All code on the blendermarket is GPL. Yet, it sold over 25 million dollars worth of software. No DRM on the assets, all free software. Free as in freedom, not as in beer. In spite of that, I have not seen once anyone in the blender community complain about piracy, let alone have I seen anyone distribute any software or assets sold on the blendermarket unofficially. It just isn’t a problem, or at least not more of a problem than on any other DRMed closed source alternative.
Around 10 years ago the developer of a closed source renderer called Corona ranted about Blender’s GPL, as it prevented him from integrating his renderer into Blender without disclosing its source code:
Because entire Blender is covered by GPL licence, it is forbidden to link anything closed-source to it (not just commercial as in “you pay for it”, but anything closed-source, which includes “it is free to use, but I won’t give you my source code”) […]
We thought there were some loopholes, but it turns out the “Free” Software Foundation thought about them too and explicitly forbidden them. […]
So, Blender has unusable licence. That is fine, any software developer is entitled to the choice of licence. If somebody wants to make a 3D studio legally usable only while not wearing underwear, he should be able to do it. What makes me angry is the whole FREE software ideology/advertisement. FSF goes on and on about “protecting users freedom”. Their interpretation is:
- being able to choose from free plugins: freedom
- being able to choose from the same free plugins, plus also commercial plugins: less freedom.
- Forbidding good Corona renderer integration for Blender is freedom. Allowing it would make Blender less free. […]
I am not saying the OSS concept is wrong. There are other, much better and really free licences, like MIT/Apache/… If Blender would use any of them, we would start Corona for Blender right now. Too bad it uses the GPL bullshit. I feel bad for Blender users, because they will never have any fully-integrated commercial renderer plugin :/.
He feels bad for what? For users having a thriving software ecosystem with license that ensures it stays free and open forever? The Corona Dev wrote this 10 years ago, probably without realizing that blender was already on its way to become the most widely used 3D application. There are plenty of people making money developing comercial plugins for blender - and they are all GPL.
It makes me think about how much we all have been gaslit by the tech corporations that without DRM and that whole subscription-licenses nightmare they would run out of business. It is not true and we can point our fingers to the blender ecosystem to prove them wrong. I don’t know… I haven’t seen anyone point this out yet.
I see a lot of assets on the Blender market that are definitely not GPL or Creative-Commons licensed. Maybe I am missing something?
GPL or MIT is mandatory for any code-based product on the Blender Market.
Assets don’t have to be free the same way code is, so there are mostly royalty-free products when it comes to assets.
It is true however, many addons charge more money for a “studio license”. I’ve been confused about it too and I assume it wouldn’t be enforcable with a GPL license. I don’t mind it too much though as I think it fair to charge companies that generate more revenue a bit more than individuals
My point was mainly that those 25 million might be largely made up from not GPL assets sold on that market place and not GPL software.
Could you link some examples?
Also keep in mind that people can release their work under multiple licenses, so they may upload the same work with a different license (like a privative one) to other markets.
I think they are free to charge some users more for a copy. But as it’s GPL, any person is allowed to make a copy and share that with a studio. But would it be worth it as it’s more trouble for accounting?
probably - I think most studios would be okay with paying more, the prices are pretty fair compared to what’s common in the industry. And on top of that they’d probably have to do without tech support from the devs which is quite important for studios
I’m not sure, but OP specifies code being restricted to GPL, not all assets.