freecad-heini-1 wrote: ↑Sat Jan 04, 2020 8:12 am
...Who knows if you are allowed to do that?
Screws are often made according to an ISO standard, right? So, what if you make a screw that is identical to another one, made by a different company? You both had access to that particular information; this information is generic and widely known, so many companies can come up with the same design.
If you see a picture on the Internet, and you take it, copy it, and reproduce it, you didn't use the actual files from the company, you only used the images to guide you but you re-created the model from scratch. So, it's fine, you created something based on another thing that was online. It was available online, therefore, you have to assume the content was put there by somebody who wasn't against it.
But, if you take a drawing, and that drawing has written text that says, "intellectual property", "do not copy", "secret", "do not reproduce without authorization", etc. Then it is made obvious that its author wanted that file to stay within the company and not be publicly distributed. In this case, you should respect that file, and not copy it or use it.
In general, in copyright law, things that are widely available online, whose authors don't "protect" them from distribution, can be used by everybody, so it is okay if you use them in teaching materials. The Creative Commons (CC) licenses try to formalize this process by some requirements, like giving credit to the authors. This is the reason the CC licenses are often suggested for all sorts of artistic creations, including drawings, 3D models, paintings, musics, audio clips, etc.
