Tag Archives: Plot Stamp

Censorship on the Autodesk discussion groups

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The Autodesk discussion groups have quite a few problems at the moment, which I will discuss at length in future. One unnecessary problem that has been added to the mix is censorship. Having praised Autodesk in the past for allowing discussion to go unhindered, it’s only fair to slam heavy-handed moderation when I see it.

Before I get started, let me just say that Autodesk is entitled to moderate its discussion groups as it sees fit. The forum belongs to Autodesk and it can do what it likes with it. But just because Autodesk can censor its forums, that doesn’t mean it’s always a good idea to do so. Neither does that it mean that Autodesk is immune to public criticism of that censorship. There is no First Amendment obligation on Autodesk, but there are many other places that censored viewpoints can be repeated. Here, for example.

In this particular case, a section was deleted from a reply I made in a thread about the educational plot stamp. In that section, I mentioned that the educational plot stamp is very easy to remove with an everyday AutoCAD command. I didn’t name that command or give any details of how to use it to remove the stamp.

Now I understand that Autodesk gets the twitches when people discuss circumvention of its educational stamp “virus”, but I didn’t mention anything that isn’t already public knowledge. I discussed this issue at length in Cadalyst some five years ago, again without giving away the details. If you really want to know the details, please don’t ask me because I won’t reply. Google it, it’s out there. You probably don’t even need to do that. It’s a pretty obvious thing to attempt. It was, in fact, the very first thing I tried when I first saw an example of an infected file. It worked perfectly.

Back to the censorship. My post was edited, and I wasn’t happy. I wasn’t contacted about it, so it was not possible to have a reasoned discussion about it with the moderator (as I have done in the past on the AUGI forums and elsewhere). Annoyed, I made a further post, this one objecting to the censorship. In that post, among other things, I pointed out that the Autodesk position on the plot stamp was fictional. Here is what the Autodesk knowledge base item TS63668 (which I can no longer find) had to say on the subject:

Issue
When you plot a drawing that was created in or that contains drawing data that was created in the Educational (Student and Faculty) version of AutoCAD® or AutoCAD-based software, the following plot stamp or watermark appears in the plot:

For Educational Use Only

Solution

There is no way to circumvent the plot stamp. This is as designed to discourage the commercial use of an educational version of an AutoCAD product. Autodesk sells educational versions of software on the premise that the software will be used for educational purposes only.

The statement above in italics is a blatant lie. Hopefully, the knowledge base item is now missing because somebody sensible at Autodesk decided that it’s not a good look to have such fraudulent nonsense on its site, dishonestly masquerading as technical support. Or maybe it’s not missing but I can’t find it because the search engine is bad. After all, Autodesk really, really sucks at search. Perhaps it should buy a search engine company?

I digress; back to the censorship issue again. My post objecting to the first censorship was deleted. I was not contacted to discuss this deletion. I made another post objecting to the second censorship of my objection to the first censorship. This post made no reference whatsoever to the plot stamp issue itself. This post was deleted, too. In a surprise development, I was not contacted to discuss this deletion. Three levels of censorship to cover up an Autodesk lie. I can’t see a problem with that, can you? Except for this:

The Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it. — John Gilmore

Discussion_Admin, you were entirely within your rights to perform this censorship. Your moderation guidelines may even require it. But as a result, my statement about the plot stamp being easily removed has been read by a much larger number of people. So it really wasn’t such a good idea to censor it, was it?

Readers, if you have your own Autodesk censorship tales to tell, feel free to tell them here. It should be a fun read.

Autodesk Assistance Program and the educational watermark

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You have probably seen blog posts about the Autodesk Assistance Program (see the FAQ PDF), promoted as a hand-up for the less fortunate who find themselves unemployed as a result of the current financial environment. The Autodesk PR makes it clear that the free software on offer is a 13-month student license. However, the consequences of using such software are not made clear, so I’ll spell it out here.

If you use Autodesk educational software, you are not supposed to use it for commercial purposes. So, if you’ve just lost your position and were hoping to set yourself up with a few odd jobs here and there, building yourself up to a full-time drafting and design shop, don’t use the Autodesk Assistance Program software to do it. It’s useful only to help you keep your skills up to date, nothing else.

What happens if you do use it for real work? Bad things. If Autodesk finds out, it might set a pack of rabid lawyers on you. How might Autodesk find out? Through your clients. Why would your clients tell Autodesk? Ah, that’s where the educational watermark comes into it.

Every DWG file saved by the educational version of AutoCAD is invisibly stamped, recording that fact. That includes blocks extracted using Wblock, of course. If such a drawing is ever plotted, even by a normal, fully-paid-up AutoCAD, a text stamp will appear along all four sides, proclaiming that the drawing is For Educational Use Only.

Trouble is, the invisible stamp passes from drawing to drawing like a virus, particularly among users of older releases. If somebody uses the educational version to just look at a drawing and happens to save it, that drawing is indelibly stamped with the mark of the Beast. If any part of that drawing is ever inserted into another, it carries the infection with it. It has been possible for companies acting totally honestly to end up with a large number of infected drawings, only to discover the extent of the disaster when plotting out a drawing set.

This has been less of an issue in recent years, because in AutoCAD from 2004 on, there’s a warning issued in the non-student versions of AutoCAD if an infested drawing is inserted or opened. It’s also possible for users of AutoCAD 2000 to 2002 to receive such a warning, using the EDU-Scan utility from ManuSoft.

Despite misinformation about this from Autodesk (e.g. “There is no way to circumvent the plot stamp” from here), such drawings can be cured. Innocent victims of the infestation can apply to their AutoCAD dealers for a special utility, time-limited to 15 days, to fix up the drawings. A DOS utility is also available that can identify the infected drawings. You may be asked to identify the source of the drawings before being provided with anything.

Alternatively, users of the non-student version can clean up infected drawings easily enough with an option of a very commonly used AutoCAD command. No, I’m not going to tell you which command, and please don’t email me to ask. I can tell you it was the first thing I tried when I came across such a drawing, and it worked perfectly. If you’re an innocent party in that unfortunate situation, a few minutes experimentation should see you right.

I wonder if an unintended side-effect of the Autodesk Assistance Program is going to be a rise in the incidence of educationally-tainted drawings. For those who ever receive drawings from other parties (probably most of us), it’s something to keep an eye out for. For those who intend using the Autodesk Assistance Program software, it’s a good idea to make sure you keep a tight rein on any drawings you produce with it. Because distributing student-stamped drawings is likely to do your future employment prospects no good at all.