Sketchup importer legality

Hi,
I have pretty much worked out the native file format for the free sketchup modeller, and have manged to import geometry into blitz, what are your views on the legality of this?

It doesn't matter what we think.. Look into the text documents and end user agreements for clues.

Well it doesn't matter what we think, but it does matter what a lawyer thinks, because you can put anything in an EULA and it isn't neccessarily enforceable.

That said, legal or not, I'd say there's a 85% chance of them sending you a cease and desist if they discover it exists, and a 15% chance of them letting you continue to do it.

In addition you'll have to be concerned with the legality of the content you developed with it.

On the other hand, I think Sketchup has been bought by Google, and Google lets people play with their maps API's and stuff and likes people to develop addons for it. But, if they wanted you to be able to export in a format you can use, they would have left in OBJ export, which they did not.

On the other other hand, Google's gonna be fighting a losing battle if they think they can keep people from making converters and exporters for the format while still giving the thing away for free and encouraging people to make a huge free model bank of objects to be used in Google Earth. So you might be a little on the low-priority side.

Yeah, Thats some good advice guys,thanks. I did take a look at the Eula, but not having a lawyers mind its difficult to understand fully. In my mind it would be difficult for google to know that you had converted an original sketchup model anyhows, and thay are giving the program away for free.
I think maybe if you then use the model for commercial gain you may be violating the user agreement. Thats how i understand it.

I can't see an importer being illegal, surely not?

MS don't jump all over openoffice because their word processor can import word docs, so why would it be any different to support a file format?

Qube:
Well that's what I thought might be the case, but I'm not a lawyer so I can't say for sure. I suspect it depends on whether they have a patent on the file format. Microsoft did go after the guy that wrote virtualdub who made an importer for ASF format, but that is a format designed for copy protection, so maybe they went in under the DMCA for that.

If it was me, I'd just go for it, and worry about the consequences later. :-) Worst likely case is that they send you a cease and desist and you have to stop. Actually suing people costs a lot of money.

Legal or not, if you can make an app that translates the format to B3D (or similar) it would be pretty hard for anyone to know you are doing it. Perhaps they could prevent you from selling that convertor.

Regarding the file format, I'd say no problems, other vendors are starting to support it and the 3d warehouse concept seems too good an opportunity for it to become an industry standard.

As for using the free sketchup software, I was under the impression it had a free for personal use license which means the files you create with it are restricted to personal projects which has no bearing whatsoever on the open status of the file format itself.

> it would be pretty hard for anyone to know you are doing it

The end model yes, the app itself would be pretty easy to figure out was converting the format (since it loads them in and spits out something else). As for the legal or not, I've got no idea.

I can't see any problem with it at all. There are lots of 3D application that support lots of different formats. Ultimate Unwrap for instance. I think the makers of the 3D apps are just happy to have people make converters for them. If you do a SketchUp to Blitz converter, it means SketchUp will attract more Blitz users, which in the end means more sales for them. It's a win win situation.

The only exceptions I know of are GIF and mp3. The GIF patent I think has expired, but it meant GIMP couldn't include GIF support. And for mp3 you need to pay for any app that supports the format, I believe this would include something like and ogg to mp3 converter. But most companies are not so asinine about it, so you should be fine.

Ragnar

The mp3 format requires a commercial license if you distribute over 10,000 units. The license is expensive.

The .GIF dispute has ended when the patent expired, but required any program supporting the gif format was in breach of it. Users who used the format where not.

As for this 3D format, I never heard of it. Maybe i'm just slow.

But both GIF and MP3 were protected by patents, and the patents were not on the file format, but on the algorithms used to compress the data. It was possible to make GIFs that did not violate the patent.

nevertheless users wont be allowed to use the meshes other than in personal stuff, no matter to what format it was converted, or how it was loaded.

I am pretty sure they will sue you because they still want to sell their "Sketchup Pro 5" for $495, featuring things like:

Pro users have access to the following 3D export formats: DWG, DXF, 3DS, OBJ, XSI, VRML and FBX.

I doubt they didn't add some legal traps to make sure the community won't kill their pro product.

Ah...didn't know about that jfk. You're probably right, then they will have likely have issues with it. It would be a bit like writing a converter for the free learning editions of other software such as Maya or XSI.

If you could possibly make your converter so that it only works with the Pro edition of Sketchup, then I guess it would be okay. Though, if the Sketchup format is the same in the Pro and free version, there is not much you can do.

Ragnar

suppose you dont own sketchup and have downloaded a bunch of sketchup files and just carried on messing round with your loader until it worked

how can this be illegal?

what "user licence" have you agreed to?

(I have a hard enough time with click to agree licences, my signature is where?)

Indeed, EULAS that are displayed during instalation and force the user to read tons of legal text are not valid. A few years ago a judge decided those EULAs usually are an unreasonable demand to the average user.
I'm not sure if this is still true. Then again, in the case of Sketchup it's obviously involving the abuse of a free service.

To my mind EULA's are only valid insofar as they echo the law... in other words, they're proclamations rather than contracts. It's useful to include terms and conditions in the form of an EULA because, at the very least, it informs users of the software's commercial (or whatever) status and provides notification of your inevitable disclamation of liability. I doubt the latter protects you in any other way than simply being an expression of confidence in the futility of any legal action that might be brought against you concerning the contents of your code... I mean a disclaimer of liability would be worthless if your program was a virus :D

So to sum up the advice: Check the EULA - it won't constrain what you can or can't do (because that's what the law is for) but it will probably give you an idea of how difficult or easy the google folk will make things for you. If the EULA looks favourable, ask 'em. If it doesn't, ask a lawyer or walk away.

I can't personally see such an importer as anything other than a tool that will boost the appeal of their product. If I were them I'd be biting people's hands off when they offered to make my modeller useful to different markets, but big companies can take bizarre positions I suppose.

Who would know you've created the models in sketchup? And if your just converting the format, and not selling the convertor. I'm sure a few of the games that have been made today, were made using illegal tools.

> To my mind EULA's are only valid insofar as they echo the law... in other words, they're proclamations rather than contracts.

They are a contract, by agreeing with them you have entered into the contract. A contract cannot break laws though, so an illegal clause in a eula would not be enforceable. (I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice, blah blah blah)

Send an e-mail to google and tell them what you've done, ask them if they are cool with it as long as you don't distribute it, and then ask if you can distribute it for free.

tell them you will gladly destroy it if they want you to, but you'd also gladly sell them it.

who knows... maybe you'll get lucky?

and have you really lost anything if they tell you to stop?