Shapeways Policy on Printing Certain Symbols

Hey Shapeways et al,

I'm planning to make some 3D printable props for various costumes. One of the ones I want to start with is the necessary 'hard props' for a WW2 Hydra officer from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. A lot of you probably know that Hydra (fictitiously) originates as a Nazi organization that went rogue and attempted to seize power for itself in the late days of WW2. As such, there's definitely SOME amount of Nazi symbols on the costume. The most overt one, the swastika, is thankfully absent - no one could be blamed for not wanting to print that. One notable INCLUSION would be the Reichsadler (the eagle, and again, minus the swastika). Would Shapeways have a problem printing these, if they were explicitly 'packaged' with a Hydra symbol as well? Also, I don't think I'd make it publicly available - my orders only.

For reference, here's a Hydra uniform:

It might do you well to include the words "cosplay prop" into the title of your model so that your meaning is not mis-understood.

I don't think you'd have any issues. And I believe the eagle on the hat does have a swastika in the circle under it. Marvel may have left it out though.

Hmm, good idea Stony. And thanks for your input Youknowwho! If you don't think I'll have any issues then I'll proceed. Even if the swastika is present on the eagle, I'll have to think long and hard about whether or not I want to print that, cosplay or not.

Thanks for asking this, its a great question.

I'd steer away from using a swastika even in a cosplay item. the other symbols are fine given the very specific context of a costume.

Yeah?
Well I suggest that you ask your lawyer what your stance on this is.

Hey Dloris, content policy violations are determined on a case by case basis by our Ethics Committee. Seeing that we don't have a specific model here that we are talking about (just a general situation) I can only give the general feedback that I wouldn't advise not to use this symbol and expect it to be printed for this context. All of this to has been hypothetical up until this point and a very useful conversation but none of it is a definitive judgement since there isn't any model to base a judgement on we can't give a definitive answer.

Also I'm unsure what the link you direct to for Michael's comment on his blog post about IP has to do with this conversation, can you explain?

So if we feel you're making Swastikas for hate speech, we can reject it.

I think the specific models we're talking about are the shiny bits of metal on the uniform image posted above, which might potentially carry swastikas (can't tell because of the resolution & shine).
It seems to me that you'd have to be particularly careful in that case because of, for example, german law. My reading of the wikipedia page suggests that exporting such a design to Germany would be illegal, but probably not to other countries.

Sure. it's only tangentially related, but I was amused by the 'speak to a lawyer' response on an article about legal process. Michael suggests that I should do Shapeways duty for them, and hire a lawyer to try to work out what American law says about a hypothetical situation (which is individually unlikely for any individual law-abiding shopowner, but in aggregate almost certain to happen sooner or later).

Note that PeregrineStudios mentioned in the very first post that he intended to leave out any swastika. As far as I know, the Reichsadler as such is not considered an illegal emblem even in Germany - in fact one can still find some curiously empty-handed birds on buildings from the era. (Personally I think this costume is in bad taste, though I imagine the US side of shapeways may take this more lightly than the Dutch branch ?) One option might be to split the emblem into two parts so as not to offend anyone, rather than openly declaring it a part of an almost-SS uniform as stony suggests.

I would have thought that maybe this was about this part of the original posting:
as the Hydra symbol - which, curiously, doesn't depict a Hydra but an Octopus - is under Marvel's copyright.

'Bad taste' is one of those annoyingly amorphous terms that relies almost exclusively on context. Was it bad taste for Marvel to conceive of Hydra in the first place? Was it bad taste for them to dress them in era-appropriate costumes? Would it be bad taste to wear a Hydra uniform to a comic book convention, where people expect to see everyone dressed up as comic book characters?

Obviously, if I were to have to have this conversation with, say, a German, or Polish, or Dutch citizen, I could very reasonably expect different answers than from a Canadian or American citizen, for blindingly obvious reasons.

My personal way of looking at things like this when I see them online is to ask myself: is this actively advocating an agenda or point of view? If it's something as innocuous as a prop, I don't really have any business being offended - if it's the sort of thing that offends me then I'm just clearly not the intended buyer. Of course, there ARE symbols that transcend that limitation (again, in my opinion), the swastika being one of them.

Of course a lot of this is moot for my specific situation because, as I said, these particular pieces would in all likelihood not be made publicly 'For Sale' on Shapeways anyway. So the only possible party to offend in this case would be Shapeways itself. But it's good to keep the discussion going around other possible situations as well.

