3D Printing May Face Legal Challenges 316
angry tapir writes "A coming revolution in 3D printing, with average consumers able to copy and create new three-dimensional objects at home, may lead to attempts by patent holders to expand their legal protections, a paper from Public Knowledge says. Patent holders may see 3D printers as threats, and they may try to sue makers of the printers or the distributors of CAD (computer-aided design) blueprints, according to digital rights group Public Knowledge."
Pretty pathetic (Score:5, Insightful)
Progress threatens patents... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Pretty pathetic (Score:5, Insightful)
It's just another power grab. The point of the patent system (before it was subverted!) was to get ideas out in to the wild. Rather than keep secret how to make something, the idea was to give the inventor protected status for making AND selling the object; the right of the private citizen to make the thing and NOT sell it is also included. That's the quid pro quo : the public learns of innovations faster, the private seller gets protection. But like many things in the legal realm, people only pick the parts they like. The obvious question in an open source world is whether the private citizen can give away rather than sell a patented "something" thereby under-cutting the whole market. Bahhh doesn't matter, software should be under copyright not patent anyway.
Re:What a thing to worry about (Score:4, Insightful)
It's just like the printing press or the tape recorder or the photocopier or the CD burner. Another replication device, another panic about how it will be used.
Mafiaa all over again! (Score:5, Insightful)
has anyone noticed that:
* the Mafiaa is after file indexing sites, because the index allows people to "break the law"
* now 3D printers are being classified as "law-breaking" tools.
* nobody goes after weapons manufacturers and suppliers to prevent and prohibit weapons manufacturers and suppliers from putting the means to kill people into the hands of "irresponsible" people.
so... let me get this straight: it's okay to kill people but it's not okay to be creative and innovative?
Sue everybody solution (Score:3, Insightful)
Just because the technology is advanced and easy to use, doesn't mean you have to instantly start suing people. Right?
Re:It won't end there (Score:5, Insightful)
Manufacturers of stoves, ovens and all other kitchen equipment were sued by McDonalds for enabling people to make a hamburger at home.
It's rather strange that 3D printing is the issue (Score:5, Insightful)
The ability to mill 3-dimensional objects has been around for a while. The advent of cheap table-top scanner systems is the real issue - once it becomes easy to make accurate 3-dimensional reproductions in CAD quickly, then the gates are opened to make all sorts of stuff at the same (or even higher) quality than OEM. The US Navy has been investing in this technology for years since they discovered that they didn't have the blueprints for all sorts of stuff anymore that was supposed to be scrapped by now.
To me, the issue is that the ability to accurately model 3-dimensional objects has come to the average desktop. No longer do forgers have to deal with making investment-cast reproductions, where each successive generation of castings degenerates due to loss of detail (like cassette tapes, I suppose). No, this is the digital generation where these sorts of models can be shared as easily via the internet as digital music is being shared today, and it scares copyright- and trademark-holders to bits since they will more and more easily lose control of their brands. But I don't think that 3D printing is at fault here - other enabling technologies are what make them so potent a tool.
And that's the rub, 3D printing has enormous potential to unleash a torrent of creativity as more and more folk are allowed to let their imagination run its course - delivering prototypes quickly, cheaply, and to a greater and greater proportion of the populace. Eventually, why shouldn't your local hobby shop or CVS not also deliver 3D prints in addition to the 2D stuff they deliver today? I hope that our trademark/copyright/etc. overlords are not allowed to squash this exciting technology in its infancy, especially considering that enforcing this sort of copyright control is not an issue in the developed world.
