.com

    • http://www.michaelcrawfordportfolio.com/ Michael Crawford

      @admin

      Could somebody edit or remove the above post to 3dmagix (unless it has noindex tag). The sole purpose seems to be to link to the offending site.

    • aleksandera

      Create a torrent file containing Blender, and
      name it 3dmagix ;)

    • http://www.blendernation.com Bart

      @Michael: it’s the wrong url ;-) And even so, all our URLs in comments are ‘nofollow’.

    • http://www.michaelcrawfordportfolio.com/ Michael Crawford

      Edit: above post by “Mike Hunt” is who I was referring to.

    • Tomas

      @Grind – a DOS on his site would be a bad idea and we really shouldn’t promote such a thing. There are legal ways to deal with this guy as mentioned in some of the posts here that would be more effective and longer lasting.

      Besides if this guy is unscrupulous and associates with such a crowd; having the blender community try to DOS his site might just wind up getting a bunch of his friends trying to do more damage to blender sites than we could do to his.

      I would love to see this 3dmagix site gone but not at the cost of possible retribution (legal or otherwise).

      just my $0.02

      @Mike Hunt – why would you purchase this “software” knowing that you can just download it from blender.org for free? I can’t believe that any content on what he is selling is made by him and simply more rebranding or redistribution of other free software, tutorials, and videos. Frankly I think your money would have been better spent buying one of the training videos available in the Blender Store (I think the create factory DVD is great! ) or put it towards the Durian pre-sales campaign when that gets going!

    • http://www.michaelcrawfordportfolio.com/ Michael Crawford

      If somebody has downloaded 3dmagix (presumably with source code since it’s GPL), i’ll host it on my website… or maybe the blender foundation can. If they can do it, so can we. Something like “download 3dmagix here. Free and legal with full source code!”.

    • http://harkyman.com harkyman

      Unfortunately, most people who come across this won’t be typing “3DMagix” into Google. They’ll be looking for 3D software on Google and his site will pop up in a paid adword result. I’ve dealt with the whole SEO/Direct Internet sales/Adwords world a couple of time because of my job, and he’s pretty much following it by the book: testimonials, “generous” money back guarantee, charging to an insane profit margin (the $47 is just the download price — I think you can get a physical DVD version for much more), personal attestation and using his “signature” to seem legit. The only point left in the whole deal is the actual traffic driving. Almost certainly he’s using Google adwords.

      The real trick would be find out which exact search terms bring up his site. Once we do that, all we need is for a small “task force” to go out at the beginning of each month, do those searches, then click the heck out of his ads. This will charge him until his Google account runs out of cash, at which point the ads will not show again until he either replenishes the fund, or the next month.

      For some background on the hosting provider (basically a boatload of scammers), see here:
      http://driftglass.blogspot.com/2006/04/fear-and-loathing-on-spam-pain-trail.html

    • http://www.blendernation.com Bart

      @Michael: I know. Try clicking on the link and you’ll see it’s the wrong URL. Somebody is just pulling our leg ;-)

    • Anon

      I recognise some of that artwork… (some of it even non-Blender too)

      *goes to inform artists*

    • n00bhaxor

      Lol, I just found a review site that did a review on 3dMagix-this should lower their page visits. “3dMagix(Not A Scam)”-http://www.reviewcritical.com/reviews/3dmagix

    • Saverio

      +1 to Thomas, those guys are on the wrong side…legal practices are the better choice, IMHO

    • http://blendernewbies.blogspot.com Kernon

      I’ve taken the time reportd the site to McAfee SiteAdvisor. It would help if others did the same so they can flag his site. I use the popular SiteAdvisor Firefox extension where the Google search results have icons added to them to indicate the risk of visiting the site.

      Here’s the comment I added at SiteAdvisor. I’m posting it here for those that may find this page via Google and don’t have the SiteAdvisor extension.

      ————–
      3DMagix is a complete fraud. It’s an illegal re-branding of the freely available Open Source graphics suite called Blender. You can get Blender for free at Blender.org.

      Also, the training materials offered on this site are illegally offered. They are re-branded versions of freely available materials within the Blender user community. The “Noob to Pro” guide can be found in the Blender Wiki (http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Main_Page).

      And finally, ALL of the imagery used on the site was created by others and is being used without their permission.

      If you purchase 3DMagix…you will be the victim of a scam.

      If you’ve already purchased 3DMagix…you’ve already been scammed. However, you can (try to) get your money back, according to the “guarantee”. And, you should report the crime committed against you to the proper authorities.

    • nw

      The blender.org site have updated the “Re-branding Blender” page with a little bit about this case. You can get to it from announcements on the blender home page :)

    • Tomas

      @antonvdh- while the name might have been registered with enom I think it is actually hosted by hostgator.com ( since a reverse DNS lookup on the ip address resolves to gator133.hostgator.com; the IP address range is owned by theplanet.com (which I believe is where hostgator.com gets it’s servers from))

    • Guy

      $47 ?!

      I’m selling this for only $20.

      Anyone ??

    • Magiciandude

      I’ve gotta say, I wonder if he went as far as changing the file extensions or the title…

      People like this just truly tick me off beyond reason, but I do hope that most people are smart enough to research what they’re buying before they give them their credit card number…

      We should all ping his site until it crashes :D…if enough of us got in on it…

    • http://www.blendernation.com Bart

      @Harkyman: re the AdWords: just search for ’3dmagix’ and you’ll see his campaign. AdWord actually uses a daily budget, by the way.

    • n00bhaxor

      +Harkyman…We should try that.

    • Pawel

      I wonder what idiot would buy into this. I mean it’s not a slimming miracle or a penis enlargement pill, but a 3d creation suite – are there people with 3d ambitions who are stupid enough to fall for this?
      I’m just wondering…

    • Toontje

      Why would anyone want to report this to the FBI or MCAfee????

      I have a better idea still: report this to Disney! They use Jack Sparrow’s likeness for their sales pitch. I think those Disney unscrupulous pit bull lawyers will eat them raw and spit their bones out.

      By the way, renderdemon’s Kerboros sculpt is copyright material right? The best thing to do is for all artist who have their copyright material used by 3D magic to send a cease and desist letter to them.

    • http://3d-synthesis.com ROUBAL

      Hi, Beside being a happy Blender user, I’m also a client of MAGIX AG softwares, for many years.

      As the word MAGIX appears in big letters on their package, I’m sure that this only simple thing is a big infringment against MAGIX trademark.

    • ultravisual

      Funny, I first got into Blender years ago by buying a copy from someone on eBay and then found out it was actually open source software…..annoyed me at the time but so glad as it helped me discover Blender in the first place….!

    • http://www.blendernation.com/2009/06/11/3dmagix-re-branding-and-selling-the-free-software-blender/ 3DMagix – Software Scam — 3DMagix Free 3D Software

      At first I thought it was April 1st and Bart went overboard ;-)

      This is crap however since it is indeed true. After some Googling they are also plastering this on other sites as well, articles, advertising, I even saw it being sold through another site also.

      Is Cody Landon even a real person? I am sure I have seen this photo of this person before, it looks like some random model headshot photo they grabbed.

      http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q=8939+S.+Sepulveda+Blvd.+%23110+-+732+Westchester,+CA+90045&um=1&ie=UTF-8&split=0&gl=us&ei=MQQxSv71JJO6M9LY4coH&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&ct=title&resnum=1

      Someone should Digg this Blender Nation post. Lets get the news out on this Scam through any channels possible.

    • Tony

      @Toontje, good point. Disney will be all over him!

      And yeah, the Kerberos and pretty much all the other pictures on there are blatant copyright infringements, but getting his proper contact information may not be trivial without going through legal channels.

    • stasislock

      Someone call for a DOS attack?

    • Pingback: 3DMagix will kostenlose 3D-Software Blender zu Geld machen | nickspla.net

    • Andrew

      I say this is illegal. He is taking our works and projects, using them without permission, and then using them to market his product. He takes credit for all of the work. He also claims the time and money he put into it. This is a fully illegal operation and he should be sued accordingly.

    • Tenchiken

      “VIP bonuses”, at least one, are stolen too. Sketcher is a renamed Pencil.
      http://www.pencil-animation.org/

    • http://lug.nnov.ru gumanoed

      As Skiri-ki suggested i’ve mage a page about 3DMagix on russian wikipedia.

      http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/3DMagix

    • TxRx

      I guess that this is NOT one of the ways to make money with Blender

      Seriously this sucks big time.

      I can’t imagine there being a better test case of the abuse of GPL and open source licenses than this one.

