Protecting Revit Families?

[Jim Merritt]

We are beginning to work on our Revit templates and families. We will have a very sophisticated setup with advanced families, schedules, etc.

Is there any way to lock or protect parts of a Revit file so consultants we are working with can't "take" our setup for other projects? We are not so concerned about Architects and Engineers we work with, but are concerned about our competitors getting our setup and removing the large advantage we will have over them. Is some sort of NDA agreement written by lawyers the only way? Thanks.

--Jim Merritt

[aaronrumple]

Nope. Once it is out of the office - it is out.
Numerous post on this subject if you do a search....

[Jim Merritt]

Sorry for the repeat post. I have searched and didn't have any luck with finding the same topic. I must be using the wrong search terms. An improved search engine would help also I think.

Are many firms requiring other firms they are working with to sign agreements when they give out their Revit files? Do people put clauses in their agreements specific to Revit files in general or Families in particular?

Even if a competitor did copies of your families, wouldn't it be pretty tough (if you even heard) to prosecute and prove they did so? I don't know much about the legal aspects of this. Does anyone have some pointers?

--Jim Merritt

[aaronrumple]

This is a start...
http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=64310&highlight=copyright

[patricks]

My position on the subject is still the same as when I posted in that linked thread.

Unless it's a family of something custom designed that you, the architect (or your firm) created, that is specific to your building design, then I don't see what the problem is with sharing families.

If you're creating a family that represents something that already exists, then let other people benefit from it by sharing it. At some point in time, you'll need something that someone else has made, also.

I seriously doubt that your office is going to be custom-creating ALL the content used by the users in your office. To me that would be a MASSIVE waste of time, energy, and resources.

[HawkeyNut]

I agree with 'generic content' not being copyrighted. Everyone can benefit from it. But I am also creating some very complex content for our firm that is more or less a part of the product we are selling. We invest time into creating this content and I am sure you can understand us not wanting to hand over the end result to our competitors...

[Alex Page]

My position on the subject is still the same as when I posted in that linked thread.

Unless it's a family of something custom designed that you, the architect (or your firm) created, that is specific to your building design, then I don't see what the problem is with sharing families.

If you're creating a family that represents something that already exists, then let other people benefit from it by sharing it. At some point in time, you'll need something that someone else has made, also.

I seriously doubt that your office is going to be custom-creating ALL the content used by the users in your office. To me that would be a MASSIVE waste of time, energy, and resources.

That may be a nice idea, but our firm have invested a lot of time heavily in creating Revit families starting about 5-6 years ago - our local competitors have now jumped onto the band-wagon but I believe that our families (content/ graphical look and feel) give us a huge competitive advantage over them (of course our advanced knowledge as well).
Creating our families cost us time (= money) and sure, I have downloaded other peoples families to use as a base/ work out how they did it/ etc etc for our own, but I can tell you, if I told my boss Im going to hand our families to our competetors, its probably the end of my Management role!

We are currently doing a joint project with a competitor, who are using the families out of the box, and we are very nervous about this topic

[aaronrumple]

...there is a way to hide a parameter. It will be available to the API, but not visible to the average user. It is about the only way to "sign" a family. Of course someone with knowledge of the API can zap the parameter out.

[patricks]

We are currently doing a joint project with a competitor, who are using the families out of the box, and we are very nervous about this topic

Well is there some kind of contract going with this other company? Maybe you could work something into the contract about how the custom content is the property of your company etc. etc. etc., which of course would be signed by both parties. If the other company is caught using them later then you should have grounds for legal action.

[Alex Page]

Yeah, I guess that is what we will do...
But what happens if the client asks for the model, which he/she has paid for and (maybe) legally owns...how do we stop he/she distributing the file?

[cphubb]

We added a simple parameter to our family templates where we place the date created and the person who created it. We made them instance and if a family gets back we can start to look for where it went and who may have facilitated it. Another firm in town who has spent money creating special families that are great time savers, replaces all of those with generic un-parametric families. Go ahead and steal those. These are the only solutions so far and neither is a powerful option. I hope there will be an option soon, till then becareful who you send your model to.

[GuyR]

This has been discussed as long as Revit as existed. The Factory has continually resisted providing any solution for this for reasons only they could explain.

