The Truth About The Benchy Boycott (and what I’m printing instead)

It’s not all smooth sailing for the 3D Benchy. The unofficial mascot of the 3D printing community is under threat. The rights have been sold to a large corporation and they’re cracking down on license enforcement, removing all remixes from file sharing platforms like Printables and Thingiverse. In this video we discuss the situation, how it might all be one big misunderstanding and what you can print instead if the Benchy is sunk for good.

Models mentioned:

Supporting footage courtesy of:

Sources referenced:

00:00 Benchy Is A 3D Printing Icon
01:20 History of the 3D Benchy
03:00 An End To All The Fun
03:45 A Plot Twist
04:34 Who Is Causing This Chaos?
05:05 The Search For A New Benchy
06:10 The Importance of Quantified Analysis
07:11 The “Cute” Factor
07:35 E3D Buggy
07:54 3D Boaty
08:35 Cali-Cat
08:51 Cali-Dragon / Clearance Castle
09:07 A Question and A Challenge
09:35 Outro

[paulo-kiefe]

The 3DBenchy is not sunk for good. I, together with Daniel Norée, created 3DBenchy almost 10 years ago.

Since its launch, we have never claimed to prohibit the community from artistically and creatively redistributing the file. I am the former CEO of Creative Tools, who worked with Daniel Norée.

Recently, the administration at Printables decided to start enforcing the CC ND license, disregarding our past tolerance remakes of 3DBenchy. In other words, the takedown notices were NOT initiated by Daniel, myself, or the current owner of the IP, the NTI company.

There is an ongoing dialogue and a solution for this issue. Please stay tuned and contact me if you want more details.

[gcewing]

For maximum copyright finger-raising, the successor to the Benchy should be a boat with Steamboat Willie at the helm.

[TheDepep]

Hey, Im the creator of the 3D Boaty. I want to say that I originally created the Boaty for the meme, souly to make fun of the 3DBenchy. But I did make a few intentional design choices to also make it a somewhat useable test for printers. Since the Boaty became so popular, I have wanted to make it more of a proper printer test and I was never really sure what to add... Until now. I love the idea of a scoreboard for a test print. Thank you for the idea, Ill try to add this along with another 1 or 2 tests to make the Boaty a better all-round printer test.

[jamesbullo]

NTI already made a statement “NTI has not taken any action to enforce the 3DBenchy license or taken any steps to have derivatives removed.”

This all started because Prusa began enforcement of the ND license.

[orangepeeI]

“In 2025 we’ll have flying cars”
2025: Cancelling a 3D model

[Lvvcassss]

This "boycott" seems to me like another manufactured internet controversy purely for the clicks...

[desiv]

Not sure why anyone is considering a "boycott of the 3DBenchy" since the company who owns the rights has said they didn't file the complaint and don't want models removed.
This is a Printables issue. If people were saying they were going to boycott Printables, then I could see that.
Yeah, Printables is saying they "have to abide by the license" but we know that isn't true. Other sites didn't do this and the license holder has said they don't care. So this is all about how Printables (Prusa) is choosing to act.
And let's be clear, everyone knows there are LOTS AND LOTS of models with the same license violations of original works and they aren't removing those.
They allowed a report from someone OTHER than the license holder to get them to react. That is a Printables (Prusa) issue.
Might it be nice if/when the license holder changes the licensing? Yeah. But again, the license holder hasn't stopped any models from being printed. Printables did.
And to be fair, I can see what the original original owners were "thinking" of when they chose that license, because if someone tweaks the model, it could ruin the benchmarking ability. So I can see why they did that. I think it wasn't the right choice, but I can see why they tried it...

[mitchib]

If we're trying to protect the open source philosophy, why are we so chill about Bambu Lab? They're a real threat to it, more so than the 3D benchy.

[blakebrooks]

Its.... a boat. Its a fucking boat. Why are we doing
It is a boat. Its a 3d model of a boat.

[freescape]

0:38 The benchy was never meant to push any printer to its limits(that's a ridiculous claim), it's more likely it was meant to show a good example of what a given printer is capable of (benchmark), in comparison to traditional subtractive manufacturing. And it happened to catch on because it was cute.

[apollolux]

Some company: Benchy the Boat is restricted.
Guile: I'm going to get into my BOAT, I'm going to go UPRIVER...

[m]

There is way too much drama around this. The Benchy can still be used for what it was designed for and the licensing terms are still the same. I don't understand why we now need a different model for benchmarking when remixing it for meme purposes was the actual problem. How does that change the benchmarking peoperties of the Benchy?
If NTI aren't the ones filing the copyright strikes and they don't actually care about the Benchy, they might as well just change the license to allow remixing. This woudl make everyone happy.
This whole thing is a bit ridiculous.

[alexholker]

For wargamers I could imagine a tank trap like the Belgian gate being a good basis for a torture test print - they're not cute, but every successful test is one more piece of scatter terrain.

[ValisX]

1:13 ‘Buff Benchys, Dark Benchys, Asian Benchys, White Benchys, Dog Benchys, Classic Benchys, Mystery Benchys… Thousands of Benchys are standing by, waiting for your call’

[LukeCrawford-nn]

I work at a wargaming miniatures company and 3D printers are part of our prototyping and production process.

50% of the time, the first question anybody asks when they hear I work with 3D printers is some variation on "can you 3D print a gun". Before this job my standard answer was to talk about the differences between resin and filament printing, the near impossibility of printing effective ammo, and the strange state of affairs where 3D printers aren't actually making it easier to make guns directly but are instead making it easier to make specialised tools which are then used to make gun parts.

Since starting my current job my new answer to that question is a simple "Yes!" followed by producing a 1/70 scale "micro Micro Uzi" from my pocket, then showing photos of it viewed through a microscope.

Based on those experiences, if a replacement for the Benchy is truly needed, I think it should be a keychain sized Micro Uzi.

Also whatever it is, some amount of support material should be necessary on some specific part of it.

[Human-xe]

Why though?
It's like that guy that banned the "oof" sound from Roblox.

[herbys]

The "consistency" criteria is legit, since having tweaked benchys that results in better performance would end up defeating the purpose of a benchmark. But the solution is not to copyright the object, but to copyright the name, so no company can claim they printed a "3D bebchy" in 30 seconds if what they printed is not the original design. I hope this is applicable to whichever benchmark wins the race to replace benchy.

[ak_fx]

It's worth noting that the new company has in interest in enforcing the licence, it was just a one off error by printables not by the company you mentioned, this for some reason cause chaos that went a bit overboard. The 3d benchh was always under the license it was just never enforced, essentially: nothing happened

[lunondisposable]

Anyone who is legitimately upset enough about this to call for a boycott has too much time on their hands.

[RyanMercer]

First I've heard of this "boycott"...