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3DMagix: re-branding and selling the free software Blender
291 Comments Published by Bart on June 11th, 2009 in 3D News, Blender Foundation
We 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 admin@3dmagix.com) 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!
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291 Responses to “3DMagix: re-branding and selling the free software Blender”
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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!
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.
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
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/
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.
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!
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..
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…
I added his email address to the post to be sure you guys can help him fix the issues on his website.
3DMagix is such a lame name. I’m trying to think of a lamer name than that…and I just can’t.
hes using a fake verisign logo, so i reported that, its in some subsection somwhere in that peice of garbage site.
Damn these wicked souls!
They are true leeches.
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.
It’s so sad that open software is exposed to such frauds.. :(
This is simply inacceptable, 3smagix’s manager will suffer the community’s wrath ! Behold the power of Blender’s legion !
:-(
so, what can we do about it?
Someone with proper skills should DOS this page.
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.
Also, the 3DMagix should be reported to the Free Software Foundation here:
http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl-violation.html
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.
@ what tony suggested. The FSF has resources to go after these clowns.
+1 I send them e-mail.
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?
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 !
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
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.
Man, he is marketing Blender better than the Blender Foundation :D
Ton should learn from him hehe
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!)
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
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.
Update: we’re already #1 on Google for ‘3dmagix’!
@Anonymous Howard
An to all the coders who have contributed to the source code.
@Bart. Yay, that didn’t take very long :)
Oh btw I maild to clickbank where he promots his products from and told them the storie.
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.
Lame! This is why GPL sucks. He is also selling Anim8or and some other software too. See here:
http://www.3dmagix.com/orderstep2.htm
@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.
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
*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!!!”
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.
Mike Hunt, and, what differences between Blender & that magix?
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.
@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.
@Mike Hunt, whatever you do, don’t put a cracked copy on bittorrent or they’ll really come after you.
Yes I see now.
Posted it to soon.
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.
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
@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.
Create a torrent file containing Blender, and
name it 3dmagix ;)
@Michael: it’s the wrong url ;-) And even so, all our URLs in comments are ‘nofollow’.
Edit: above post by “Mike Hunt” is who I was referring to.
@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!
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!”.
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
@Michael: I know. Try clicking on the link and you’ll see it’s the wrong URL. Somebody is just pulling our leg ;-)
I recognise some of that artwork… (some of it even non-Blender too)
*goes to inform artists*
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
+1 to Thomas, those guys are on the wrong side…legal practices are the better choice, IMHO
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.
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 :)
@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))
$47 ?!
I’m selling this for only $20.
Anyone ??
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…
@Harkyman: re the AdWords: just search for ‘3dmagix’ and you’ll see his campaign. AdWord actually uses a daily budget, by the way.
+Harkyman…We should try that.
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…
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.
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.
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….!
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.
@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.
Someone call for a DOS attack?
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.
“VIP bonuses”, at least one, are stolen too. Sketcher is a renamed Pencil.
http://www.pencil-animation.org/
As Skiri-ki suggested i’ve mage a page about 3DMagix on russian wikipedia.
http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/3DMagix
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.
In all the website, don’t exist mention of blender or blender foundation.
@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.
I hate those bastards from Luxuriousity .
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.
Niiiiceee!
http://ezinearticles.com/?expert_bio=Cody_Landon
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.
Blender Foundation could start selling Blender for the price of $1.
I have phoned to the support line of MAGIX AG and I’ve given them the link. They have been very surprised !
@Roubal: excellent action! :)
So very unprofessional: directory listing enabled.
http://www.3dmagix.com/images/
@Luciando: snap! :-) we must have been googling at the same time.
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..
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…
there sure has been a lot of work put into making this site… obviously not enough
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://www.3dmagix.com/video3dinterface.htm
look closely. it acually says ‘blender’. haha
Please remove the automated ink to the above post I made. I didn’t realize it was already mentioned.
@Lasphere: wow, that’s an old video from Not a Number. They definitely don’t have the rights to that one.
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
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 :)
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
We had numerous reports of a product called ‘3DMagix’ which is just a rebranded version of Blender that sells for $47.
Ah, welcome to the club.
Audacity team
Looks like we got bounced down to #2 on google search for 3DMagix…
When I google 3dmagix the first result is their site. The Blendernation article is down at the 4th result.
This bit really made me laugh in the features section -
‘SmartSoftware Technology That Does The Work For You – Whether You’re a Novice or a Pro, You’ll Produce Stunning Work in Minutes’
If only..!
I’ve just seen that 47$ is only the launching price ! Have you seen the price announced for after the 11 of june, in their video ? 397$ !
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.
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
looks like audacity is being affected too
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…
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
Here’s a nice link:
http://ezinearticles.com/report-this-author/?auth=Cody_Landon
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?
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…
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”
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/
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.
fucking bastards.
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.
Some people don’t understand the freedom of creativity. Those are bastards that live only for money!
Why noy just ping -f the site, no laws against pings… unless someone knows that were all doing it for a reason lol
Notified hostgator, they should have it offline shortly.