    • http://www.mad-3d.com madnux

      In all the website, don’t exist mention of blender or blender foundation.

    • Bastian

      @Toontje: Disney wanted to sue the company i work for exactly this reason!! They may certainly do the same with this crap.

      @Tenchiken: Anim8or too as i wrote above.

    • mat

      I hate those bastards from Luxuriousity .

    • Mike Payne

      Somebody should contact his host, hostgator.com. I’m sure they will have a policy that allows them to shut down the website when there is such blatant copyright infringements there.

    • Luciano
    • Jonathan Merritt

      This “Cody Langdon” has also appeared elsewhere:
      http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Cody_Landon
      The articles on that website mention 3DMagix specifically, so it’s definitely the same guy.

    • EX

      Blender Foundation could start selling Blender for the price of $1.

    • http://3d-synthesis.com ROUBAL

      I have phoned to the support line of MAGIX AG and I’ve given them the link. They have been very surprised !

    • http://www.blendernation.com Bart

      @Roubal: excellent action! :)

    • http://joshua.worth.id.au/ yokljo

      So very unprofessional: directory listing enabled.
      http://www.3dmagix.com/images/

    • Jonathan Merritt

      @Luciando: snap! :-) we must have been googling at the same time.

    • http://lasserb.dk Lasphere

      Hahahahahah. He is also selling ‘Pencil’. What a dumbass.
      Ive used his so-called ‘ticket’ system. Not sure if he will ever see the message..

    • oobydoobydoo

      Mike Hunt has a link to his name to the following website: http://magix3d.com/ … Coincidence ? I don’t know, though it doesn’t link to anything, (attempting to change his name maybe?) you may find out his details Bart from the e-mail he used…

    • http://joshua.worth.id.au/ yokljo

      there sure has been a lot of work put into making this site… obviously not enough

    • Maphrox

      The bastard! This is one of the few cases where I’m NOT against trying to track down and kill people using the Internet…

      I’m serious.

    • http://lasserb.dk Lasphere

      http://www.3dmagix.com/video3dinterface.htm

      look closely. it acually says ‘blender’. haha

    • oobydoobydoo

      Please remove the automated ink to the above post I made. I didn’t realize it was already mentioned.

    • http://www.blendernation.com Bart

      @Lasphere: wow, that’s an old video from Not a Number. They definitely don’t have the rights to that one.

    • Pingback: Likhan’s Cave » Blog Archive » 3DMagix: Some bastard re-distributed Blender!

    • http://jesterking.myopenid.com/ Nathan Letwory

      To all those who are calling for a DoS-attack, lets not, shall we? As a community we should still show some form of civilization. Lets not do illegal things where we’re trying to prevent illegality from being practiced. ‘m kay?

      /Nathan

    • http://lug.nnov.ru gumanoed

      Read a few articles of Cody London.
      It’s material for newbyes who are not sure if they want choose blender against Maya of 3Dmax if change all 3DMagix to Blender :)

    • Pingback: 3DMagix o Blender? | Blog d'Imatgedart

    • darthmikael

      This is a fraud obviously. but check the similarities in the marketing campaign for this guitar lessons website: http://www.jamorama.com/?hop=anejen
      I was searching guitar partitures and almost all the links from google redirectedme to this place.
      I think that is the same scam/fraud than 3D magix

    • http://www.linuxgraphics.ru prokoudine

      We had numerous reports of a product called ’3DMagix’ which is just a rebranded version of Blender that sells for $47.

      Ah, welcome to the club.

      Audacity team

    • davidh7426

      Looks like we got bounced down to #2 on google search for 3DMagix…

    • Pingback: 3DMagix - a poor try on rebranding Blender | Boundless Dimensions

    • roofoo

      When I google 3dmagix the first result is their site. The Blendernation article is down at the 4th result.

    • JimmyNEWTRONZ

      This bit really made me laugh in the features section -

      ‘SmartSoftware Technology That Does The Work For You – Whether You’re a Novice or a Pro, You’ll Produce Stunning Work in Minutes’

      If only..!

    • http://3d-synthesis.com ROUBAL

      I’ve just seen that 47$ is only the launching price ! Have you seen the price announced for after the 11 of june, in their video ? 397$ !

    • AndyR

      Got to also love that he claims this software usually costs over $5000

      Not to mention screenshots from Myst III, which certainly isnt done in Blender.

    • Alex

      There are some of the meta keywords for the site. That’s the last time I use the word “free” in a google search. =D

      3d animation,free 3d animation,computer animation,studio,software,program,free,3d max,character,download,stop motion,videos,tutorials,training,character animation,learn

    • chuzzy

      looks like audacity is being affected too

    • Henk

      I have contacted the Magix company (the one that sells audio/video editing software) about this site. Let’s see what they have to say about this…

    • Anon

      I notice they have a returns policy… does this require to have made a purchase in the first place? If not I might stand to make some $$$ out of this, I have three copies of Blender I could “return” :P

    • Tony

    • Pingback: Matt Nelsen · 3DMagix is Blender, but expensive

    • Pingback: 3DMagix, rebranding and selling the free software Blender « Planet Blender News

    • Thorack

      First of all dont give links to the site, crawlers make his page come up at top! those adds for his product on google…. so tempting to push them… U know its around
      0.5-3dollar it cost for him for each push aye?

    • Pingback: Absolute Xero » 3DMagix: re-branding and selling the free software Blender

    • Pingback: 3DMagix - Blender uudella ilmeella? « #blender.fi

    • http://www.negdesign.com DeMoN

      Ha, the modeling features made me laugh out loud, I mean you have “Add Plain, Sub Plain, and Both Plain” That is one awesome feature. Too bad it makes no sense out of context… If you actually read between the lines with the way his site contents are structured and the things he says, I don’t actually believe he even knows how to use Blender.

      Its really sad, but I doubt people will actually fall for this garbage, at least I hope they don’t…

    • Pingback: David Wright's Blog

    • Magiciandude

      Did anyone else notice the advertisement to BBB saying it was made in 3DMagix? It pops up in his site and says “check out some *FREE* videos made in 3DMagix”

    • http://www.dave-wright.co.uk David Wright

      Blurgh!! Hope I dont get shot down for this. Kind of knocked it up quickly. Stuffed with relevant keywords. If I have gone too far let me know asap

      http://www.dave-wright.co.uk/

    • Tony V

      Beating a dead horse here for sure, but the other software in his “VIP Bundle” is called Creatoon. Here is the link where you can view the image he stole:

      http://www.creatoon.com/samples.php

      It’s all the way at the bottom. To my knowledge, Creatoon is not GPL, so any rebranding and reselling is completely illegal. If Creatoon has any contact info, I’m reporting 3dMagix to them.

    • giorgio

      fucking bastards.

    • http://www.dave-wright.co.uk David Wright

      When you do a search in google for 3DMagix click the adwords links. Costs him then :-D. Get a thousand people here click on that link then hopefully will cost him more than he selling.

    • ros

      Some people don’t understand the freedom of creativity. Those are bastards that live only for money!

    • stasislock

      Why noy just ping -f the site, no laws against pings… unless someone knows that were all doing it for a reason lol

    • http://www.whatdavethinks.com David McKendick

      Notified hostgator, they should have it offline shortly.

    • Xero

      Did you guys listen to the special message on the front page? lol what a bunch of BS.

      Anyway here’s me doing my part.
      http://absolutexero.org/?p=78

      <a href=”http://absolutexero.org/?p=78
      3DMagix is Blender in a Shiny Box

    • Pingback: 3dMagix ou Blender… - Geek Vault

    • P. Monk

      OK I’ve hit his adsense numerous times. I’ve filed a report at:http://ezinearticles.com/report-this-author/?auth=Cody_Landon

      Any more suggestions?

      P. Monk

    • Eye-k

      Looks like the website is down now.

    • stasislock

      ok, hostgator might take them down, but if they dont do it by tomorrow im taking the page down myself

    • GGentzel

      WOOT! I think his site is down now!!

    • stasislock

      already down?

    • stasislock

      oh my god an error 403!
      great work guys!

    • Bastian

      Nice :) Hope it stays down… and that its teaches him a lession.

    • P. Monk

      OMG….all of those thousands of dollars invested…..all of those man hours lost….Are’nt you people ashamed of yourselves. /sarc off

    • Pawel

      The site is down.
      I wonder if he’s duped anyone during his short-lived attempt…
      (does anyone know how long the site was active?)

