Original or Plagiarism?

just FYI, boxes.py is licensed under GPL v3+ because the author, Florian Festi, is awesome like that.

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hello new guy here ,well new to glowforge . so many 2 cents i think i will throw mine in. if your intent is not to sell it then i am confused. Some if not most of us 3d print and cnc. and i make gift for friends . Harley Davidson bottle opener . now this is clearly a copyrighted and belongs to HD. But im not selling it or trying to profit from it. I think its intent .

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i think HD would disagree with you (and they need to if they want to protect their trademark), but they’d probably never know and if you’re making things for personal use like that, they’d probably ignore you if they did know because it wouldn’t be worth the effort to hit every single person doing individual personal use items.

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The thing is… you’re making an item rather than paying for it, so it does potentially impact their bottom line. The HD logo belongs to them, you are not approved to make things with it, and it’s technically not OK. Intent doesn’t really matter. If you don’t have permission, you don’t have permission. But it’s true, they likely won’t know and don’t have the resources to chase after hobbyists.

Justifications like this are a slippery slope. As a writer, I’ve had people steal things I’ve written and then try to convince me that I should be flattered that they thought it was worth stealing. Except that doesn’t pay my bills.

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Some remarks from the Brand Protection Manager at HD
(from an interview here: In-house Insight - HGF )

Harley-Davidson is considered to have an effective brand enforcement strategy. What do you think has been key to its success?

When I joined Harley-Davidson, I established a brand protection strategy built around four key pillars. These pillars of Prevent, Disrupt, Enforce and Engage allow us to focus our efforts, develop programmes and undertake activities which ensure they deliver the best results for our overall objectives as a department.

We PREVENT the dilution of our trademark rights and diminish the risk of counterfeiting through:

  • Governing the use of our trademark rights and ensuring correct and consistent use;
  • Maintaining detail knowledge of our labelling, packaging and anti-counterfeiting devices adopted across our various genuine product ranges, as well as our supply chain; and
  • Monitoring the marketplace for infringing activities.

We DISRUPT the manufacture, distribution and sale of counterfeit and infringing goods through:

  • Securing the detention of counterfeit and infringing goods at National borders;
  • Providing comprehensive support to law enforcement agencies;
  • Monitoring e-commerce platforms; and
  • Seeking the removal of infringing pages and/or images from social media platforms.

We ENFORCE our trademark rights against third party infringers via both civil proceedings and/or criminal prosecutions, as follows:

  • Undertaking detailed investigations;
  • Following pre-action protocol when appropriate and necessary; and
  • Seeking search and seizure orders and securing successful criminal prosecutions where possible.

We ENGAGE with our stakeholders to advance our Prevent, Disrupt and Enforce strategic objectives through:

  • Educating Harley-Davidson employees, and associates on brand standards;
  • Promoting the role of the Trademark and Brand Protection Team;
  • Providing training to external stakeholders, notably law enforcement agencies, on the identification of counterfeit Harley-Davidson products; and
  • Meeting with professional associations to understand and share best practices in brand protection strategy.
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The one experience I had with the issue was as a designer in a small jewelry shop in a large mall, any custom work I would help the customer to decide on a design and do the lost wax part while others did the casting and cleanup Such was the times and inclinations of the owners that they had a display of “salt spoons” and “salt containers” in gold and silver that one of the owners had made so I was not doing any of those designs. We did occasionally have less than hip old ladies who thought the idea great and bought them to have a dish of salt for the table

What the owner had done was to take the ice cream spoon with the McDonald’s logo a put a much smaller spoon on it and cast it in gold, and it sat in that display. The showcase was small and at the back of the store, so you would not think it would raise a fuss, but two very large men showed up in nice suits and explained that the design was inappropriate and McDonald’s was giving the owner this one chance to melt it back into gold, which was promptly done.

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