Ahhh hahaha thanks for explaining. Yeah lawyers like to tell you to talk to lawyers its usually a way of saying "I can't give you legal advice on that". Once it gets international there are so many different local laws it would become very complicated to figure out


I'm not going to weigh in on the bad taste part. The reason that "bad taste" is in the content policy is sort of an "other" option in case something comes up that wasn't covered. Its the year 2015 but we are still finding new ways to offend. I do promise that you won't get a rejection that just has "bad taste" without a further explanation.


PeregrineStudios I think thats spot on.

Find other characters to do cosplay on.

Germans are very sensitive and can land to big problems if you land that cosplay product in their zone.

You better ask a lawyer in your country if you have any law that prohibits use of this. In general any army related things (including symbols like the eagle and stuff ) are not to be reproduced and worn and it is illegal in any country.

Germany has some odd laws about this stuff. In some circumstances, as for historical reasons, symbols and other material aren't banned, but trying to promote such symbols or materials for political reasons is strictly verboten. Well that's what I've heard. Of course these days the picture of a cooked pork chop or leather shoes can be considered offensive by some groups of people. The world is turning into a place laced with trip wires.

In Chicago there's an old tuberculosis sanitarium that has (had as of the early 90's) limestone carvings on a building that included a swastika, but as far as I know this was done by a stoneworker prior to WWII and the symbol was affiliated with some other culture where the stonecutter was from, such as India or something. So in theory a symbol such as this might be perfectly fine in some parts of the world which becomes a problem in today's politically correct global marketplace.

As far as I'm aware, that illegality does not extend to purposes like costume play, drama, re-enactments, etc. Especially if it's out-dated military symbols from another country from decades in the past.

And your comment about Germans being sensitive about this comes back to the idea of context. Obviously, it would be in extremely poor taste to wear a costume such as this to a German convention, in Germany - again, for obvious reasons. But frankly, I don't see how any reasonable person could be offended by the costume of a fictional organization because it bears a resemblance to a real-world organization, not if it's done in the spirit of creativity and fandom, and in a place where one, as a rule, expects costumes of fictional individuals and organizations, outside of an area or other context that was directly, negatively, and hugely affected by the real-world organization. I think all of those things add up to make it perfectly acceptable to wear it in a convention in North America. In Europe? Not so much. On the bus TO the convention? Also not so much.

Also notice that I haven't said I'd be the one wearing this costume. Much as I like the hat, I don't think I'd want to wear it, for a lot of the reasons of taste that people have laid out here. But that's a personal choice - I'd say it's a perfectly valid costume for someone else to wear, again, given the proper context.

Whether people are too easily offended today is a whole other argument (for the record, I think a lot are, but dismissing them as such comes with the real danger of dismissing legitimately offensive things along with it), but it's an interesting point about laws concerning hate symbols. Obviously they can't be banned outright - not only would that make history class really confusing, but it would kill historical re-enactments and various theatre plays - and make a surprising number of films, video games, and television shows automatic blacklist candidates.

Once again I need to come back to intentions. I think as long as you're aware of the proper context and aren't trying to promote or say anything with it, you reach a point at which no reasonable person should be offended. Of course, I have to restate, I think there ARE certain symbols and costumes that would transcend that limit, the swastika among them - at this point it's just plain offensive, period, which is a shame, given that it was appropriated by the Nazi's and had an entirely different meaning beforehand.

Just because I am German and also attend conventions like that - actually, the one convention that comes to mind is FedCon - and because a similar kind of costume was once mentioned on the FedCon forums - I thought I would give input on that matter.

Quite a few people usually ask for groups that will form at said convention. Like, Avengers, Agents of Shield, Stargate etc - you get the point.
One person once asked if a group for Iron Sky could be formed, because that person was totally enthusiastic about wearing their Iron Sky officer uniform to that convention.

I think I've never seen anyone being chased away from the forums that fast; last not least because the convention was housed door-to-door with one of Germany's biggest airports and it was custom for us, the attendants, to walk over to the airport for food and drinks because they were cheaper there than in the hotel.

So there you have it. We have NO problem marching as a band of Stormtroopers from Star Wars, as a full unit of Stargate or Alien soldiers or as Necromongers from Riddick through one of Germany's largest airports (and actually, the unsuspecting passengers at said airport usually LOVE us to bits!), but if we see anything remotely resembling Nazi symbols, we'll usually not just NOT use them, but chase the people away who use them. Well, most of us, that is - and that is a good thing.