    • MyName

      Unfortunately there was a page on Wikipedia which proved why 3DMagix is illegal, but it’d been reported as a personal attack. So creating an article on Wikipedia about this wouldn’t be such a good idea…

      (Please do not make statements attacking people or groups of people. Wikipedia has a strict policy against personal attacks. Attack pages and images are not tolerated by Wikipedia and are speedily deleted. Users who continue to create or repost such pages and images in violation of our biographies of living persons policy will be blocked from editing Wikipedia. Thank you.)

    • davidh7426

      @P. Monk : NO!!!!

    • gokudomatic

      this sucks. I was just about to buy an enterprise license(up to 100 computers) of their software when suddenly the site got down. Damn script-kiddies!

      just kidding, of course!

    • MyName

      Well, I see it’s down now, hope it stays. Congratulations!

    • Ian MK

      hey guys. been looking at some options here. DoS is out of the question since its not his own server. and its highly illegal anyway. As Antonvdh posted the host server is hostgator.com so we might be able to complain there. As for Mike hunt, If indeed you purchased the software then you wasted 77$ but it is kinda suspicious that you have a link to the website there and that you would be still defending it after seeing this. I am not accusing you of anything (yet) but it does seem that you are trying to publicize it more. We gotta find a legit and secure way of shutting this bastard down so that he can’t do that again. Not sure if the Blender foundation has all that many lawyers but they might need to be put into effect soon. Good luck!

      Ian

    • Blade_Rain

      LMAO I love how I get a 403 error for his site!! Just despicable…

    • JimmyNEWTRONZ

      Mike Hunt is a fake. Read his name to yourself over and over again, its a very english Swear word!

    • http://www.blender.org ton

      Hi all,

      Of course I’ve immediately contacted him to point this infringement. Also his provider sent me a worried mail.
      The best action against such scams we’ve proven now, just use the power of our internet news forces and Google does the rest! Just an hour ago the admin of 3dmagix mailed me he will discontinue the product. We’ll see!

      Thanks everyone for the concerns and support!

      -Ton-

      (BTW: legal actions will only be taken if either the GNU GPL is blatantly violated (via FSF), or when someone causes Blender or its users significant damage. I don’t think that’s the case here… good old internet linking does the work. :)

    • Pingback: Le cambian el nombre a Blender y lo venden como nuevo « Criado Indomable

    • P. Monk

      @ton…..great news……YES….WE ARE VICTORIOUS!!!!!!!!

      P. Monk

    • http://herohtar.myopenid.com/ Caleb Martin

      @darthmikael: Wow, that has the exact same format and everything… either that’s run by the same guy/group or there is some special “Build your own scam site” software out there that everyone is using. :P

      By the way, this article is down to #4 in the Google search results. :\

    • Luciano

      Great news…

      @Jonathan Merritt: haha…

      PS: I think Mike Junt is just being sarcastic…

    • Pingback: 3DMagix: becareful re-branding and selling free software Blender (via Blendernation) « François Tarlier’s Blog

    • Magiciandude

      I’m betting he’s already got another version of blender ready to post…and maybe 10 more after that…this guy pisses me off…

    • bubs

      I wish someone would have archived the site. I would have liked to see it. I checked archive.org and google cache and got nothing.

      Did anyone else read his ezinearticles.com profile? I know it was posted here a couple times… All of the articles he authored were written on 6/6/09 and 6/8/09 and I didn’t read them all but all of them are about 3d and animation so I bet they all pimp “his” 3dmagix software.

    • A Hettinger

      If you want this guy’s site to stay down. The artists who own the work he is plagerizing need to send a DMCA take-down notice. DMCA notices are assumed to be accurate.

      If you are NOT one of the artists, do not send one, please, as this would be illiegal, and makes everyone look bad.

      If I have to have this god-forsaken law, we might as well use it.

    • http://www.blendernation.com Bart

      Great job everyone, thanks!

    • gokudomatic

      actually, why kill him? He’s selling a product. He has then to do the support. Why not let him do the support for blender, even under another brand name? I mean, let’s force him to have to do the support for blender.

    • Jenanne

      The so-called “Mike Hunt” is a fraud. His name is linked to the 3DMagix site. He didn’t buy 3DMagix from the site — he’s the ahole who runs the site, or one of his friends.

    • Pckmark

      Honestly, that man is a fucking idiot.

      Have you no shame in your life “Mike Hunt”?

    • http://3d-synthesis.com ROUBAL

      I’ve just received a mail from MAGIX AG technical support with which I’m in contact as a registered client.

      They have transmitted the link to their legal department. If the link is dead, maybe they will not do anything, but who knows ?

    • Pawel

      I wonder if the articles on ezinearticles are really his?
      Maybe if he’s capable of ripping off artwork, he could also have copied someone’s writing.
      What’s the way to check? (I’m curious, I’ve never tried)

    • Nixon

      THX TON!!!
      its great to see that issue has been taken care of ;)

      I’m happy that this software has such a lively community and it’S own foundation.
      And as this example proves it better has cuz theres always some mobsters around trying to corrupt the whole thing.
      But we will not let this happen!!! :D

      So much appreciation for the whole community,
      and all thumbs up for Mr. Rosendaal and his vision!
      Regards
      Nixon

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

      what a idiot…..
      it has no respect for this community, for those who test or build blender….and so on…

    • Hedge

      Yahooooo!
      Another victory for the Blender community!
      Thanks everyone

    • http://www.bchynds.com BrianH

      Looks like something good happened. Access to their domain now results in a 403 Error, which is “Forbidden Access”. Awesome work guys.

    • LOGAN

      Clicking the add gave “This site is no longer in service or has been disabled due to a terms of service violation”.

      Also please know that MAGIX AG is selling: MAGIX 3D Maker, a legit software product, so besides ripping off artists without proper attribution, the other big problem was picking a name that is confusing his site with the MAGIX brand product.

    • Andrew

      yo, the 3d magix site doesn’t work anymore. W00T

    • Pingback: 3DMagix: re-branding and selling the free software Blender …

    • http://digitalspine.blogspot.com MZIskandar

      Very convincing webpage – with first look, you’ll know this guy sucks.. well, its dead now. Well done,.

    • luks

      oh YEAH, we did it!

      i want to dance

    • ToastBusters

      Guys, if you want googlers to find this article then all you have to do is make it show up when they search for “3DMagix torrent” or “3DMagix serial” or even “3DMagix Warez”

      Better yet create a torrent file and upload it to Pirate Bay, then for publicity try sending them a takedown notice and watch the Streisand effect take its course.

    • http://www.dave-wright.co.uk David Wright

      LOL! I’m scared now. Never ever upset the Blender Community!!!!

      Btw, adsense only works on one click so multiple times it pointless. However ths adsense has also been taken down.

      Brilliant.

    • http://lasserb.dk Lasphere

      YES! A battle has been won!
      I wonder if it was my ticket that did the trick.. :P

    • Thorack

      I qout a email I got

      “Hello,

      The account “3dmagix” has been deactivated. Thank you for bringing this to our attention.

      Tom
      ClickBank Security
      [email protected]
      http://clickbank.com”

      \o/ donno if that makes all his sale illegal so they reverse but one can hope for that ^^

    • mercury

      yujuuuu
      bien por toda la comunidad del Blender :)
      Cerebro: hay que prepararnos para la noche…
      Pinky: por que Cerebro? que vamos a hacer hoy en la noche?
      Cerebro: tratar de conquistar el mundo…
      saludos… :)

    • jap

      someone should created a Internet cooperation to track down the indecent abuse of the gpl license their affiliated software

    • http://frapellito.blogspot.com/ Frapell

      Added a post in my blog with a link here to improve the Google search results :)

      http://frapellito.blogspot.com/2009/06/le-cambia-el-nombre-blender-y-lo-vende.html

      I never could even see the thief’s website though, is giving a 403 error.

      regards.

    • hishnash

      http://www.cdearth.com/blender-animation-editor.htm?gclid=CNSn74KHg5sCFc0B4wodqh5yrw

      just saw this in the google adds on this page, in the address it sale blender, but on the page it has no mention of blender, even though the screen shoots are blatantly blender.

      is it another scam?

    • stupiduser

      i missed something big T.T

    • http://3d-synthesis.com ROUBAL

      @ hishnash :

      The name of Blender appears on top, and at the bottom of the page we can read this :

      “All images are from Blender Foundation website and licensed under Blender Artistic License.”

      They seem to only offer it for free on a CD as a welcome gift to their new customers, so it looks like a fair use of Blender.

    • Xero

      I don’t think I’ve ever been so glad to see a 403 error before. lol

    • FunkyWyrm

      @hishnash: I’m not sure, but I think that may be legit. These folks are giving away Blender on CD and at the bottom they do say “All images are from Blender Foundation website and licensed under Blender Artistic License.”