FWIW, if your firm is using families created externally without checking/ modifying to your company standards then you'll eventually end up with problems in projects.

I wouldn't get your hopes up that this will be addressed in any way this year.

HTH,

Guy

[Jim Merritt]

I will probably get firms to sign some document. But personally, if I received a file without some sort of agreement being signed which had all these nifty families, I'd be checking them out. I would ideally like to have the agreement say something about only being used when working on projects we are building, but that isn't going to work because there are some projects we are not going to build modularly and they will be stick built.

I guess I'll keep the Architecture separate (which may be done outside the company) from structural, electrical, mechanical and plumbing which will just stay in-house.

--Jim

[David Harrington]

Interesting thread.

I have had this same issue over the years and the AutoCAD system I developed for my company is protected, as best I know how to do. I don't know if a similar protection system can be done in Revit - I don't think so.

But this issue has me wondering something. Back in the day, when AutoCAD first came out, all we had was LISP and Drawings. In general it was an open system and much was shared via BBS and later CompuServe. Sure there was an encrypted for LISP and some tools that made the variables goofy names - but none of that was all that solid.

However, I believe AutoCAD is as good and widespread as it is because of the openness of the customization. The menus for one, but all the thousands of programs and blocks shared by people, all of it helps make the program stronger. This in turn lead to market share, and that lead to Autodesk having more $ to make the program even better. Sort of a self-fueling fire.

Now the point I want to make now is a protection system does not make you money. Keeping Joe Blow from using your families won't earn you income or help your firm win a project. I know of no project that was ever won on the criteria "we have lots of customization to help us be more efficient". The client will not care how you do the work, only that you can and will do it for the price they are willing to pay.

So please don't take this wrong. Any work you (or me) do is entitled to protection. When you write something it has a copyright. When you create something it has a latent patent. But in the end you won't earn a penny on the basis of you not allowing others to use your stuff. You also won't earn a penny (in the short term) for you allowing others to use your stuff. Nil is nil.

Hmm. So in the end are we just punishing the community at large? Are we being very futile trying to one-up each other? "HA,HA, I have a family you don't have...nanananabooboo."

Above I mentioned "short term", this is for a reason. Imagine for a second a whole where we all share our families and knowledge. The people who create get warm fuzzies and probably will get some families back in return. But even if you didn't, hundreds of others get more efficient with RST. Autodesk probably will have more sales. They then have more time and develop more program, making it even better for all (and you). Autodesk then 'includes' the best stuff in the software, pushing the family 'bar' higher. Then comes the day the payback returns...more efficiency for the creator.

I would love to see a self-fueling RST fire...

[Jim Merritt]

Now the point I want to make now is a protection system does not make you money. Keeping Joe Blow from using your families won't earn you income or help your firm win a project. I know of no project that was ever won on the criteria "we have lots of customization to help us be more efficient".

David, we (the company I work for) manufactures custom homes in factories. We make money by giving customers what they want quicker than the site built industry and at a better price. Being more efficient than the next guy is what it's all about, really.

[c-hawk]

Dave, slowly place the cup on the table and step away from the koolaid ... ;-p

jk

[David Harrington]

David, we (the company I work for) manufactures custom homes in factories. We make money by giving customers what they want quicker than the site built industry and at a better price. Being more efficient than the next guy is what it's all about, really.

hehe, I love this thread!

And who is the next guy? Your companies competition or your coworker? People, who know nothing about CAD, buy your homes right? Do you list "we have sweet CAD tools" in your brochure? If not, how would a customer know or thereby care?

Yes, your tools make it quicker to do your work. What would happen if a disgruntled employee walked with your familes in tow? Would you go running to the boss, stating your fears for future sales? Do you think he would call 911 and hire a lawyer?

If these situations are crazy and unrealistic, then so is the desire to keep the knowledge in-house. It comes down to value, your value does not decrease by sharing your info - if anything, your personal value can go up because people can then appreciate your skills.

[aaronrumple]

hehe, I love this thread!

And who is the next guy? Your companies competition or your coworker? People, who know nothing about CAD, buy your homes right? Do you list "we have sweet CAD tools" in your brochure? If not, how would a customer know or thereby care?

Yes, your tools make it quicker to do your work. What would happen if a disgruntled employee walked with your familes in tow? Would you go running to the boss, stating your fears for future sales? Do you think he would call 911 and hire a lawyer?

