One of the many companies that found themselves cut off from the world after Katrina was popular 3D model warehouse TurboSquid. In an interview with CNN’s Tom Foreman, CEO Matt Wisdom talks about how they turned the disaster into a business opportunity.
Typical of mainstream media, it’s got a few errors: They call TurboSquid a “3d Imaging Company”, and they claim that because of Katrina they “expanded sales into a global market”. TurboSquid has always been an online market, so I don’t think that’s a unique post-Katrina business, but otherwise it’s a great short news story about how they rebuilt the company after the hurricane to become the “largest online vendor in the world of 3d” (CNN’s quote, not mine).
Anderson Cooper 360: Blog Archive – Video: 3-D role in building up America « – Blogs from CNN.com.
Randall,
Thank you for a forum that does not get deleted.
As a person that works in the FX industry, I am distressed about this situation as I am about the issues which brought forth the “Open Letter to James Cameron”, and the behind the scenes attempts at an “Orphan Works Bill”.
Yet another corner of the world where creatives are getting squeezed by those who feel they should profit through the inadequate reimbursement to others.
While the immediate issue posed here on this thread is unfortunate for me as a creative, it sparks a different concern for me as a potential buyer of 3D content.
In this thread, John MacNeill was singled out as an antagonist. This caught my interest, and in searching for other statements from Mr MacNeill on the interwebs I found two interesting posts at Boing Boing. (Search; John MacNeill Boing Boing)
John has a very legitimate reason for reminding Turbosqiud of its short comings.
The issue in these posts centers around the forceable removal of a 3D asset made by John, a WWII bomber built in the ’40’s by Lockheed, from Trubosqiud.
This is not a black and white issue, and I am not attempting to take sides in this matter by posting my opinion about DCMA (and I do have a strong opinion).
What bothers me about this is Turbo’s weak stance in the matter. (Read the replies to the Boing Boing thread) “We are a tiny little company and the big mean lawyers from Lockheed have so much money.”
So Turbo just takes the easy way out and pulls content.
(I was told by a friend that these assets where pulled based on keywords, so assets that didnt fall under the complaint, were also pulled because a seller used keywords related to the complaint.)
And that seems to be the easiest way out of all, to not even attempt to confirm that the content being pulled fell within the complaint.
In one of the Boing Boing articles, a member of Turbosqiud responds with a very well though out statement as to why it is impossible for them to do anything else, but pull the assets. And if you stop there, you might be left with the opinion that its is just too confusing an issue to be solved simply, and it will take many years for this to work itself out., and that Turbosqiud is just doing the best it can.
But if you search just a bit further, you will find this article;
http://newsgrist.typepad.com/underbelly/2008/06/models-of-b-24.htm
Apparently, the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) sent a open letter to Lockheed’s licensing, and Lockheed withdrew their complaint, and Johns assets was restored.
That doesnt seem like such a big effort. It didnt cost millions of dollars in legal fees. At least Turbosqiud could have attempted similar. Even for a small company, I think they have enough employees to muster up a letter.
So back to my concern as a potential buyer.
If Turbosqiud is not willing to even attempt to clear up an issue like this, then how can I feel comfortable about buying content from them.
I have read the EULA, and it has all the cut and pasted clauses you will find in every other EULA, protecting TS from the seller and from the buyer, and clauses that protect the buyer from the seller. But I see nothing in there that would protect me as a buyer from a company that will stick its head in the sand if an issue regarding an asset I bought comes up.
The projects I work on are just too big and too expensive to risk having to go back and remove something months or years later.
Until Turbosqiud has CLEAR knowledge of the legal issues surrounding the content that it sells, its too risky.
And that is too bad, because there some really good stuff being modeled days.
Quote from Matt
“In the next 6 months we’ll launch several major new initiatives to give sellers the ability to fix the most frustrating problems they face.”
Seems to me, one of the most frustrating problems sellers face is you guys, rewriting your EULA in a way that takes money out of the seller pockets.
What is your initiative to solve that particular problem?
This is old news. Every other digital medium I can think of has exclusivity programs, we didn’t invent the concept. Most of our sales are at the 60% rate favoring the sellers, which is one of the highest in the industry. On average, TurboSquid sellers have the highest royalty rate from TurboSquid in the history of the company because we launched the SquidGuild, and we pay sellers more money than we ever have before.
From a development standpoint, we have been able to work with the SquidGuild sellers to get valuable opinions about how to evolve our business and have shared details and information we’ve never been able to share before. In the next 6 months we’ll launch several major new initiatives to give sellers the ability to fix the most frustrating problems they face.
So from our perspective — we have more loyal sellers, we pay more royalties, we get better information, and have more competitive features coming out.