      Although they do also say:
      “Hollywood movie studios use Blender Animation Studio to create some of the special affects and animation in movies including the blockbuster Spiderman-2.” Which may be slightly misleading. To my knowledge, Blender was used for animatic previews due to it’s super-fast wokflow. I might be wrong about this. Still, it’s good to see Blender increasing in popularity in major studios. :)

    • FunkyWyrm

      Oops.. nearly forgot.

      NICE ONE FOLKS!!!

      It seems that a bit of legal, coordinated action by a community can achieve good things and Fast.

      I just hope he doesn’t resurface selling 3dSuperMAXIncaMoboSculptie in a short while.

    • Pingback: 3DMagix: gato por liebre «

    • Pingback: Software Scam: 3DMagix = Blender « Prattler’s Paradise

    • http://lasserb.dk Lasphere

      Soon, when enough people start making these scams, no-one will know who *really* owns the software, and if its legal to download blender for free..

    • Nemesis

      It is a disgrace there is people like that.

      On Ebay, occassionally people try to sell blender as well.

      Can someone please post, who to contact upon finding blender being sold?

    • http://blendernewbies.blogspot.com Kernon

      Heheh, this was almost fun! Great job!

    • http://daerd.wordpress.com/ Daerd

      If there are anymore attempts to breach the GNU GPL (or any other Free Software license, for that matter), you can try contacting the Software Freedom Law Center (http://www.softwarefreedom.org/). They have lawyers specifically trained to protect Free Software.

      Kudos to the Blender community for successfully pulling this off!

    • vykelt

      geez guys. I just had a chance to get online, saw this and was about to jump into action. But you guys didn’t leave me anything to do. LMAO Man our community rocks. No money grubbers are going to steal the program we love. Great job everybody. Another victory for Blender.

    • Tony

      Nice job everybody.

      As for the other e-bay ones, those are also dodgy, but much less blatant and large scale. The problem with this one was all the outright lying and the fact that he was making such a serious effort at search engine visibility.

      Anyway, it’s great to know that all of us getting out our torches and pitchforks put the fear of God into this guy in spite of his anonymity.

    • http://www.dustyghost.com dusty

      So I see their site is down. GOOD!!

      What a total a** hole!!!

    • http://www.dustyghost.com dusty

      Oh! and can I just say, I REALLY hope I never piss this community off! That guy must be quaking in his boots!!! :)

    • http://skiri-ki.deviantart.com/ Skiri-ki

      this https://www.cdearth.com/blender-animation-editor.htm site does appear to be legit at first glance but I’m having more and more second thoughts about this.
      1. They might give credit for the Pictures used, but I don’t see any in regard to the software. I’m unsure whether putting “Blender” in brackets behind the stupid name of Animation Studio suffices, let alone no obvious mentioning of it on the chassis pictured.
      2. The supposedly 1 place ranking in the Roncarelli Report is blender’s rank, not the rank of the rebranded version.
      3. I can’t even find the second review
      4. No mentioning of the GPL or the Sourcecode either.

      If send an e-mail asking for a clarifying statement. Let’s see what they have to say about this.

      Oh, and, I totally would have asked them to send me a “free” CD but at the end of the form they ask for ~2,62$ shipping costs paid by credit card and I’m NOT gonna try giving them my number.

    • http://totallyblended.com Adam

      I Love it, check what i had to say on my blog about it.

      http://totallyblended.com/betterblog/

      http://totallyblended.com/betterblog/?p=11

    • Pingback: 3DMagix – Intentando cobrar por Blender. « Gualb-Dr Q

    • http://weber.edu/planetarium Ron Proctor

      Nice work.

      Let’s celebrate by buying lots of stuff from the Blender E-Shop!

      :)

    • http://nicknamfx.worpress.com Nicknamz

      this is the power of the comunity, awsome!!, very good job everyone!!

    • Pawel

      This has given us some experience and confidence, so let’s be ready to tackle other offenders.
      We can go for less blatant ones now :)

    • http://www.blender.org ton

      I’ll contact 3dearth.com, they’ve copied images without permission, and the ones they could copy had to link to blender.org or mention the url. It’s a minor case though…

    • http://www.dustyghost.com dusty

      @Skiri-ki

      YEAH THAT’S THE ONE I SAW!!!!!

      I thought I’d dreamt that!

      This is almost as bad really!

    • http://lug.nnov.ru gumanoed

      Is it time to add glorious page to the “Grate History Of Blender”! :)
      As i was toughed in school. Battle told in almost minute after minute.

      Good work!

    • Ianvdl

      I quote vykelt, he is saying my very thoughts :)

      …and was about to jump into action. But you guys didn’t leave me anything to do. LMAO Man our community rocks. No money grubbers are going to steal the program we love. Great job everybody. Another victory for Blender.

    • http://magix3d.com Mike Hunt

      Christ you retards don’t understand sarcasm do you? Of course I didn’t buy that software. And my name isn’t really Mike Hunt FFS. IT’S A JOKE NAME – say it back to yourself.

      After reading the comments made by the vigilantes, am I right in assuming that all the profit generated from the ads on this site and other blender fanboy blogs go straight to the blender foundation then?

    • http://www.blendernation.com Bart

      @Mike Hunt: “After reading the comments made by the vigilantes, am I right in assuming that all the profit generated from the ads on this site and other blender fanboy blogs go straight to the blender foundation then?”

      I’m not sure if you think I’m a ‘vigilante’ (I hope not), but the ad revenue does not go to the Blender Foundation. I put a LOT of time in running this site and without the ad income I couldn’t afford to do that. There’s nothing wrong with earning money with Blender, as long as it’s done in a fair and honest way.

      Having such a newssite helps the community and Blender’s image on the internet a lot, so that’s my contribution to the project :)

    • Nemesis

      Take a look on EBay.

      In one basic quick look I got these.

      These sellers on Ebay are the worst offenders.

      http://stores.ebay.co.uk/OS-Project-Software

      http://stores.ebay.co.uk/GreatestlFastlStore

      http://stores.ebay.co.uk/cashgangnet

      http://stores.ebay.co.uk/evolvedsoftware

      http://stores.shop.ebay.co.uk/The-Control-Panel__W0QQ_armrsZ1

      BLENDER FOR SALE

      Item number: 260348127319

      Item number: 220430402722

      Item number: 230316119219

      Item number: 330229046955

      Item number: 180366266455

      Item number: 390057919443

      Item number: 220356002545

      Item number: 120367729655

      Item number: 270405624115

      Item number: 250438644344

      Item number: 220430375845

      Item number: 160302849776

      Item number: 350205147125

      Item number: 390029820885

      Item number: 330333765725

      Item number: 230320001971

      PLEASE, ANYONE WHO CAN DO SO, SHUT THESE PEOPLE DOWN, BEFORE THEY DESTROY BELNDER.

    • Nemesis
    • Magiciandude

      “Having such a newssite helps the community and Blender’s image on the internet a lot”
      I second that!
      I check this site at least twice every day :D

    • amine

      Hi every one, this event has showed a great deal of pride from the side of Blender community and a sense of duty towards fairness and legality.
      Big thumb up to everyone and hope that this will bring in new organised action plans on how to deal with such issues if ever will occur in the future.

      Best regards

    • Endrijuu

      Only one word… DISGUSTED…

    • kyraneth

      1- I love blender nation and you see the community it concentrates, thank you very much bart :D

      2- I can safely say that blender has the best community to ever exist online, and i am proud to be part of it.

    • http://www.spyro.it SpyroTSK

      Good Work Guys! ;)

    • http://skiri-ki.deviantart.com/ Skiri-ki

      @Ton, I take it you meant cdearth.com

      And after having a closer look at their terms, It apears one autmatically agrees to a subscription of further CD’s billed form ones credit card, seems rather scam-y to me, yet still legal. They also claim that with ~14$ one saves about 80% compared to similar products. Ignoring that in case of blender the actually spend money on a program they could get for free. Same goes for their offer of:
      OpenOffice
      AntiVirus & Firewall (ClamAV)
      Thunderbird
      Photo & Image Studio (Gimp)
      and so forth, probably all of their “Products”

      Technically I guess very little of this is illegal but from the above, they only stated for Thunderbird that it “is a registered trademark of Mozilla Foundation.” As of the Rest, no Sign.

      And I don’t know why but so far my e-mails haven’t been answered. Least one can do is to _WARN_ people of this Page.

    • http://www.lenwest.org Len

      @Skiri-ki: You’re right cdearth.com is a scam from beginning to end.