If these situations are crazy and unrealistic, then so is the desire to keep the knowledge in-house. It comes down to value, your value does not decrease by sharing your info - if anything, your personal value can go up because people can then appreciate your skills.

The customer cares because our work is faster and more accurate.

Employee walks away with company client confidential information? Yes - the police are called, locks are changed , laywers are called - and it has happened.

So - no - neither one of these situations are crazy or unrealistic.

We have a firm in town that made the move to Revit when a competitor went to their clients and said: They can do your project in 2 weeks. We can do it in 1. (...using Revit)
To have their model would put anyone in the industry on the same competitive footing.

If it really isn't an issue for you - can I have your models and your client list?

[Jim Merritt]

If these situations are crazy and unrealistic, then so is the desire to keep the knowledge in-house. It comes down to value, your value does not decrease by sharing your info - if anything, your personal value can go up because people can then appreciate your skills.

I don't think these situations are crazy and unrealistic. And yes, it is unrealistic that someone in-house our outside the company won't eventually get valuable company data. Does that lead to the logical conclusion you made that I shouldn't have the "desire" to keep things protected in the companies interest? No. I don't follow that logic. I don't think because a company makes efforts to protect their data, and ultimately can't 100% that it should be a free-for-all and we should just setup an ftp site giving away data to anyone who wants it. My logic works differently I guess.

I received the information I wanted from this thread and I'll leave it to others to debate the wonderful ideal if free data (or not) for all.:lol:
--Jim

[David Harrington]

Hi guys!

Hehe, sorry to harp on this but I just have to. All I am trying to get to is where is the line in which people are willing to share their knowledge? Spending time here answering questions is just as valuable as content you might create in the same amount of time.

The Revit product is a finite program - given enough time every family type will be written by the users throughout the world.

Take your most impressive family you have created. Say someone in your firm uses it and then quits. They don't bother stealing it, they instead learn and make their own with the same advantage. He will be faster than before, but not faster than you (you still have the tool). So now you two are equal producers. What happens? Someone desides to go after more market share by cutting prices. The customer gets lower prices. You have to find a way to do it cheaper and/or even faster.

In the end a market econmy will always push productivity faster, costs lower, and the evil cycle begins again.

Again, where is the line? In general the community has the opinion of I will give you my advice, I will give you my knowledge (help), but I don't do your work for you.

That is the REAL issue here. It isn't market share or faster than the other guy. It is that people don't want to do work someone else should be doing. It comes down to a human emotion - spite. If it doesn't hurt me, I still don't want to help others for no return.

So where is the Revit line? If I spend 2 mins making a family, would that be 'cheap' enough of my time to give away? What about 30 mins? Hmmm. Two whole hours? Whoa...to give away 2 hours of my time for no return? Not likely.

How much time over the years have AutoCAD users spent clouding with Revcloud? I wish I had a penny for every use for I made the program originally and GAVE it to Autodesk for free. I saw the void in the application and wanted to share. They took it and even made it better over several releases. I am better for it now.

Is Revit so hard to adopt a similar tone? I am always amazed at the speakers for Autodesk University. They get peanuts in exchange for 90mins of presentation and time to create 10+ page handouts. And you know they are including in their show some tidbits of 'mad Revit skills' earned through trial by fire. I wish everyone had the same attitude to further the industry as the speakers do.

[aaronrumple]

Spending time here answering questions is just as valuable as content you might create in the same amount of time.

The Revit product is a finite program - given enough time every family type will be written by the users throughout the world.

...but I don't do your work for you.

That is the REAL issue here. ...It comes down to a human emotion - spite. If it doesn't hurt me, I still don't want to help others for no return.

So where is the Revit line? If I spend 2 mins making a family, would that be 'cheap' enough of my time to give away? What about 30 mins? Hmmm. Two whole hours? Whoa...to give away 2 hours of my time for no return? Not likely.

Is Revit so hard to adopt a similar tone? I am always amazed at the speakers for Autodesk University. They get peanuts in exchange for 90mins of presentation and time to create 10+ page handouts. And you know they are including in their show some tidbits of 'mad Revit skills' earned through trial by fire. I wish everyone had the same attitude to further the industry as the speakers do.

