Bambu Lab took to X yesterday to accuse Prusa Research and its repository Printables of preventing user migration to the former’s new MakerWorld repository via domain blocking. The post prompted a response from Josef Průša, founder and CEO of Prusa Research, leveling accusations of Bambu Lab uploading stolen models and undertaking a spam campaign on the Printables service.
MakerWorld’s initial migration method required a link to the website in users’ bios on Printables and Thingiverse. With its domain blocked, the function broke. Bambu Lab restored migration services by replacing URLs with unique codes, proceeded by the provocative tagline “Free my models”.
For Printables’ part, Průša contends in his reply that “ultimately we are in the clear here”, explaining the block as a response to accounts “doing nefarious things” in an effort to reverse engineer Printables and “spam campaigns”, while making it known Printables “will not interfere with verification via unique codes.”
When reached for comment, Prusa Research elaborated that the accounts in question contained links to Bambu Lab developer staging servers and seemed to probe Printables in odd ways, including rules for user handles.
Today, Bambu Lab has responded to the exchange with a blog article pointedly titled “MakerWorld Drama” that seems to double down on accusations of foul play from Prusa. “We understand that other model websites wish to retain models on their platform, but we believe that competition can foster advancements and improvements for our users,” the article says. “Restricting the export of models to another platform does not necessarily reflect the freedom everyone expects for their own intellectual property.” A heavy-handed suggestion that Printables is intentionally hindering migration to MakerWorld, despite Průša’s prior commitment not to interfere with code verification.
The article explains that links to Bambu Lab’s testing environment were present to verify import features prior to MakerWorld’s beta launch and denies undertaking spam tactics, though it admits to reaching out to “roughly 50 creators, a majority being Bambu Lab printer users” with beta-testing offers.
Bambu Lab also openly admits turning to Printables “for inspiration and insights” – a given to all those making Printables “Green mode” jokes – and that efforts included probing the website with individual testers, contending that “studying other competitors in the market is part of business”.
The interaction follows tension between the two companies earlier this year after Průša penned an open letter about the state of open source that prompted a response from Bambu Labs.
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License: The text of "Prusa and Bambu Lab Both Cry Foul Following MakerWorld Beta Launch" by All3DP is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.