      I came across them and Googled the same. They used to go by a different name. It’s sad that people fall for these. A close friend of mine fell for something similar (a make money quick with our software scheme) recently, unfortunataly he only told me about it after he paid them.

    • panzi

      I have the content of the site downloaded with a recursive wget (only html, htm and txt files, no javascript links). I case anyone would need this for anything. I grepped the downloaded pages and the only place where I found blender mentioned was a obviously 1:1 copy of a license file, where even the belnder foundation in Amsterdam was mentioned.

    • http://samsrandomjunk.com flyvin

      @Mike Hunt
      “Christ you retards don’t understand sarcasm do you?”
      Its kind of hard to understand sarcasm on the Internet when we cant here the tone of your voice….

    • Azmed

      Thanks n00bhaxor. I know that it was an accidental comment but it was right to the point. YOU ARE THE BEST

      *sorry for my bad english

    • http://skiri-ki.deviantart.com/ Skiri-ki

      I got a reply form CDearth saying:
      “Hello,
      Thank you for your email and your diligence. We certainly love to hear
      from the community. As required by the GPL license, we include the source
      code and include the GPL license on every CD. Hope that helps.”

      I’m not in the mood to test that since it requires shipping payment and a subscription to further CD’s you’d have to pay but I fear this is legally untouchable. As stated before, the only thing is to warn people from these Guys and hope nobody is stupid enough to fall for their strategies.

    • Anita Peter

      I’m a bit glad Mike Hunt spoke up.

      I spotted the fake name and assumed he was joking when I checked his link. Hell even if he is associated with 3dmagix it still would have been a good name. Hilarious BTW Mike ;)

      But I must admit that some of the people here had me worried for a minute. Mainly for their sense of humor. Are dirty jokes no longer funny? I mean come up guys! don’t you remember middle school/High school? Mike Hunt is a name straight from those hallowed halls of teenagers with Dirty minds…

      Now I may be they fool now but did you guys really think Mike Hunt was a real person? Seriously? MIKE HUNT.

      I would let you in on the joke but it’s not family friendly

    • MaximB

      * UPDATE :
      http://www.3dmagix.com website went down !

      Hopefully for good.

    • Pingback: Buyer Beware « Gix Gidea

    • Douwuhhh

      And they’re back up again….
      shame!

    • panzi

      They are back. Now they mention blender a LOT of times, but it isn’t clearly stated who is the original author of blender nor is blender.org linked anywhere. The only place where the blender foundation is mentioned is still the license1.txt file. This file is linked under the label “GPL”. However, this is not the GPL. I think blender is dual licensed and this is a special blender license?

      I think it should be clearly stated who’ve written blender (mainly the Blender Foundation) and where the original project is located (www.blender.org).

    • Jeroen

      Also still no credits to the copyrightholders of all those images he’s using.

      And i haven’t seen the original site but I think he’s still using the same testimonials.

    • http://digitalspine.blogspot.com MZIskandar

      Why don’t they just simply state that..
      Blender is opensource + free download links
      selling compiled tutorials (with permission), doc + videos that they got from (site credits + links) – unless they really made the tutorials from scratch…(which – at this moment – I don’t think so)

    • damir

      Yep, he’s back and he’s giving 3DMagix for only $27,00 in next 3 days.
      Well, I don’t know why but I’m upset because of that so I have sent a complaint to PayPal against that site.

    • http://n/a alex

      the guy is also advertising tutorials for extra money, and if you click on the videos; http://www.3dmagix.com/animation-videos.htm

      you see that video 5 is a clip from elephants dream, with no credit to the original, this is in direct violation, surely, i hope you guys do get some money back from this creep.

      and he “offers the noob to pro guide” as well, hmm, sounds familiar..

    • damir

      Well, I’m not upset anymore. A thief and a scum as that slime behind Mike Hunt and Cody Landon names has every rights to be what he truly is. A dirty, rotten, filthy spit. And who are we to try to convert him? But we all know, what goes around comes around.

    • http://www.calumk.com calumk

      cant believe its back up, Grrrrr…

    • Anber

      This makes me sick. It’s blasphemy! Their software does sound amaizing though, I think I’ll have to give it a try :)

    • Pingback: Linux Info | Krāpnieku vÄ“lme pārdot pārveidotu Blender nav izdevusies

    • gixko

      Looks like they have replaced Anim8or with some other package. Can anyone tell what this
      3d modeler really is? Guy behind anim8or has written to them to stop claiming anim8or is
      a commercial program ($97 value). The Ultimate Toon Creator Software is proprietary software Creatoon®, developed by Animante Baleares and it is free for download here: http://www.creatoon.com/.

      Looks like they simply replace one software with another as soon as they are confronted by someone.

    • http://www.3dmagix.com/ Cody Landon

      Hey! Why did you delete my comment? I was just thanking you for pointing me up the fact to that as far as I don’t call your precious and sacred “Blender” (What the hell is up with that name?) with any other name, you can’t touch me. All I had to do was say that “3D Magix” is the name of a tutorial and tada! Can you do something to me? Anything else but cry and curse my name? How pathetic!

      Oh, and by the way. Send your demigod “ton” my greetings. He’ll be receiving a sue for defamation soon!

      Yours truly

      Cody Landon

    • Jonova

      LOL@Cody
      Please do, I am counting my entertainment of the week on you.

    • Tony

      Cody, this is probably the most attention your website will ever get, so enjoy it.

      Anyway, you’re right. If you abide by the letter of the GPL, you are within your rights to sell Blender and even re-brand it. You still seem to be violating image copyrights, and you’re certainly making no friends in the OSS community, but as long as the copyright holders aren’t fussing about that I’m not going to. Now that you’ve taken off the ridiculous audio of yourself lying about your accomplishments, there’s even less to complain about.

      I can’t help but think that you’d probably have more success building a business model that somehow worked *with* the Blender brand (which has very good recognition) rather than deliberately re-branding the software as a totally unknown Brand X that nobody’s ever heard of. But then again, I don’t fully understand what kind of racket you’re trying to operate, so I’m certainly not one to give you business advice.

      Anyway, good luck with your business plan. I’m sure you’ve got investors lining up around the block.

    • http://phrozen.monopolio.com.mx Phrozen

      Hi guys I just revised the situation and it seems that http://www.3dmagix.com is UP AND RUNNING again.
      Buuuut this time with a little bit of news, it seems they have added Blender as the 3d software used and he’s using 3dmagix as the tutorials or training package. I think that’s GREAT NEWS (of course because it’s publicity for Blender). From the site:

      [blockquote]
      Blender 3D Creation Studio Suite
      & 3DMagix Video Training Package
      “Easily The Most Powerful 3D Creation Software On The Planet!”
      [/blockquote]

      [blockquote]
      Blender is the Industry-Leading 3D Modelling / Animation / Game Design Software Used By Animation Studios and Home Users Worldwide
      [/blockquote]

      [blockquote]
      3DMagix is The Complete 250+ Pages Of Illustrated Tutorials and 20 Step-by-Step Free Animation Software Video Training. Over 370 Minutes of Video Tutorials Makes It Dead-Simple For Anyone To Get Started…
      [/blockquote]

      And a lot of Flowers and nice things about our favorite 3d Software:

      “ If You Think Maya or 3D Max is Good,
      You Ain’t See Nothing Yet! ”
      (NOW WE NOW IT’S BLENDER HE WAS TALKING ABOUT… BUT IT WAS OBVIOUS ANYWAY)

      [quote]
      Blender Feature 1: Ease Of Interface
      Blender Feature 2: Advanced 3D Modeling
      Blender Feature 3: Pro 3D Animation
      Blender Feature 4: Realtime 3D/Game Creation
      Blender Feature 5: 3D Editing & Compositing
      Blender Feature 6: Enhanced 3D Rendering
      Blender Feature 7: Complex 3D Shading
      Blender Feature 8: Interactive 3D Rigging
      Blender Feature 9: Realistic Physics & Particles
      [/quote]

      REJOICE!!! I dunno what you think about it, but it’s a little more of publicity. Now let’s just ask him nicely if he would like to donate to the Blender Foundation or if he want to put some links (WITH LOGO) to the Blender Page or Blender e-shop LOL

      We Won! Thanks Ton and everyone in this community!

    • http://phrozen.com.mx Phrozen

      :O I didn’t read his post. Well, as far as Blender is still Blender and his crappy tutorials are still crappy tutorials. It would be nice to track down the artists of the renders in his page and send a mail to the host (someone mentioned it up there) to remove any image that is in copyright infringement.