Not every family will be made. The world keeps changing. The variation on physical from is infinite. If you think all the families ever needed can be packaged - then you have a short sighted view of design.

I've never given away a Revit family in completed form and my 'helping' others in solving their problems is for selfish reasons. It makes me smarter and keeps my edge over the person asking the question. My solving the problem increases my knowledge base far faster than the person receiving a finished solution.

AU speakers are compensated many ways. And quite well, mind you. The financial compensation might not be dollar for dollar what they are worth. However, they also get great press and PR for their professional work. It rounds out the resume. Paul Aubin makes book sales. Steve Stafford (hopes to) picks up new clients. They also get the chance to network and find possible new employment. I'm sure Scott Davis will vouch for that. If it weren't for these very tangible perks - AU would die.

As I said - if you really believe this, post your model for your best repeat client. I'll be on their doorstep tomorrow.

Aynn Rand Rules!

[aaronrumple]

How much time over the years have AutoCAD users spent clouding with Revcloud? I wish I had a penny for every use for I made the program originally and GAVE it to Autodesk for free. I saw the void in the application and wanted to share. They took it and even made it better over several releases. I am better for it now.

...and if you did - that was dumb.

[hand471037]

Yeah, I guess that is what we will do...
But what happens if the client asks for the model, which he/she has paid for and (maybe) legally owns...how do we stop he/she distributing the file?

Well, just because they want a 'model' doesn't mean it has to be the whole Revit model.

While I wish IFC really worked, something along those lines would be an option. 3D DWF's certainly are nice in this way. You get all the data, none of the behavior. Now if there was only a way that a 2D DWF set and a 3D DWF model could be combined into one exported DWF model, and then that DWF model could be 'queried' for data.

For example, we've spent a lot of time making nice quote sheets for our small design-build jobs. Lots of automated things in Numbers, which is Apple's version of Excel. Anyways, when we send a quote to someone, we export it out to PDF, and send that instead. They get all the info, even with bookmarks and chapters and such, but they don't get the behavior we've spent time and money defining. Because it's a PDF, they could even 'pull' data from it automatically if they wanted to for their own use without having to have our actual, live Excel version.

So until Autodesk gives us a good technical solution, I fear that your only solution is a legal one. I.E. make contracts that requre others to not redistribute your Revit models, or a 'sabtour' one, where you go in and laboriously delete stuff. Simply removing the parameters out of your complex families prior to giving someone a Revit model does a lot of make it, well, suck to reuse.

Or, as we've done with our work, arrange it such that even if they have the model it doesn't mean much. What I mean here is that due to the CNC nature of how we produce things, I can freely give away the families we make for a project, for it would be hard for anyone else to take those models and directly produce them like we can.

But trying to 'lock' data in some way is like trying to make water not wet. I simply don't think it's possible. But it certainly is possible to convert the data into a form that doesn't hurt you to give away.

[Steve_Stafford]

I'm inclined to agree with Jeffrey, an understanding between people whether by contract or by handshake is likely to avoid the majority of issues more easily and effectively than attempting to quietly control conduct with technology. Where dishonestly and lack of integrity exists neither approach will prevent anything but the contract/handshake provides a way to address the situation legally if necessary and willing.

[Scott D Davis]

Now if there was only a way that a 2D DWF set and a 3D DWF model could be combined into one exported DWF model, and then that DWF model could be 'queried' for data.

That's exactly what a new Autodesk product does...it's called QTO, for Quantity Take Off. It reads DWF files, and you bring in a 3D DWF and a 2D set of the plans to the same session, and quantities are extracted from the data in the DWF files. Not much on the website yet...it's brand new!

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?siteID=123112&id=10326955

[David Harrington]

...and if you did - that was dumb.

If I did? I certainly did. I created REVCLOUD and gave it to Autodesk for free.

As for the rest of this thread, it would seem the time is not ripe for level of sharing AutoCAD has enjoyed over the years.

As for my model, I never suggested giving away models. Rather components like families or at least the knowledge to create them are what I would like to see more share.

I still don't get what this 'edge' is that some feel they have over other users. The only edge you one can have is internal to a company. You can not truly 'race' when the tracks for others are different. Not to mention your point of view is only yours. You may think you are fast but until there is a Top Daug contest at AU you will never really know.

