LogInSome researchers view the prospect of Sketchfab closing as a "virtual equivalent of burning the Library of Alexandria."
One group that was particularly concerned about Fab even before its launch, and not typically associated with 3D art or game development communities, are historians, researchers, archaeologists, and archivists, who protested the new marketplace by launching an online petition. Their main concern, as you might expect, is not Fab itself but rather Epic's planned migration of Sketchfab assets to the new platform, especially the digitized collections of 3D models from museums and universities, along with assets from the Cultural Heritage & History category.
The petition, started by American folk art specialist and Sketchfab user Emily Esser, alleges that Epic wants to "destroy" Sketchfab by removing the download function and forcing users to move to the profit-driven Fab. This, the petition claims, will severely harm independent artists, small businesses, and researchers – groups of Sketchfab users who share their models under noncommercial licenses.
"Sketchfab is irreplaceable," the petition reads. "It is the service to host and view 3D models online. It provides invaluable assets, used and shared by everyone, from indie game devs to renowned institutions. Fab would happily destroy all that. Comments are disabled, forbidding users to speak to each other. Downloads will be unavailable, prohibiting the free sharing of content. Everything about this decision goes against the core of Sketchfab's nature and its significance in our digital modern world. This is the virtual equivalent of burning the Library of Alexandria."
The petition further quotes the official announcement regarding the Sketchfab to Fab migration, which states that free content will remain available on Sketchfab through 2025 before free licensing is also removed from the platform that same year.
"Models that are currently licensable under CC0, CC BY-ShareAlike, CC BY-NonCommercial, or CC BY-NoDerivatives cannot migrate to Fab under those license types, as those licenses do not exist on Fab at this time. We will update our community in the event that Fab changes its licensing options to allow for a wider range of CC licenses. As with all other free content on Sketchfab, these models will remain available for download until licensing becomes completely unavailable on Sketchfab," states the announcement, making some users believe that there may be a period during which they won't be able to download free Sketchfab models, between Fab adopting new licensing options and Sketchfab discontinuing licensing altogether.
"Why should academic research materials be forced onto a marketplace? And why should artists and model sellers be forced to re-set their statistics and start from scratch? Epic Games claims this is an improvement to the site. Do not believe it. There is nothing wrong with Sketchfab in its current form, and its destruction would be a massive mistake for the sake of profit. Epic will lose nothing by leaving Sketchfab intact. But if this site is destroyed, the world of digitized content would lose everything," Esser wrote in the appeal's closing paragraphs.
However, as with any situation, there are two sides to the story, and according to Epic Games itself, noncommercial Sketchfab users have nothing to worry about. Bill Clifford, Epic's vice president and general manager for creator marketplaces, recently spoke with GamesIndustry.biz to assure users that the company is aware of the main issue outlined in the petition – Fab's current inability to support free downloadable assets – and plans to gradually add the unsupported license types over time.
Clifford also stated that Epic has already reached out to the cultural heritage community on Sketchfab to address their questions directly, emphasizing that their models will still be available on Sketchfab for discovery and, most importantly, for download.
"We have no intention of burning any libraries," the VP said in the interview. "Change is tough and we've tried to be extremely clear and concise in our communications, and I think sometimes it's easily misinterpreted, especially as you go deeper and deeper into Reddit threads.
We actually reached out to the cultural heritage community on Sketchfab. We're speaking to them directly and answering any questions. Their models will still be available on Sketchfab for discovery and download.
Preserving someone's work is paramount to us. The fact that Sketchfab has become one of the only places [for this content] because of the utility that the platform offers where you can upload a scan of a historical object, or recreate it as a 3D model, and have it live on a platform that makes that model very easily consumable over a web page – that has been unique for years and it's important."
Epic Games' Jake Jones echoed Clifford's sentiment, that the company will prevent the gap between Fab adopting new licensing options and Sketchfab discontinuing licensing.
"We will continue to support the scientific community, along with anyone else who uses Sketchfab to share free and view-only content including artists, hobbyists, educational institutions, the cultural heritage community, and more," Jones told 404 Media. "We will not remove the ability to share or download content on Sketchfab until we have a viable alternative."
So, what's your take on the situation? Whose side are you on? What are your thoughts on Fab so far? Tell us in the comments!
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