      Either way Cody Landon (What the hell is up with that name?) I hope you’re getting enough to eat selling that shit. Because all the Blender community wouldn’t like you to starve to death (well some us us would like that). Enjoy your time, tomorrow not even me will remeber you (cause I think I’m still the only one -.-).

    • Pawel

      Hey, Cody Landon, “Graphics Engineer”, show us some of your artwork!
      I think you shouldn’t be scornful of “demigod “ton”", it’s only thanks to his and others’ hard work that pathetic bastards like you can attempt to make some “easy sleazy cash”, without having anything to offer themselves.

    • Pawel

      I’m definitely going to make a copy of his site, in case it’s closed down again.
      Whenever I’m not satisfied with what I do, I can always look at it and think: “At least I’m not this pathetic”

    • Gremblin

      I’ll report this scam from 3DMagix to PayPal…

    • Pingback: Blender vs 3dmagix « Scam Alert

    • digitalzombie

      THEY ARE BACK UP!
      THEY ARE BACK UP!
      THEY ARE BACK UP!
      THEY ARE BACK UP!

      >=(

    • alerter

      As digitalzombie said, they are up and running again. Besides that, the information on the website is changed: “3DMagix” to “Blender” + “3DMagix Video Creation Suite”, price $497 to $297 to $197 to $97 to $67 to $27 =D, and added “Blender is an open-source advanced animation software and is a full featured integrated modelling, rendering, motion enabled, animation and real-time 3D game creation package”.

      I think that’s OK :)

    • alerter

      Note, bonus software (orderstep2):
      - The Ultimate Toon Creator Software (actually Creatoon)
      - Sketcher (pencil)
      - Pick a color (I don’t know)
      - The 3D Modler (Sketchup?)

      Anyway, this is all very good free software, so i think a website selling it should be down…

    • Pawel

      The scam site’s FAQ page has shot to no. 3 in Google.

    • Pawel

      As has been suggested before, perhaps we should all go to MacAfee and write a comment:
      http://www.siteadvisor.com/sites/3dmagix.com/postid?p=1780509
      I don’t know how many people use MacAfee, but if they decide to flag the site, it might be pretty effective.
      But we need more comments (there are only 2 at the moment)

    • Tony

      If you think about it, the few copies he’s likely to sell will be to people who haven’t otherwise heard of Blender, but when they get his product, they’ll be introduced to Blender. He’ll never have a repeat customer, obviously (great business plan!), rather, all his satisfied customers will become (slightly bitter) future Blender users!

      Meanwhile, he does all the work arranging the Google AdWords and search engine optimization, so Blender doesn’t have to. So really, it all just amounts to free promotion for Blender with Cody Landon taking a small cut (small, since obviously many visitors to his site will Google the software for further information and be led straight to Blender without ever buying his product).

      So I wouldn’t really worry about shutting him down at this point. Think of him as a worm who helps nourish the soil.

    • http://3dmagix.wordpress.com/2009/06/17/scam/ Pawel

      I strongly disagree with all that say we should just let him be, that he’s such good promotion for Blender. Even if he is, I think there’s a principle at stake. The less we act, the more such shameless tricksters will be roaming the net without fear. It’s like saying: Let him get away with stealing a Mercedes, it’s just good publicity for the brand . I think it’s ridiculous.

    • http://3dmagix.wordpress.com/2009/06/17/scam/ Pawel

      Well, maybe not strongly, but quite… :)

    • not_me

      website is up again, WTF !!

    • http://www.tonymullen.com/Books.html Tony

      There’s a big difference between Blender and a Mercedes. Blender is free regardless, so it really doesn’t matter how people get their hands on it. If they buy it from this guy, they’re still just as likely as anybody else to wind up turning to the Blender e-Shop to get actual support in the end, so really, any increase of users does benefit Blender overall. I’ve seen quite a few posters in BlenderArtists grudgingly admit that they first came to Blender by buying it from one of these guys on eBay.

      Besides, if he’s not in flagrant violation of the GPL, he’s within his rights to sell the software. There’s really not much more to be said about it.

    • DoubleZ

      The Website is back ! And the price was less ! (And I am really bad in English ^^)

    • http://3dmagix.wordpress.com/2009/06/17/scam/ Pawel

      Isn’t he in violation of GPL? Well, it’s not for me to decide.
      The Blender Foundation has got an eye on him, let them deal with it.
      But we can still try to make life difficult for him ;)
      I mean, imagine all those people come to his site and see a warning saying it’s likely a scam, and pointing them to Blender. Then they would come to Blender AND not pay him. That would be a real win :)
      As for those guys on ebay, how do we know they wouldn’t have come to Blender anyway, being interested in (cheap) 3d and all, but without being duped first? It looks almost like we owe those tricksters popularity, I think it’s slightly exaggerated. There are LOTS of ways now to bump into Blender, I don’t believe fraudulent websites are a significant one.

    • http://3dmagix.wordpress.com/2009/06/17/scam/ Pawel

      … continued…
      When you google “free 3d suite”, “free 3d application”, “free 3d program” they all give “blender.org” as the first result. So if someone is taking the first step towards affordable 3d, they needn’t first be scammed to get to “the Source”

    • Mike_S

      Typical “Internet Scam / sales letter format”

      It might be worth it for Ton or BlenderNation to spend the $27 and see what’s in the package, to see what other copyrights have possibly been violated.

      Mike

    • wasa

      well about the only thing that doesn’t seem to be a lie on the guys site (including his photo) is that blender is freeware

      probably the spot to hit him now is on the guide that he is now selling, which is most likely weirdhats noob to pro guide (which name he uses) and several other basic video and other published tutorials from around the web
      which most are under the same license as blender, to not be sold commercially

    • NielsBlender

      He does crosses the line refering to Blender as ‘my program’, this happens right after summing how much the other 3D-apps costs, but ‘my program’ cost you etcetc…

      Weird dude, photo is probably ripped too…

    • ProbeDrone

      I reported him to PayPal, let us see how long he will last without getting paid for it. Also, didn’t the Blender Foundation or NaN patent Blender? If they did, then he is breaking the law big time. I hope this guy gets what is coming to him.

    • Raphael K

      Well, notice in the little popup that apears sometimes, there are the “Big Buck Bunny” and “Yo Frankie” images without a copyright label…

      bad… Cody, bad ¬¬”

      it sure has put SOME copyright, but not ALL that HAVE to be put.

      still there’s a lot of things to be corrected in you website.

      as a remark, i enforce: The Nan stuff is NOT public, so be aware…

      personally, these things piss me, cause if isn’t for a close friend o’mine advice me, i probably will came into blender world by BUYING it (actually i was in the middle of the contact with the “guy”).

      so, i think like : “If it was ME that after buy something, find out that its free, and i could have spent my money (usualy get by hard work and so..) in something much better and, by fact, legally paid”?

      honestly, you attitude is nasty.

      regards, Raphael.

    • Raphael K

      ps.

      Just do a little more research in “your” product.

      there’s in fact, a little history behind the name “Blender”.

      also its nice!

    • Pingback: Latest free software news - 3DMagix: re-branding and selli | Free Software Advice

    • wungun

      i put a youtube video out about this scam http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iu_0nqk487E&feature=channel

    • wungun

      i put a youtube video out about this scam http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iu_0nqk487E&feature=channel tell everyone about it

    • Billamu

      In response to the 3DMagix scam
      http://www.buymystupidebook.com/

    • http://www.surpass.nl/software GTWillemsen

      People trying to make money on other people’s work is very said, especially if they do not even give credit to the parties who deserve credit.

      But as said, open is open… linux is a great example of this.
      But the very shady texts, purposely intented to mislead / deceive ….. :-(

      But that’s no reason to act similar. The google indexing action are the way to go, legal and honest, nothing wrong with that.

      Maybe it’s a wise thing to remove all the links to the website…
      if we all link to this, just like I do, we indirectly link to the links to this page of 3dmagix …. this way the site even profits more (although that’s not what is intended by the most posters here I guess…)

      So please delete the active links and let everyone aim the publicity to http://www.Blender.org

      _____

      Thanks for all the support!

    • http://www.deroodekikker.nl Douwuhhh

      http://www.3dmagix.com
      They are now saying that you DO buy Blender and the 3D Magix training DVD together! In the textfields it says: this is what Blender can do…
      Well, it is a start, but is still a ripoff!
      Although the price is now 27$..

    • http://www.surpass.nl/software GTWillemsen

      To counter attack such posts is simple:

      There are posts with possible comments everywhere about 3DMagix. Mainly using the software packages as 3ds Max and Maya as comparison, but these are written to promote 3DMAgix.