Solution --- only distribute files for PD things (Score:4, Insightful)
Like a Colt 1911A1 pistol:
http://www.sightm1911.com/blueprint/M1911A1_blue.htm [sightm1911.com]
There's no need for special laws --- existing laws for
- trade dress
- patent infringement (esp. of design patents which govern the appearance of a product)
- trademark
- copyright
already cover these things quite adequately. It's tough that the corporations will have to pay lawyers to keep track of plan distribution sites and initiate suits on an infringing item-by-item basis, but they've no more grounds for interfering w/ 3D printing technology than they have to try to prevent people from purchasing a metal lathe, block steel, strips of spring steel and a set of good quality files (which one could use to make the afore-mentioned Colt 1911A1).
William
Re:Worried? (Score:5, Insightful)
Right, because a lumpy plastic copy of an item is just as good as the real thing....
Nobody is going to printing up an HD TV anytime soon, that's true. But that does not suggest that there is no room for existing 3D printers to step on toes.
You could probably print up something fairly similar to a LEGO brick right now. Or, if not LEGO, then a DUPLO certainly. And there's definitely money to be had there. I don't know that you could really make money printing your own bricks and selling them... But you could probably save some money by printing your own bricks instead of buying them. Especially if you just need a couple more to finish out a project and you don't really want to buy a whole kit or pay for shipping & handling on just a couple pieces.
You could also probably use a 3D printer to generate a mold out of plastic or wax or something, and then cast something inside it. Imagine being able to turn out your own lead/plastic/pewter/whatever miniatures. Games Workshop would pitch a fit.
And then there's all the licensed merchandise... Probably wouldn't be too hard to turn out some cheap beads or pendants or rings with various licensed characters on them, only without actually paying anybody for the likeness.
Re:Sue everybody solution (Score:4, Insightful)
By taking out a patent on your new spoon design you've ensured that unscrupulous manufacturers can't just make a mold of it and start stamping out their own Mega-Spoons without fairly compensating you. That's how patent law is supposed to work.
But what about a world where everyone has 3D printers? If someone uploads the schematics for your spoon to The Pirate Bay and lets anyone print one out, instead of buying it from you, are they breaking patent law? Is it still a breach of the law if you're only doing it for your own use instead of selling it? Is it theft? (you're being deprived of revenue, after all)
I'm not asking rhetorically: I honestly don't know, and I bet a lot of other people don't know either. It'd be cool if all of this could be straightened out before these printers become household technology, but that's probably wishful thinking and we'll see the same reactive nonsense that we see for movies/music now.
Re:What a thing to worry about (Score:3, Insightful)
Compare "The Right to Read" by Stallman (Score:3, Insightful)
What's next? Making plumbing a licensed profession which requires a a security clearance and supplies being available only from a licensed shop?
The console makers have already done this to video game programming. GNU project founder Richard Stallman has written a short story predicting a worst-case scenario [gnu.org] in which other kinds of programming meet the same fate, all in the name of DRM.
Re:Worried? (Score:5, Insightful)
The concern wasn't that "we" were able to make unlimited perfect copies for essentially nothing. The real threat was that there was no need for an expensive recording studio to make fairly decent audio recordings and that many performers wouldn't have to go through the studio system in order to get their music "published".
Let's get the situation nailed down here. It was people going to concerts with tape recorders and other recording devices, as well as cameras in movie theaters that were the first areas that the **AA got serious about copyright enforcement against ordinary consumers and more casual kinds of copying that in earlier years was considered "fair-use".
Yes, there has been problems with peer-to-peer filesharing and people setting up web pages of all of their favorite MP3 files saying "here is some music I ripped off my favorite CD... have at it". They make a whole bunch of bluster about that fact, but it really isn't impacting their bottom line all that much and in fact such distribution amounts to mainly marketing rather than actual lost sales.
In terms of damage done, it is the recordable CD that has scared the RIAA much more than network distribution of music. They are being cut out of the loop and simply are no longer involved with the production and distribution of a fairly substantial amount of music, where they are also losing market share and suffering from sales simply because the stuff they are producing is garbage. Another huge problem facing "the music industry" (as represented by the RIAA) is that new talent is being skipped over and ignored. About the only way for them to get fresh blood into the industry any more is some extravagant thing like American Idol, which still skips over a whole bunch of journeymen musicians who are fairly decent but not good enough to go all of the way to the top.