As for the AU comensation, the $350 for a session isn't a big number. But that would depend on your point of view I guess. In India that would be a months salary. but as I stated, they speakers I know really do do it for the joy of helping. It may help them get other work but without the pleasure of teaching they would not do it.

Live in a 'i'm superior' bubble. But one day it will pop, then you will learn how big the world really is and where a single user really fits in.

I don't intend to irritate anyone here with my statements. I am only trying to point out how this industry is not as gregarious as it could be and I find that suprising. AUGI was formed for the purpose of sharing information and knowledge within the world-wide community of Autodesk users.

It is a shame that the Revit segment of that has protectionism as a possible component.

[aaronrumple]

If I did? I certainly did. I created REVCLOUD and gave it to Autodesk for free.

As for my model, I never suggested giving away models. Rather components like families or at least the knowledge to create them are what I would like to see more share.

I still don't get what this 'edge' is that some feel they have over other users. The only edge you one can have is internal to a company. You can not truly 'race' when the tracks for others are different. Not to mention your point of view is only yours. You may think you are fast but until there is a Top Daug contest at AU you will never really know.

As for the AU comensation, the $350 for a session isn't a big number. But that would depend on your point of view I guess. In India that would be a months salary. but as I stated, they speakers I know really do do it for the joy of helping. It may help them get other work but without the pleasure of teaching they would not do it.

Live in a 'i'm superior' bubble. But one day it will pop, then you will learn how big the world really is and where a single user really fits in.

I don't intend to irritate anyone here with my statements. I am only trying to point out how this industry is not as gregarious as it could be and I find that suprising. AUGI was formed for the purpose of sharing information and knowledge within the world-wide community of Autodesk users.

It is a shame that the Revit segment of that has protectionism as a possible component.

You do irritate. I don't profess that I'm faster than everyone. I do profess that I work hard at staying current and as technically competent as any out there. I was blessed to go to Yale and work with brilliant people that just flabbergasted me with their insight and knowledge. So no - I don't live in an "I'm superior bubble." I've seen the best.

I've developed the entire Kohler catalog in Revit. You want me to give that away for free? That would be dumb. I'd sell it to Kohler - but I'm not giving it away. I've developed a good deal of the Steelcase library for Revit. Giving that away would only let other Revit users layout a office as detailed and fast as I can. Giving that away would be stupid. Developing any sort of competitive edge comes with hard work. You want to give stuff away? I'll let you talk to my wife, who lived under Soviet rule. She'll tell you a thing or two about "sharing", comrade.

This isn't the work of some little REVCOULD routine. Yes - I wrote my own (didn't we all) decades ago. It was a little lunch hour exercise. Developing good content for Revit takes weeks, months - not a lunch hour. And yes, it was dumb to give it to Autodesk, but my stock portfolio thanks you.

[c-hawk]

deep breaths ...

[cphubb]

Aaron,

Thank you for saying that. I totally agree that this is a business decision not a warm fuzzy hugging decision. I am all for a certain amount of knowledge sharing, and do so on this site often. However outright giving away of families should be controlled because they represent a significant investment of time by a firm. This is and was the case with AutoCad as well. Most of the really useful lisp and block families required purchase.

The Kohler Rep told me 10 years ago that they were not going to provide Autocad blocks for all their fixtures like they did the templates for hand drafting because it was too expensive. I told him we were happy to pay for them but he stated many were not. Because of this it was a few years before any manufacturer specific AutoCad cotent was produced and much of it was so generic it was not of any use.

So in Revit, the content takes more time to create, and has much more value. Why give it away? I would like to see a promanent manufacture step up and produce really good Revit content and charge a fair price for the ability to download and use that content. However they will certainlly be reluctant to do this as the second you download and use this, it will be available to anybody who gets the model, and therefore a wasted investment.

David, if Aaron were to give the Steelcase content away to the general masses how do you think Steelcase would feel about that?

[David Harrington]

David, if Aaron were to give the Steelcase content away to the general masses how do you think Steelcase would feel about that?

How I would I feel about it? Personally it would have zero bearing on, I do not use RAC nor do I get into manufacturer issues such as this. Maybe that is the issue for me, the families made on the structural side are mode part based and very generic in terms of application (bolts, beams, angles, etc).