      If we all comment/post on at least 3 of these 3Dmagiz posts with a link to this page or http://www.blender.org
      You make sure you promote the right thing.

      But please do not link to website of the illegal rebrand! (and pls. remove the link in this post as well, it’s only a search engine vote for the wrong site!)

    • pariah

      For what it’s worth, there is an addon for Firefox called TinEye Image Search. If you install it and right click on any image, including the artwork on blender.org, it will find every instance of the picture on the web. Thus, anyone using the artwork is immediately revealed. I’ve found eBay and Amazon listings like this. Good Luck.

    • pariah

      I’m pretty sure that Google excludes Blog links when it calculates pagerank although I may be wrong.

    • http://www.blendernation.com Bart

      @GTWillemsen: if you tell us what to do, first make sure you have checked your facts ;-) The link in the post has been set to ‘rel=”nofollow”‘ as are all the links in the comments. Google will ignore these links in their pagerank calculation.

      Cheers,

      Bart

    • http://www.surpass.nl/software GTWillemsen

      @ Bart: well it was a question/suggestion, but yes indeed I missed that / didn’t check this. I just was afraid if we all vote for this page with a link.. well you get the idea. Good thinking!

    • GTWillemsen

      Since the 3dmagix website is still nr. 1 in google (at least here), maybe it’s wise to consider changing the “nofollow” to “noindex,nofollow” to see if this helps?
      Or am I outdated here?

    • http://gualb.wordpress.com Gualb

      Magix 3d strikes again.
      Today one of the readers of my blog, says the site is back online 3dMagix offering a CD with Blender and Multimedia for $ 27

    • Peter Bambenek

      Must of purchased in between their down time, and also before I read about this ?scam. Purchased it and all you get is a cd in an envelope shipped from malaysia.
      It has blender on it and some addons, video training is limited, what do you expect on a single cd, and oh yeah, no nice packaged boxes as shown on their site.
      All this is FYI, DONT BUY !!!!

    • http://www.blendernation.com Bart
    • Kevin

      Sigh, i should’ve read this first :(

      I’ve been duped into buying 3DMagix+Blender at $27. I am certainly not gonna do any form of such transactions online again.

      Serves me right for not checking it out first.

    • Pingback: meneame.net

    • Jeroen Mank

      Couldn’t resist trying the TinyEye add-on mentioned above on two pictures: the picture of the woman shown below the features list and the picture of the ruin below that.
      The portret was made by an artist colled K.Jun and was made in 3DSMAX!!! and Photoshop.
      The picture of the ruin seems to be a composition in Photoshop made out of stockphoto’s

    • Jeroen Mank

      Error: K.Jun is kjun which is the nickname of Hyung Jun Kim

    • http://www.dustyghost.com dusty

      Hey!!! You know this is still going!!!!!

      Just been to his site and it’s BACK ONLINE!!!

      EDIT:
      Oops you already know that. And I just read that comment from Cody, what an ass! Woah!

    • http://audacity.easyspacepro.com Steve D

      As a long time user and supporter of open source software I have great sympathy with all that find this kind of scam so infuriating. I work a lot with Audacity ( audacity.sourceforge.net the free, open source software for recording and editing sounds), and like many great open source programs suffers from scheming profiteers claiming credit (and money) for themselves.

      Unfortunately such dubious practices are often kept at the fringes of legality so as to afford them a degree of immunity from prosecution. The best that we can do is to give the “deserved publicity” to both these wonderful open source projects and to the rip-off merchants that exploit them for their own selfish ends.

      Posting a link to this article now.

      Steve D

    • Tomwelps

      It’s back up, I guess he didn’t learn his lesson.

    • Pingback: pollycoke :) » 3DMagix insidia Blender ma è ucciso dalla rete

    • Pingback: 3dmagix-FAKE! « SKETCHYART

    • Turock2

      Wellits jan 2010 and the 3D magix dude is still selling his scam. Gotta be someone out there who can get a court order in the area where he operates to shut him down or fine him substantially enough so he can’t operate.
      otherwise he’ll just stay selling as long as there is no legal challenege and judgment

    • http://www.pixila.com/portfolios/portfolio/?artist=629 Pawel

      @Turock2
      It seems nobody really cares, not even the copyright holders, so let him just do his dirty job…

    • cayeya

      This is funny, I was checking for tutorials and stuff today when I saw ’3dmagix’ on google, I’ve never heard of it so, I decided to take a look but after read a little I started to have my doubts because I never saw a respectable software that speaks too much about how much cost 3ds max/maya/light wave…, or to many ‘buy now’ everywhere, also the video is just a sequence of words like a movie teaser that don’t show anything (but is quite interesting from the artistic point of view), but then…pufff!! Was a revelation, I recognized the image of a girl’s face that I knew was made in 3dsmax by kjun (the image’s name is ‘Healing’ made on 2006), I visit his page from time to time to see his work and the work of his wife 97bzo , so I knew it has to be a scam, so I check again in google and found this page that talk about this issue.

      There’s too much mumbo-jumbo there that I hope some people or everyone do the same and don’t get scammed.

    • http://www.pixila.com/portfolios/portfolio/?artist=629 Pawel

      @cayeya
      Why don’t you let kjun know about this? Unless he knows already.

    • cayeya

      @Pawel

      I don’t know if he knew about it before, but I sent him an email right after my post here. I don’t know if there’s anything that can be done about the use of his work in this scam but, at least he will be informed about it.

    • http://www.pixila.com/portfolios/portfolio/?artist=629 Pawel

      If he’s willing to pursue this matter, he can take legal action, after all it’s a breach of copyright. Or at least he’ll inform the scammer’s hosting company. There are a lot more copyrighted images, but people either don’t know or don’t care if their work is used.

    • Bishop

      It’ll be nice when Blender finally reaches x64 potential (program with installer and full compatibilty).

    • japrogramer

      GPL Compliant. Full Source & License Available in CD. Screenshots Licensed Under C.C 2.0
      how?
      son of … they sneaked in the blender GPL license in the terms so what they are doing might be legal but so deceiving since they place the link in a very hidden place at the bottom of their page and then the license is mentioned
      making people pay 47 dollars for a program they did not code and is free and open source

    • YeomanDroid

      Hey everybody, I was browsing around and notice this website is still up. Any news of what is going on here?

    • http://www.virgil.weebly.com vm

      thank you for doing this.
      I stumbled upon the 3dmagix site accidentally and I couldn’t believe my eyes, what a piece of trash that guy is! shouldn’t he be sued by the owners of the artwork he is illegally featuring on his website? and shouldn’t he be stopped from selling a lie?

      why, I should be making me a website that tells people they can make pixar-quality feature films with 3 mouse clicks… if they buy my book. this kind of stuff is stupid and ridiculous, on one hand, but since people are dumb enough to buy it, some of them, I guess, it should be illegal. someone at least, please hack that 3dmagix site, so I can sleep at night, ok? :P

    • DoubleZ

      OMG oO

      In the website, they actually added a video with a guy who said stupid things about the program like “I created my first cartoon 3 hours after receving the software”.

      Also, Blender’s name is less mentioned (the term used is “3d creation software suite”)… there is something to do to stop this SCAM ?

    • Louis

      What made me believe this guy is that I could pay via PayPal… a name I trust!

    • ProbeDrone

      The site is still sadly up, but I contacted the host about it. Hopefully this scam, albeit an awful excuse of one, will be put down.

    • LA

      Came across this 3DMAGIC via a website posted elsewhere. I am quite embarrassed to confess I fell for it. Everything within me was screaming “BEWARE,” but I went ahead anyway. Only afterward did I do what i should have done first – when i googled 3DMAGIC and SCAM it sent me to the real Blender site and to this thread as well. So while I certainly hold this scammer accountable, I cannot blame anyone but myself for falling for the scam. Info IS available if folks will only check into this “offer” first. And I am alerting all I can to learn from my stupidity. :(

    • LA

      A follow up on my fiasco with the 3DMAGIX scam.

      It IS a scam and a Fraud, as I made a claim for the money back guarantee and neither this Cody nor the company set up at Paypal to handle payments has contacted me regarding a refund. Paypal has washed their hands of it as they say he “delivered” the goods to me and they are not there to handle his failure to follow through on any money back guarantee he may have made in an ad. So i am out $47. Well, serves me right for not listening to that little voice that said “STOP!” Since everything in this “package” is already available for free elsewhere on the Internet. If anyone wishes to get a copy of what I was given so you can verify if something you have produced is being misused by this Cody character, let me know here and I will archive everything and make it available for free download to anyone who asks for it. IF anyone else uses PayPal, I would highly encourage you to post an email to them about this Cody guy and Frontier, Inc – Seller’s Name: Frontier Inc.
      Seller’s Email: [email protected] being a fraud. (And apparently still going strong.) The website where I found the ad has since taken it down after I contacted them about the scam. I am sure, however, that it will pop up somewhere else soon enough.