I think guys like Simon Cowell "gets it" that there are whole groups of talent that aren't getting recorded any more, even if I think his methods for finding talent are mostly showmanship rather than fixing the problem. Some major industry execs also get the problem, but not all of them, and certainly not the RIAA lawyers or for that matter those making the decisions on where to push back within the RIAA, especially as the RIAA isn't going to be making money (getting more dues paid. hence getting larger salaries) if they change tactics to embrace network distribution as a way of life and something good for the industry. Instead, they are simply fading away to irrelevance. Good for them, too, as we really don't need blood sucking lawyers like that anyway.
Re:Worried? (Score:5, Insightful)
I know you meant it rhetorically but...
I can see some markets being worried -- I'm looking with particular bitterness at the car parts business.
A few years ago I had a headlamp work loose on my car. On inspection the problem was the failure of a small (possibly deliberately feeble) plastic bracket which looked like it suffered a fatigue fracture. I had both parts which fitted together nicely but there was no hope of a simple repair with adhesive.
The cost for the replacement part (which had all of about 5p worth of plastic) was something like £15 [IIRC]. The car manufacturer, dealer and third party parts suppliers knew that their customers had to buy replacements, knew that the plastic part was sufficiently weirdly shaped to avoid work-arounds and knew that repair shops didn't care how much it cost as they could just pass it onto the customer. They were delighted that they could get away with charging such extortionate amounts.
Now fast forward to a case where the parts could be glued together (the strength doesn't matter) and then scanned / reprinted. Although it wouldn't be economical to get the printer for one single repair, a corner-shop facility charging, say £2.50 -- even as much as £5.00 -- would make themselves a nice return (and reach break-even quickly) and people like me would be happy with a significant saving.
This is the scenario which the vested interests would like to kill off.
Re:One industry 3D printers are going to destroy.. (Score:4, Insightful)
It's going to be quite a while before 3-d printers become ubiquitous. Heck, even if the price plummets (last I looked a decent quality "small" printer was still in the $10k range) you still have to have a space for the rather large device. Not to mention the technical know-how on it's use and the generation of CAD files.
And besides, what's to stop the garage kit business from buying one? These are the people that stand to gain the most. They likely have the room (by replacing their resin molding area), they have the drive and incentive to learn how to use the device, they have the creative spirit to generate their models (after learning a tool like Blender), and once they do so, their labor intensive work become simple, and perfectly replicable. No more mold release and dental cement. No more flawed and damaged models to replace. They can churn out perfect model after perfect model.
-Rick
Re:What a thing to worry about (Score:3, Insightful)
Unfortunately that has little to do with real teleportation. The teleportation currently being done is reproducing the exact quantum state of something else and moving essentially a perfect copy including the quantum entanglement properties of all of its components to another location. This is being done today about one atom at a time, and I'm not really sure how complex it has been able to get, but a water molecule is about the best you can hope for if you are real lucky. Perhaps that will improve over time.
Perhaps, and this is just a maybe, there will be a time in the very distant future where the ability to manipulate individual atoms to build something macroscopic one atom at a time will happen. That still isn't a teleporter, but it is a sort of thing that you saw out of Star Trek. None the less, I don't think it will ever be something that you plug into your 110 V, 30 amp wall socket to turn on in your kitchen. It would take a fair bit more energy than that.
Re:Worried? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sounds nice- never happen (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What a thing to worry about (Score:3, Insightful)
What I think is sad is that many people obviously believe in the necessity of scarcity.
That's no way to head towards the future, IMO.
We are currently caught up in the illusion that the only way forward is through scarcity. That if something becomes "magically" free of this burden we still MUST impose this viewpoint, artifically if necessary -- even if it kills people (see the pharma mass murders from patented drugs as an example). This is just the latest example of that outdated mindset.
