Does HueForge Own Your Files?
No. The Answer is No. Details below.
Recently, a community member has raised concerns about the HueForge license on Twitter and Youtube. I think a lot of this is due to me not posting the license agreements in public despite intending to (I had one buyer ask to see them first, just one. And I happily provided them.)
I have corrected this error. All product listings now contain links to the relevant license agreements. Basically the way it is structured is that ALL copies come with a Personal Use agreement which is then superseded by the Addendum agreements if you buy higher tiers. Any annual license reverts to a Personal Use license on expiration if no further payment is made. Any Personal Use license may be upgraded to an Annual or Lifetime at any time.
Here are the files:
Personal Use
Please read them over in full.
Marketing Rights?
I have zero marketing or promotional rights claimed in the license files. A couple of times I asked a community member whether I could use their images (fully attributed to whatever account/social/name) they wanted on Twitter as an example and as none have ever responded, I have never posted one.
I have considered running competitions where the terms WOULD include promotional use, but have not yet run one.
But nothing in the license files above gives me any visibility into the files you create, nor ownership of any kind to use your products in a promotional capacity.
Sale Rights After Expiration
One area where I think there is a legitimate complaint is what happens to products produced and sold under license when that license expires. This really only applies to the Professional Annual License, and the digital files produced under that license.
An easy to imagine example which shows the issue: An active annual license is used to produce digital files that are sold with the right to print for payment (commercial printing) to a buyer. (The Professional Tier can attach whatever rights to their digital files they want). After the year expires, it would be possible for the buyer to continue to print that file for payment, but the original creator would not be able to sell the model file anymore. Therefore I am proposing an addition to the Professional License terms which states:
Digital files, including but not limited to STL and 3MF files listed for sale before the expiration of the annual period can continue to be sold. Files created before expiration but not listed for sale until after are not allowed.
I am willing to hear constructive alterations to this addition to make it better for everyone.
STL File Import Exception
Second - something I have confirmed in private but is not explicitly in the license file will be added into the Personal Use license:
Model files which are imported as STLs in HueForge but wholly generated outside of the software have no encumbrance of any kind on salability in any form. If any part of the model has been generated in HueForge, this exception does not apply.
That is to say, if you have created an STL file outside of HueForge either by hand or by any other method, imported this file only for the purposes of coloring it, it does not fall under any commercial restrictions because the model file was not a product of HueForge.
Why Did You Make the Tiers Anyway?
My overall goal has been to make HueForge available to as many users as possible. I don’t want someone only interested in personal use to be forced to pay a fully commercial license fee for use. I also don’t want to have onerous Online Only policies with License Keys and servers which terminate the application upon non-payment.
This is why there are no keys, there is no DRM. Those things generally only cause grief to your legitimate paying customers. Plus I’m just one guy, I don’t have the infrastructure or budget for those kinds of features, let alone the time to implement them and also make HueForge into the tool I know it can become.
So my solutions as I saw it were:
A single, one size fits all, single purchase license fee that was out of the range of most potential users. ($175+) - or potentially software which will self terminate if not constantly renewed.
A multi-tier system where casual users can use HueForge for their personal use for a nominal fee and those who wish to profit from HueForge can pay the bulk of the continued development costs.
I chose the latter.
I also chose to make the license a household, multi-OS license. Not node locked to a single processor or Operating System. (Though currently I support only one OS, the plan is to expand - no I still don’t know when).
I understand that people might disagree with this choice, I cannot make everyone happy. I have, however, always wanted to make it as easy an unencumbered to own HueForge and make super cool stuff with it, and to this end, I chose this path.
Just in case I was unclear. FUSION 360 makes absolutely NO CLAIMS of ownership of the output of their software. Free or Commercial version. Fusion 360 makes NO CLAIMS of ownership or control authority over your commercial use of your creations under the commercial license.
The reason is SIMPLY. they don't OWN the output of the software so they have NO LEGAL AUTHORITY to claim ownership or control.
YOU can only control use of the software NOT ITS OUTPUT.
Hueforge. I hope you read this and don't just delete it. I mean this seriously and as a fellow creator. its not an attack.
Your entire commercial addendum is illegal under US law. You are not granting a license to the software which is your right. you are trying to grant a license to the tangible and digital goods created with the software. This is not y our right. You do not have this right. You can't grant these privileges because you don't OWN THEM
Your commercial license would be no different than if you had a clause that said licensor grants licensee limited rights to their own automobile or their home. or if you granted yourself ownership of my car or my home. You can't do that because you DO NOT OWN THOSE THINGS
You can only license WHAT YOU OWN. you OWN the hueforge software so you can grant limited license to YOUR SOFTWARE.
Now this is the important part here. reading your post here leads me to believe this is where you went astray. so I have to be very clear here
YOU DO NOT OWN THE FILES CREATED WITH HUEFORGE the STL file generated from hueforge belongs to the CREATOR of the file. NOT YOU. You can't grant rights to that which you do not own. You can't LIMIT rights to that which YOU DO NOT OWN
Your statement above leads me to believe that you think you own the stl file generated from y our software YOU DO NOT. Your license "terminates" the moment the user clicks the "save" button. that is the BOUNDARY LINE between what YOU Have legal rights to control (the software) and what you do not (the output)
Microsft does NOT OWN the doc files crated with word. Adobe does not own the PSD or JPG or PNG or GIF created with photoshop or lightroom. Dreamweaver does not own the HTML or js files created with their software. Simplify3D does NOT OWN the Factory or Gcode files created with simplify 3d
YOU DO NOT OWN the STL file or any other file generated from user content via your software.
You can NOT restrict control or regulate commercial usages of the output of your program. You can ONLY enable or disable commercial usage of YOUR SOFTWARE. once you permit commercial usage of the software via the user purchaseing said privileges from you. the commercial rights to the creations are OUTSIDE OF YOUR LEGAL AUTHORITY.
Even the personal license you have NO SAY over commercial rights to the output of your software. you can simply VOID the license if the software (not the items) are used commercially. selling items IS cause to void the person license. but you still have no say over the commercial use of the items to any extent beyond your damages the $80 or $175 license cost. that's it.
YOU DO NOT OWN THE STL FILES CREATED. The person who created them does.
YOU DO NOT OWN ANY COMMERCIAL RIGHTS OVER SAID FILES The person who created them does.
THE ONLY commercial rights you own is WHETHER yes or no they can use your software commercial OR NOT. that's it.
THE ONLY way I would ever put my intellectual property into your software is if the commercial addendum was deleted in its entirety and not added to any other agreement and the only reference you had to commercial was you need a commercial license to use the software commercially. that's it. that is the extent or your rights.
YOU ARE stealing the IP of others in your license terms. YOU ARE claiming commercial rights of others IP in your license terms. I THINK you incorrectly do not think you are doing these things because YOU THINK the stl output from the software belongs to you IT DOES NOT.
I DO NOT think you are a bad person or an evil person. I think you mistakenly do not understand that you do not own the STL file the software creates (or any file it creates) I think you incorrectly think you own those files which is why you say you are not stealing or claiming commercial rights. YOU ARE. You need to understand this mistake.