    • alanti

      It’s being sold for $27 until 22 October here, much less and he’ll be giving it away for free. Oh wait a minute !!!

      http://www.3dmagixpro.com/

    • alanti

      Forgot to mention, the link to his site was at the bottom of this page

      http://www.articleonlinedirectory.com/Art/515906/577/the-complete-process-of-3d-cartoon-animations.html

    • http://blenderpimp.tk/ Mike

      Looks like this prick, decided to create another website, doing the same crap as before – http://www.illusionmage.com/

    • LA

      Wow. “He” changed his name – now calling “himself” Seth Avery – and the name of the product is now Illusion Mage, increased the price, and is now working through “Clickbank!” But it is most definitely the same product scam. Do a search for “Clickbank” and “scam” and you will see that a LOT of scammers have used that service over the years. Clickbank itself is not the scam, but scammers have been allowed to get away with a lot over the years using that service. So perhaps folks running this page need to add “IllusionMage” so search engines will show this page for folks seeking the truth behind this scam?

      I also just found where this individual has posted ads using Inetgiant services. Do another search “INetGiant” and “scam” and you’ll find lots of reports of scammers using this service as well.

    • CAYEYA

      No way!!!!!! Now changing the site and product’s name he/she try to scam new people……Bad, bad :(
      Hope people notice the site design is the same, or do some research before buy something that is free.

    • Raphael Kox

      I’ve did a little research on this new “Seth” guy with the Reverse Image Search TinEye (for some reason i think this tool will be of great use against these scammers) and as i expected, its a “generic” photo from the web.

      If you want to take a look here’s the results :
      http://www.tineye.com/search/8b7980bc6cce4c6a85912246462fd25445421a36/

      Also, you can copy the url of his image and go to http://www.tineye.com. The engine recognize the images, the place it was used and if it had been altered.

      As i see, the guy on the photo, is featured in a Coffe Ad thing in some country i dont know.

      It carries the words “SweetWater” on his (conveniently cut out) shirt and has some Coffe packages on his front, with the brand Rode.

      Here’s the site: http://haisee-linnuilta-ja-susilta-ja-joltakin-oudolta.pointblog.fi/168-Uusi-Ilmaisnayte-.html
      And the direct link to the img: http://home.nbl.fi/~nbl2417/scratch/Rode.jpg

      Also, i found it on a Flash Banner/Ad here too: http://www.blinqmedia.com/

      So, tecnically the guy is using another persons identity to spread his scams.
      I think the law is a bit more strict on this, i’m right?
      It could be classified as Difamation, Public Image Abuse, Moral Offense or something like that?

      Next i’m going to do the same for the 3DMagix guy photo.

      Excuse the words but this guy makes me want to puke. He need to be stopeed as soon as possible.

      Hope this could be of any help.

    • http://none.com John

      It is probably just a stock photo from istockphoto or gettyimages. Lots of companies do that to create an identity. They buy rights to use the image. Go check it out at:

      http://www.istockphoto.com/file_search.php?action=file&text=man

      Nothing wrong or illegal here unless they didn’t pay for the rights.

    • steve

      “It is probably just a stock photo from istockphoto or gettyimages. Lots of companies do that to create an identity. They buy rights to use the image. ….
      Nothing wrong or illegal here unless they didn’t pay for the rights.”

      And what’s the odds that paid for the photograph? I’ll give 1000:1 that he didn’t.

    • SilverFun

      After researches, I found this:

      Here’s a little investigation

      - On 3DMagix whois:

      Registration Service Provided By: Namecheap.com
      Contact: [email protected]
      Visit: http://namecheap.com

      Domain name: 3dmagix.com

      Registrant Contact:
      WhoisGuard
      WhoisGuard Protected ()

      Fax:
      8939 S. Sepulveda Blvd. #110 – 732
      Westchester, CA 90045
      US

      Administrative Contact:
      WhoisGuard
      WhoisGuard Protected ([email protected])
      +1.6613102107
      Fax: +1.6613102107
      8939 S. Sepulveda Blvd. #110 – 732
      Westchester, CA 90045
      US

      - On IllusionMage whois:

      Registration Service Provided By: Namecheap.com
      Contact: [email protected]
      Visit: http://namecheap.com

      Administrative Contact:
      DomainAdministrator
      Domain Administrator ([email protected])
      +1.5281029920
      Fax: +1.5555555555
      Box 10491 A.P.O.
      Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands B.W.I.
      KY, KY Box 10491 A.P.O
      KY

      - By searchin this e-mail address on the web ([email protected]), felt on findwebstats.com

      Admin Name:Eugene Lee
      Admin Street1:8545 Alderwood Road
      Admin Street2:
      Admin Street3:
      Admin City:Portland
      Admin State/Province:Oregon
      Admin Postal Code:97220
      Admin Country:US
      Admin Phone:+509.7365916
      Admin Phone Ext.:
      Admin FAX:
      Admin FAX Ext.:
      Admin Email:[email protected]

      Both 3D software websites shared the same Domain registration services (Namecheap.com) and both Illusion Mage and sfeb.org shared the same e-mail address…

      Unless this name is fictive, Eugene Lee would be the culprit? A CEO of SocialText Incorpored that seems to resell open source stuffs but with support (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Lee_(entrepreneur))? Is it a lawyer who knows how this whole thing works and that will defend it own self (http://www.loel.com/)?

      That’s probably spamming infos but who knows, some people says that the biggest mafia family is the government itself anyway :)

    • Gundam

      It’s a pitty nothig really bad is going to happen to this guy…. probably

    • http://www.wandalizart.net Wanda Liz

      Is very unfortunate that people so rascals to want to make money in this way …
      our company link blender ” free advertising.
      we are very grateful to blender foundation for their hard work and it is unfair that sort of thing.
      Best Regards …
      WANDALIZ ART INTERNATIONAL,INC
      NEW YORK, NEW YORK

    • Pawel

      People stop writing about it – DO something about it ;)
      As long as no one is prepared to reach for a lawyer, not even Ton, there’s no use complaining – the guy is untouchable.
      You know the old saying: when rape is inevitable, lie down and enjoy it ;)
      The site used to piss me off too, but there’s not much anyone can do. Not until someone’s ready for a lawsuit…
      Or perhaps we should set some big company on him whose copyright he’s violating. I have no time for research though….

    • Pingback: 3DMagix a IllusionMage – kopie free programu Blender za peníze | mirekm.cz

    • http://www.docssearch.net pete

      You know the old saying: when rape is inevitable, lie down and enjoy it ;)
      The site used to piss me off too, but there’s not much anyone can do. Not until someone’s ready for a lawsuit…
      Or perhaps we should set some big company on him whose copyright he’s violating. I have no time for research though….

    • http://www.docssearch.net pete

      No re-branding of artwork and credits means that you can’t say for instance that your re-branded version of Blender was used for Big Buck Bunny or Elephants Dream or any of the other linked artwork for that matter. I would find it hard to believe there is anything on that site that was actually created with the re-branded 3dmagix version of Blender. This is totally unverified of course, but the entire website tells tales, so I’m pretty sure I’m safe to say that.

    • http://www.rickbusby.net?p=599 Rodger Mazzone

      Hi there, I found your site via Google while looking for a related topic, your site came up, it looks great. I have bookmarked it in my google bookmarks.

    • http://www.seguros1.com Anton Debreto

      Muy bueno!

    • http://silahgalerisi.com/ Silahlar

      Also, he’s using a WhoisGuard account to conceal his identity on a domain name search, which is another sign that he’s aware that he’s operating a fraud.

    • http://www.blendernation.com Bart

      Commenting closed due to excessive amounts of spam on this page.

    • http://mobile-tech-archives.blogspot.com World of Mobile Tech

      You seem to have tried to build yourself a good framework and foundation to build future projects. You did a good job of introducing the article. You did not only give a complete overview but you. And I think it moves pretty quickly to one of your best arguments.

      You can also visit my Gadget / Gizmo blog if you like.

      http://mobile-tech-archives.blogspot.com/

      Thanks.

    • web development company

      Same question to me.

    • Mariam Begum

      Your site looks great. I have bookmarked your site. Pls visit http://beeitltd.com/