And if someone spends hours and hours making a given family and catalog I understand the desire to keep it to oneself. For me it would come down to generic objects and specifc objects. The end goal is to teach (I would hope), so my question then is has enough information been shared about how to create this very valuable family? Have you shared enough knowledge that given only time others can recreate your work?

If the answer is no, then we are still missing that 'give back' to the community component.

As the old adage goes, give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach him to fish and eats for life. In many ways I get the feeling we all want our fish and time to ourselves.

[aaronrumple]

If the answer is no, then we are still missing that 'give back' to the community component.

As the old adage goes, give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach him to fish and eats for life. In many ways I get the feeling we all want our fish and time to ourselves.

I've done my decade as an overworked under paid faculty member at a community college. I've answered more than my fair share of questions here. My debt to training the next generation is paid in full. My concience is clear.

[max]

Aaron

I see where you indicated that you had made families for the entire kholer line. How do you keep up with what products are still available. When you place a family in the project and the model number is shown in the schedule, how do you know it is still available?


Thanks


max

[aaronrumple]

Aaron

I see where you indicated that you had made families for the entire kholer line. How do you keep up with what products are still available. When you place a family in the project and the model number is shown in the schedule, how do you know it is still available?

max

Use the URL field. This will take you right to the web page. Still have to verify that it is current. The URL field is good for collecting product cut sheets as well.

The basic fixtures don't change tha frequently. Mostly it is the addition of the new designer stuff (which always gets whacked out of the budget anyway... ;-) )

[troberts]

How I would I feel about it? Personally it would have zero bearing on, I do not use RAC nor do I get into manufacturer issues such as this. Maybe that is the issue for me, the families made on the structural side are mode part based and very generic in terms of application (bolts, beams, angles, etc).

And if someone spends hours and hours making a given family and catalog I understand the desire to keep it to oneself. For me it would come down to generic objects and specifc objects. The end goal is to teach (I would hope), so my question then is has enough information been shared about how to create this very valuable family? Have you shared enough knowledge that given only time others can recreate your work?

If the answer is no, then we are still missing that 'give back' to the community component.

As the old adage goes, give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach him to fish and eats for life. In many ways I get the feeling we all want our fish and time to ourselves.

As a "bottom feeder", fairly new to Revit, I would much rather be shown how to create rather than just taking bits and pieces as they become available. Swimming around down here waiting for the right family to drift down doesn't teach one much. I appreciate all who share information on these forums.
Let's play nice,
Tim

[djn]

So, do you think Revit should come with no content, and each company should develop their own?

[Steve_Stafford]

So, do you think Revit should come with no content, and each company should develop their own?Don't say that too loudly...Autodesk might take you seriously and then we'll all be in big trouble. :wink:

[aaronrumple]

So, do you think Revit should come with no content, and each company should develop their own?

Yes... then Steve would get a lot more consulting work. ;-)

[m20roxxers]

Has anyone had too many issues, with IFC'ing a project out then reimporting it and saving that as the new revit file. Certainly strips the families of all parameters while leaving the original geometry intact.

Have played around with this myself, but have yet to see it implemented in large scale projects, plus you would lose the funcationality of the documentation. But for the model itself, doesn't seem too bad.

[pfaudler]

Hi,

We have been using Revit since last couple of years and we have recently started exchanging Revit models with the whole design team. We are also engaged in a project where there are two different architects are involved. so I was just looking through AUGI forums to find out what is people take on sharing Revit model, families etc. Is there any copyright clause they add into contracts etc.

On a project, where there are two architects involved. They are our competitor. So what is the best way to share Revit model? We know that they are not yet up to speed with Revit and hence we have competitive edge because we have some content sorted.

I am interested to know what is the latest on this copyright matter? How shall we share Revit project files? How shall we protect our competitive edge by not providing families to them?

Any guidance on this will be highly appreciated.

Thanks

[NKramer]

Hi,

We have been using Revit since last couple of years and we have recently started exchanging Revit models with the whole design team. We are also engaged in a project where there are two different architects are involved. so I was just looking through AUGI forums to find out what is people take on sharing Revit model, families etc. Is there any copyright clause they add into contracts etc.

On a project, where there are two architects involved. They are our competitor. So what is the best way to share Revit model? We know that they are not yet up to speed with Revit and hence we have competitive edge because we have some content sorted.