Many of the sites that thoroughly imitated our site are going to have to work a little harder to be original and competitive. This is a good thing for the industry. Somebody is always putting out to bid on global coding networks (“I want to build a clone of TurboSquid”) and having dozens of sites with the same exact business model doesn’t help our industry. TurboSquid has the resources to try to fix some of these problems our customers have so that our industry grows dramatically, like the stock photography industry has before us. That’s our focus right now and I think we’ll have a huge impact.
Out of the 20,000+ sellers on TS, there are a handful that take any chance they get (hi John MacNeill) to say something negative. Of course, that’s not how we judge our success — it is by the continued stream of people joining the program, our increased sales, and how much we think we’ll change the game this year.
Felipe,
You will find that many of the angry sellers have the same 3D assets available for sale at other websites, and these sellers have either raised the price of their assets at TS, or reduced the price of their assets at the other sites in protest.
Buyers will do well to shop around these days, as the savings are there for the taking.
You will be able to buy an asset for less, and at the same time, the maker of the asset will make more, as they are getting a better percentage of sales at these reputable sites.
Other sites include:
The3DStudio dot com
FallingPixel dot com
Flatpyramid dot com
CreativeCrash dot com
A bet TS is upset they cant delete this thread, cause if it was at their forum, it would be gone by now.
Wow! I cannot believe that turbosquid is being so abusive. It almost makes me want to start my own store. Seriously, I do not understand why they are behaving that way. Mafia Gangsters come to mind. I’m currently making a 3D game and was seriously considering speding several hundred dollars with them. But first I started to do a little research on them since I don’t really know them. I wanted to find out if they are a reputable company or not. Now that I see how they treat the people that makes them rich I will take my business elsewhere. I will try to buy from the seller directly if not then I will go to a different store that is more honest and ethical. Buyers of the internet BAN turbosquid. They do not deserve your business.
It is unfortunate that a few of the small percentage of people who have become disgruntled with TurboSquid have chosen to comment here. And as disgruntled people will, they have chosen to give incorrect and misleading information on something that has nothing to do with the blog post.
TurboSquid started the SquidGuild last August as a loyalty program; those who join pledge to publish their models at TurboSquid only. Since then, more than 50% of our active publishers have joined, and for good reason: they make more money as SquidGuild members. Before the SquidGuild, everybody got a 50% royalty on all sales. But now, SquidGuild members get a 50-60% royalty (depending on lifetime sales) and can earn an extra 20% on sales they refer to our site, for a possible 80% royalty, the highest of any site out there.
The reason these commenters are disgruntled is that they’ve chosen not to join the SquidGuild, and so have been bumped down to a 40% royalty. In order to give away more money to our loyal members, we had to make this adjustment. Any member is free at any time to join or not join the SquidGuild, or to go elsewhere to sell their models. Just the same, these commenters follow us around the web and complain every chance they get.
In the past few months, TurboSquid has had the highest total sales ever. This means customers are buying more models and spending more money at TurboSquid than ever. Our SquidGuild members are earning more than ever.
I’m sure this won’t be the end of the comments. Some of these guys have commented on TurboSquid training videos on YouTube, for Pete’s sake. They seem to think that if they keep complaining, we’ll change things. But when more than half our 20,000 sellers think something is a great idea, and the complainers number about a dozen, this isn’t likely to happen. The SquidGuild has been very successful, and has helped us continue as the largest online marketplace for 3D models.
Randall,
What Lob says is true.
Theft is the word to be used here.
For ten years, TS and Sellers have had agreement as to the percentage split between the two for the sale of Sellers assets.
One day, Turbosquid decided that it was going to keep an additional 20% of the Sellers profits.
They made this announcement at the same time they announced SquirtGuild.
SquirtGuild is a club for Sellers that wish to sell exclusively at TS.
TS stated that they needed the 20% from Sellers that didnt wish to join SquirtGuild, so they could give it to the Sellers that did join the SquirtGuild.
Most sellers complained, and several were banned from the TS forums for voicing their opinion.
It was suggest to TS that they should only place this burden of lower royalty rates on newer assets, therefore demonstrating some respect for an existing contract, and respect for the sellers that helped get TS to where it is today.
TS simply stated that they have the right to change their EULA at any time.
It was pointed out to TS that there have been several legal rulings where EULA’s were viewed by the court as unenforceable.
That person was banned from the Forum for referring to legal matters, and their forum postings were erased.
TS knows that the previous royalty rate agreement was in existence for more than 10 years. They know that this means they dont have the right to change the existing agreement, even if they did have the right to change the EULA.
If Turbo Squid is doing so well, why the need to cut royalties and try to gain a monopoly though intimidation?
@ Lob Maitri Erwin covered what you speak of a while back.. We’ld love your thoughts.
https://vizworld.com/2009/08/the-ethical-decay-of-turbosquid/
Along with their claim of expanded sales, they have also expanded their percentage of sales.
They have done this by taking an additional 20% of the profits from sales, despite the complaints of the vendors.
This is nothing short of theft.
New Orleans has nothing to be proud of here.