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
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
Looks like the website is down now.
ok, hostgator might take them down, but if they dont do it by tomorrow im taking the page down myself
WOOT! I think his site is down now!!
already down?
oh my god an error 403!
great work guys!
Nice :) Hope it stays down… and that its teaches him a lession.
OMG….all of those thousands of dollars invested…..all of those man hours lost….Are’nt you people ashamed of yourselves. /sarc off
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?)
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.)
@P. Monk : NO!!!!
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!
Well, I see it’s down now, hope it stays. Congratulations!
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
LMAO I love how I get a 403 error for his site!! Just despicable…
Mike Hunt is a fake. Read his name to yourself over and over again, its a very english Swear word!
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. :)
@ton…..great news……YES….WE ARE VICTORIOUS!!!!!!!!
P. Monk
@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. :\
Great news…
@Jonathan Merritt: haha…
PS: I think Mike Junt is just being sarcastic…
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…
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.
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.
Great job everyone, thanks!
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.
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.
Honestly, that man is a fucking idiot.
Have you no shame in your life “Mike Hunt”?
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 ?
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)
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
what a idiot…..
it has no respect for this community, for those who test or build blender….and so on…
Yahooooo!
Another victory for the Blender community!
Thanks everyone
Looks like something good happened. Access to their domain now results in a 403 Error, which is “Forbidden Access”. Awesome work guys.
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.
yo, the 3d magix site doesn’t work anymore. W00T
Very convincing webpage – with first look, you’ll know this guy sucks.. well, its dead now. Well done,.
oh YEAH, we did it!
i want to dance
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.
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.
YES! A battle has been won!
I wonder if it was my ticket that did the trick.. :P
I qout a email I got
“Hello,
The account “3dmagix” has been deactivated. Thank you for bringing this to our attention.
Tom
ClickBank Security
abuse@clickbank.com
http://clickbank.com”
\o/ donno if that makes all his sale illegal so they reverse but one can hope for that ^^
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… :)
someone should created a Internet cooperation to track down the indecent abuse of the gpl license their affiliated software
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.
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?
i missed something big T.T
@ 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.
I don’t think I’ve ever been so glad to see a 403 error before. lol
@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. :)
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.
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..
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?
Heheh, this was almost fun! Great job!
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!
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.
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.
So I see their site is down. GOOD!!
What a total a** hole!!!
Oh! and can I just say, I REALLY hope I never piss this community off! That guy must be quaking in his boots!!! :)
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.
I Love it, check what i had to say on my blog about it.
http://totallyblended.com/betterblog/
http://totallyblended.com/betterblog/?p=11
Nice work.
Let’s celebrate by buying lots of stuff from the Blender E-Shop!
:)
this is the power of the comunity, awsome!!, very good job everyone!!
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 :)
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…
@Skiri-ki
YEAH THAT’S THE ONE I SAW!!!!!
I thought I’d dreamt that!
This is almost as bad really!
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!
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.
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?
@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 :)
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.
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
“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
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
Only one word… DISGUSTED…
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.
Good Work Guys! ;)
@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.
@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.
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.
@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….
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
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.
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
* UPDATE :
http://www.3dmagix.com website went down !
Hopefully for good.
And they’re back up again….
shame!
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).
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.
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)
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.
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..
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.
cant believe its back up, Grrrrr…
This makes me sick. It’s blasphemy! Their software does sound amaizing though, I think I’ll have to give it a try :)
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.
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
LOL@Cody
Please do, I am counting my entertainment of the week on you.
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.
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! â€
(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!
: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 -.-).
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.
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”
I’ll report this scam from 3DMagix to PayPal…
THEY ARE BACK UP!
THEY ARE BACK UP!
THEY ARE BACK UP!
THEY ARE BACK UP!
>=(
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 :)
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…
The scam site’s FAQ page has shot to no. 3 in Google.
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)
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.
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.
Well, maybe not strongly, but quite… :)
website is up again, WTF !!
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.
The Website is back ! And the price was less ! (And I am really bad in English ^^)
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.
… 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”
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
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
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…
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.
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.
ps.
Just do a little more research in “your” product.
there’s in fact, a little history behind the name “Blender”.
also its nice!
i put a youtube video out about this scam http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iu_0nqk487E&feature=channel
i put a youtube video out about this scam http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iu_0nqk487E&feature=channel tell everyone about it
In response to the 3DMagix scam
http://www.buymystupidebook.com/
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.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$..
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!)
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.
I’m pretty sure that Google excludes Blog links when it calculates pagerank although I may be wrong.
@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
@ 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!
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?
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
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 !!!!
@Peter: I’d be interested in learning more about their video training. Do you think it’s material they created themselves, or did they just copy it off some Blender site? Can you get in touch with me on bart@blendernation.com?
Thanks!
Bart
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.
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
Error: K.Jun is kjun which is the nickname of Hyung Jun Kim
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!
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
It’s back up, I guess he didn’t learn his lesson.
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
@Turock2
It seems nobody really cares, not even the copyright holders, so let him just do his dirty job…
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.
@cayeya
Why don’t you let kjun know about this? Unless he knows already.
@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.
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.