Copyright Drama Reaches 3D Printing World 258
jfruh writes "Stratasys, one of the world's biggest 3D printer manufacturers, routinely uses 3D-printed objects as displays for its booths at trade shows. The problem: It's been using objects designed by popular designer Asher Nahmias, whose creations are licensed under a noncommercial Creative Commons license — and he says Stratasys's use violates the licensing terms. This is just one example of how the nascent 3D printing industry is having to grapple with the IP implications of creating physical objects out of downloadable designs. Another important problem: IP law distinguishes between purely decorative and useful objects, but how should the digital files that provide a design for those objects be treated?"
The models are copyrighted and licensed NC, but what about the resulting object? Precedent seems to imply that the resulting object cannot be controlled (e.g. the output of a GPLed program is not GPLed, so why should executing a program on a 3D printer be any different?).
Like source code (Score:2)
The cad files or what ever they are to the object as source code is to a binary.
Re:Like source code (Score:5, Interesting)
"The cad files or what ever they are to the object as source code is to a binary."
Quite. 3D printer instructions are nothing more than a form of CAD file, which is a copywritable, WRITTEN work.
Items printed are no more than any other physical object made from a CAD drawing. You can't copyright the actual part (but you can get a design patent if it applies).
There is nothing new here.
More like knitting designs (Score:2)
I dont really see the legal issue here.
There are already lots of precedences. Knitting designs are one. Even though the pattern may be reproduced (the "program" that tells you how to make the sweater), actually reproducing a patented work is still not legal, regardless of how you obtained the means to reproduce it.
While I'm not a US patent lawyer, I'm quite certain that infringement has nothing to do with the METHOD used to infringe on a patent or trademark. And lets face it, 3D printing is just a tool.
Sure
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But as far as I can understand there was no patent of design patent involved, at least I can't find anything on patents.google.com for that guy. There was only the CC-NC copyright clause of the drawing.
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Note that your first example involved patent law - something that has basically *nothing* to do with the copyright law, no matter how much as the misleading term "IP" tries to conflate them with each other and property law (another completely unrelated body of law). And I think you've got it backwards anyway - you can't redistribute the pattern itself without violating copyright law, but there's no restriction on distributing sweaters made according to the pattern.
So yes, if they have a PATENT on the desig
It is even simpler (Score:2)
An image file is nothing more the instructions to a graphics program of how to produce an image. It is the image that is copyrighted NOT the graphics file. That why re-encoding a file doesn't change its copyright. You might as well claim that the light emitting from your screen isn't the copyright image...
IF you want to challenge this, you should seek the "recipe" route. US copyright does NOT allow recipes that are mere listings of ingredients to be copyrighted. Is an image/CAD/MP3 file not merely a listin
Re:Contract for copyrighted work, freedom (Score:5, Informative)
Can we not also make a deal saying "I'll give you my designs if you agree not to sell the objects I designed"?
Probably, but that's not the kind of situation I was directly addressing.
A deal like that is a contract, as long as there is consideration on BOTH sides... something a lot of people tend to forget. I'm not saying there isn't any here, I'm just reminding that it is necessary. Okay. So as long as there is consideration and the agreement does not otherwise violate law, it's a contract.
But contracts have nothing to do with copyright law. (Except that First Sale Doctrine says there are certain kinds of contracts you can't make... and I don't think that applies here.) But what I was referring to was copyright law. The fact that an artist might enforce copyright on his drawing does not mean he can automatically enforce it on a physical object made from that drawing. By law they are two different things.
But again, that's aside from any agreement. I don't know of any reason that agreement would not be valid, if indeed that is the agreement that was made.
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Easy to circumvent. Fred downloads the pattern, in the process promising not to use it for commercial purposes. Fred prints it out, and gives the resulting object to Jim. Jim uses it in his company's display booth at a show. The designer is using the licence to extend copyright into areas that it should not extend.
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Ps - I realize that when I say the license is the contract, I'm assuming meeting of the minds. The license contract should be clear about printed renditions, so both parties know what they are agreeing to.
But a license is _not_ a contract (not in US law; it may be in other places but there usually all the other laws are different as well). A license is something that gives you certain rights that you wouldn't have without a license. For copyrighted works, you would have very few rights if you didn't have a license.
If a right you would wish to have is not mentioned in the license, and you don't have the right by law, then you don't have that right.
can do none of those things without a copy, right (Score:2)
You can do none of those things without first obtaining a copy and thereby dealing with copy rights. As Kindle and Nook users know, at that point each capability you listed above is negotiable. You can pay $65 to fully purchase a dead-tree edition of the book, or you can choose to pay $1 to rent the book for a day. Only t
no, it says what you can copy. copy right (Score:2)
You might not LIKE the law, but that's the law. If you don't like it, go back and talk to Queen Elizabeth.
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I agree with you, and I would go a step further: let's say technically the law has not been broken (but what about considering the finished object a sign of the violation and the downloading and use of the design the violation).
So what? the printer maker should apologize for not having understood the author of the design and make a deal. If they DID understand the author and worked around his wish, they should apologize louder. Failure to comply with the above has repercussion in MY opinion of such a compan
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Sculpture is copyrightable. Colt should get their AR-15 receiver on display as a work of art ASAP.
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The cad files or what ever they are to the object as source code is to a binary.