I am interested to know what is the latest on this copyright matter? How shall we share Revit project files? How shall we protect our competitive edge by not providing families to them?

Any guidance on this will be highly appreciated.

Thanks

How do you address this with other electronic files? Generally the answer is that you cant lock things down unless you convert to a separate format.

I don't recall where but someone at AUGI or RevitCity went through how you can in bed a parameter that is not visible in the family editor or the project (thus not openly editable). I believe that it involved an API routine, but not exactly sure what.

I don't know exactly what that gets you unless write something up in the contract, somehow get a hold of one of their other models (legally), then if you find that tagged family in a non-related project you may have some legal recourse.

The problem with that is that many time we use base families from manufacturers, online, etc and then modify them for our needs. Granted there is no user license for these but do you really own something that you didn't create....

Nick

[Alex Page]

Id be happy to have a parameter called, say, "copyright" with the parameter being uneditable by a user (ie: Greyed out).

There has been some talk that this is possible to create (even thou if you really know what you are doing you can break it).....anyone has any clues?

[FOUTJM]

I know its not my companies point a view but i think families should be shared in the
interest of expanding BIM. sort of in the spirit of Open Source agreements. i dont care if someone takes one of my families and is smart enough to make it better, but i would like them to send it back to me and say "hey look i tweaked this to do this and that". i know that when you are dealing with competitors people want to lock down thier custom content. but to me BIM is about sharing information. you wont be able to monopolize a market segment by the content you build, but by the service you provide. maybe im a hippy....
the way i see it. i create tons of custom content for this company, but they dont pay me a dime extra to do it(the company didnt create the content, i did). so whats the difference. i am building my skills working with the platform and would like to see everyone grow and get better.

im still waiting for Autodesk to make a Linux port for Revit Structure and Sketchup.

J-

[cphubb]

Since you admit your company paid you to create the content don't they really own it? Sharing content itself is not really a big problem, but giving your competetor 100 families that may have cost (paid to you) your firm $10,000 for free and put them on equal footing with your firm for the next project.

That said, even with read only parameters (Need to use API to do this) there is nothing to prevent users from using that content. It only gives the creator some remady later if they discover the plagurism. the copyright at the beginning of a book does not stop me from running 100 copies and selling them on the street corner does it?

I have also heard this analogized to the mp3 issue, and while it is similar there is a fundimental difference. Music companies are WIDELY distributing the music and people tend to share it with others. Many people who trade music buy the albums themselves. I do not think that will be the case with Families. We protect ours with a parameter but acknowledge that it would be easy to steal. I have seen others substitute generic versions of their families when transmitting the files to other users especially competetors.

[pfaudler]

Has anyone recently (well with 2009 and 2010 versions) tried IFC out and IFC in before sending file out to others? I read it somewhere in this forum that if we export out IFC and import the same IFC file then all families become in-place families which can not be saved out.

Thanks

[Alex Page]

[QUOTE=cphubb;972438]

...That said, even with read only parameters (Need to use API to do this) there is nothing to prevent users from using that content....QUOTE]

Can anyone tell me how to do this?

[FOUTJM]

i suppose your right. but i think it gives me better opportunities to find another job when i share my knowledge with others in the area. im not thinking Us against Them because hell, next year i could be employed by them. im sure the company thinks this way but im just a small fish in a big pond. everyday i wonder if i will have a job by the end of the week, as "drafters" are seen as a step down the evolutionary ladder where i am from.

but on to the issue at hand.

IFC doesnt work well in my opinion. but would be a solution. or to make dummy versions of the families you created like was posted before.

not sure how you would embed a read only parameter into a family. would be simple enough for someone to open up and delete that parameter. but sounds like with knowledge of the API you can make it so that parameter is unable to be deleted except by
a certain user.

would be nice to know how to do this.
anyone have a link on how to?

[mbeham]

So i have been playing with the idea of trying to "dumb" down the model. I have done both IFC out and in and dwg out and in (in Revit 2009). I have found that IFC still brings in all views and schedules that you have created in a project browser. IFC also still gives you all families as in place families. Unless you actually pick on a family you almost cant tell it went out and came back in. It will delete all rooms. So maybe for the Model content you can protect unless they copy from in place into regular family, but not without some work first on parametric parts and recreating to get it to work. Any custom schedules with calculated values and such you spent time developing are free game so to speak. They all come over as well as views. You will see families in the project browser that come over but when you click on one and pick edit...there is nothing in it but the component itself. It even strips down the name.