The fact is that the mindset of scarcity itself creates scarcity, even where none is necessary. It is a perfect self-replicating state.
Of course, the main reason this mindset is propagated is to control the populace.
After all, if there were no scarcity what would these people do? How could they control others? What would be the incentive for other people to follow them if not fear, the carrot and stick? How would they be able to feel themselves 'better' than others if not by material resources?
It is time for the populace to wake up and realize that artificial barriers to bounty hurt the majority much more than the barriers help the majority. They need to realize that the benefits derived by the barriers accrue in large parts to people who believe in and want to continue this model. They need to realize that changing their paradigm to one of abundance obviates the need for such barriers and the controllers who propagate them.
Only by doing so will we be able to stop ourselves from creating such lurid scenes as mass deaths through lack of IP licensing in the future. Only by doing so will technology be allowed to progress to the point where there is abundance.
Regards.
StarTrek Replicator (Score:3, Insightful)
A 3D printer is not nearly as advanced of course, but it's definitely a big enough leap that that it may change certain parts of our lives drastically.
Assuming the price to "print" in 3D drops cheaply enough and the technology advances enough we may find our selves replicating our own items and killing 1000s of industries.
Look at just the kitchen: Forks, Spoons, chopsticks, plates, cups, Spatulas, Colendars, ladles, tongs, whisks, etc. I saw a TV show with Jay Leno and he has a 3D printer in his shop which he uses to make car parts for his rare cars that are basically impossible to get other than fabricating your own.
I imagine there will be much resistance to this type of thing by large corporations that stand to become obsolete.
This is the zenith. (Score:2, Insightful)
Years from now historians will lament over the fall of a nation. The Americas have finally reached a manufacturing technology zenith, and instead of realizing the potential for all if us, "vested" interests will hold all of us back for the sake of "we've always done it this way".
Does anyone here honestly think that China will not use this technology to empower citizens who are more nationally unified than Americans to outright cut imports from the US?
think about the potential plummet in the national debt alone if cheap plastic parts and products were domestic again.
Re:It's rather strange that 3D printing is the iss (Score:3, Insightful)
When tools for cheap or even free software replication were developed, suddenly they were hit with the full realization that they were in fact purveyors of software, not hardware. They've responded with all sorts of inane laws trying to put the genie back in the bottle and once again tie software to hardware, so they can continue with the hallucination that their business model is built upon - that they are selling hardware.
3D printing is the same thing. The stuff you print is hardware, but the designs for what you can print are software. The people holding those designs don't want to become software sellers, they want to remain hardware sellers. They want their designs to only be manufactured using less efficient and more costly methods, but methods which allow them to retain full control of their designs. A 3D printer is thus a threat to their outdated business model, and they will do whatever they can to stop it.
Meanwhile, the real software industry chugs along just fine (all software, not just computer software). Sure there's piracy, but there are plenty of honest people and workable business models in the new paradigm (wedding photographers used to shoot weddings for free and charge for the prints, now they charge for the shoot and give prints for free) to allow plenty of profit to be made. Thus providing ample counterargument to their claims that they need more protection or their industry will die.
You and I know where this is all headed. The only question is how much aimless and futile legal wandering the content industry will engage in before they accept the inevitability of it all. Are they going to hold back mankind for 10 years? 25 years? 100 years? Are we going to have Star Trek type replicators in the future which could fulfill everyone's wants and needs for almost free, but be unable to use them because the content industry insists they need to be paid for the designs of everything which is replicated?
Paid as much is if it were manufactured with a hammer and anvil? I mean if CDs were cheaper than tapes, and MP3s were cheaper yet, I could at least buy the argument that they were using these intermediate platforms to transition their business to an all-software model, and thus still needed protection during this transition. But no, they insist on trying to charge more when their costs have decreased. They themselves are walking further and further out on a limb you, I, and probably they know is destined to break.