The dwg export out import in will give you the ability to query items, coordinate locations and such. Comes in some fun colors but the information is all there with the ability to turn off in VV by layer in the imported categories.

So...with these two options said i'm interested in hearing a little more discussionon if other people have used the ifc in and out since the 2009 release and how they are dealing with the model after it has come back in...

[twiceroadsfool]

This whole post makes me sad. We all spend time here helping one another, and were talking about not wanting to... help one another.

Just call me the BIM information hippy.

[aaronrumple]

This whole post makes me sad. We all spend time here helping one another, and were talking about not wanting to... help one another.

Just call me the BIM information hippy.

Cool. We've been trying to do more work in Syracuse. Could you send us all your stuff? It could be a big help.

[bregnier]

I don't really want to revive this thread yet again, but I feel that there's been a lot of assumptions in discussions in this vein on AUGI without really stepping back and looking at the whole picture.

First, it's important to understand how architectural copyright works. It's a new idea and the limits are still being worked out in court, but as it is a work is really only protected in its entirity - individual details and systems of planning and organization don't fall under the copyright protection by their lonesome. It's still tied to the idea of a set of drawings being basically re-used on another site.

So, in this case, if someone took a family library and you sued, unless you could prove without a doubt that the files were company property and were stolen by an employee - files sent to a client and shared that way are completely without legal protection. Even in the former case it would be very difficult to prove. Any discussion of rights protection for families of families is therefore not really a discussion of protecting legal rights, but instead protecting internal information.

There's also the *separate* discussion of protection of entire project files. We need to keep this discussion separate as a BIM model is subject in some ways to copyright protection, meaning it could likely be shared safely under legal protection. What would be needed for those in the market that want to safeguard internal info is a way of stripping out those items that aren't protected. The ideal would be that an exported BIM model would contain the same information available by visiting the completed physical project in person, and no more.

If this was possible than the whole issue with protecting families could be relegated to the same set of issues that involve protecting other business information - leads, contacts, templates, and the like. This isn't a new thing, people - how do you keep your employees from copying office address books when they leave? That's a lot more valuable than a family library.

On a side note, most of the people that post a lot here are early adopters. Although my screen name is recent I've been on this forum on a different account since 2006 (it was an office account that I lost when I switched jobs). It seems to me that a lot of the discussion really revolves around people feeling that their hard work as an early adopter is not being compensated properly-- that their hard-fought expertise is now being given away and advantages are being lost. In my opinion, being around at the beginnings of BIM was an enormous advantage that is a happy accident of "right place right time." My ability to successfully switch jobs in such an awful economy was the direct result of this happy accident. Whether somebody gains ahold of my custom lighting library is not nearly as valuable as the overall BIM management and strategic knowledge I've gained over the years. Then again, I really want those steelcase families...

Happy Holidays.

[TroyGates]

I am in the camp of not sharing the families that my company created. For one major reason, I created those families for the company that employed me. They never belonged to me, they belonged to the company (unless I own the company which I don't).

Like others, I am an early adopter. I have built many, many families including extremely complex ones. I would rather share my knowledge with others via AUGI, local RUGs, or even 1-on-1 than to expect my company to give up families that have cost them many thousands of dollars to create and were created when not many had the foresight to do it themselves.

If you saw the general keynote at AU this year they talked about several spots on an innovation time line and finding the right time to be ahead of most, but also secure in your innovations. I believe family creation in Revit fits that model. There is a point where companies are ahead of their competition because they had the foresight to adopt Revit and invest in the tool as their future. The companies that are now getting into Revit and see the early innovators succeeding want to quickly get there, but they want to do it off the labors of these companies.

There is no reason not to expect companies to recreate families for their own use. It should cost your company the same amount of money and time it cost my company to create those tools.

You can share your BIM knowledge and ideas to further the industry, but in my opinion, I don't think the industry needs to share intellectual property like families. It would only benefit the lazy, greedy, and late comers. The innovators and builders of the content would not get anything for their costly investments. Architectural firms want to feel warm and fuzzy with their clients, not with their competitors.