They're exploiting his work to promote their product. The "how" doesn't matter.
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Even if it's original and creative, the utility doctrine still applies to sculptural works: only the non-useful portions are copyrightable, and that's only if they're separable from the useful portions. If the gear had a decorative pattern on the side, the pattern might be protectable, but not the gear.
Re:Like source code (Score:5, Interesting)
"Even if it's original and creative, the utility doctrine still applies to sculptural works: only the non-useful portions are copyrightable, and that's only if they're separable from the useful portions. If the gear had a decorative pattern on the side, the pattern might be protectable, but not the gear."
An object made from a CAD drawing (or 3D printer instructions, which are, by long precedent, legally exactly the same thing) are not "sculptural works". They are parts made from instructions.
You can make a set of instructions to get a CNC machine to carve out a sculptural work, too. If you made the instructions, fine. Copyright them. If you created a "sculpture" from them, copyright or get a design patent for that, too. But the instructions are completely different things, and subject to completely different laws, from the finished object. And there is no need for it to be any other way.
There is nothing new here.
Re:Like source code (Score:5, Informative)
The instructions (or CAD drawing) are copyrightable. If the finished object is considered a work of art, it is also copywritable (but separately from the CAD or instruction file). If the final object is an object of utility, it might get a utility or design patent.
But those are all separate things. I have seen here on Slashdot a lot of people confusing them. There is no need to confuse them, or to pass new laws, as we have had this capability, in somewhat different forms, for hundreds of years. We have already had all the necessary lawsuits and court cases to establish perfectly good law and precedent for these activities.
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An object made from a CAD drawing (or 3D printer instructions, which are, by long precedent, legally exactly the same thing) are not "sculptural works". They are parts made from instructions.
If its a tangible, three dimensional object, in which the allegedly copyrightable aspects of it are embodied in the shape of its overall physical form, it's got to be either a sculptural or architectural work. Since most people aren't printing houses or other buildings yet, it's not likely to be the latter. This means that the printed output must be a sculptural work.
Making a copy of the plans may be prohibited, but there's no grounds in copyright law alone to prohibit their use, so long as the output is no
Re:Like source code (Score:5, Insightful)
"If its a tangible, three dimensional object, in which the allegedly copyrightable aspects of it are embodied in the shape of its overall physical form, it's got to be either a sculptural or architectural work"
Not at all.
People have been making "written" instructions for CNC machines for many years, CAD drawings (which are legally the same thing) for many more years, blueprints for machine parts for many more years, player piano rolls for many years before that, and punch cards for looms for hundreds of years. (Machine instructions in these forms are considered copyrightable WRITTEN works.) But that doesn't make a milled steel machine part either architecture or art. Or a rug, for that mater. It is arguable that some rugs are art, but many aren't.
My point though is that generally, an end physical product is legally separate from the instructions for making it.
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I believe these two things need to be treated separately. The instructions could be either patentable or copyrightable depending on your point of view.
Written "works" (that are not simply facts, like a phonebook) are copyrightable. A lot of patents start by describing "a method or process that..." to patent a process. So I think we have that end of the stick covered.
Objects are patentable, you just provide a sufficiently detailed description, and it's up to the courts to decide if something "similar" is
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ALRIGHT! Alright! If you guys can't agree on patent/copyright laws, we'll just take them away and you can only own your idea for 4 years. If you can't get it erect in 4 years, well, what have you done for us today? Innovation marches on, keep up or find a rocking chair.
How is this different from a carving? (Score:5, Interesting)
If someone put up NC licensed instructions for making a one of these designs, and I carved one out of a block of wood. Would I still be violating the terms?
Re:How is this different from a carving? (Score:5, Informative)
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Then it would be as if you recorded a song and I decided to use it, without your consent, for my company's new ad campaign. That's the closest analogue I can think of to this situation.
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only if you could make an exact replica with your skill and try to sell it. if you try to sell it as the original, it would be forgery. if you try to sell it as your own it would be copyright infringement
How about if I printed an object, then died and didn't leave my heirs any instruction on disposition of the object and they sold it at my estate sale -- ?
The law isn't a moron (Score:4, Insightful)
You know the difference between commercially manufacturing a product and an estate sale.
So does the law. An estate sale is not commercial use.
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Think if you were handy with a paint brush and drew Disney's copyrighted characters on a T-shirt and tried to sell them, I bet you will receive a letter from a Disney lawyer.
I am aware of one person who was a Disney fan and drew Lion King characters on her own shirt - no money or sales involved - and she was denied admission to Disneyland on the basis of what she had drawn on her own shirt with her own hand for her own enjoyment. ( It was damn good work if I say so myself - not
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At the point you decide you want to rip off someone else's movie but don't want to pay for it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kimba_the_White_Lion [wikipedia.org]
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Personally, I tend to lean towards allowing the freedom to reinterpret and reinvent. So I don't have a big problem with what Disney did there in and of itself. However, with that said, Disney has been very aggressive in going after copyright and trademark infringements, making them quite hypocritical. Also, as copyright and trademarks now stand, Disney is unable to acknowledge the influence of the earlier work since that could place them in a difficult legal position.
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"Think if you were handy with a paint brush and drew Disney's copyrighted characters on a T-shirt and tried to sell them, I bet you will receive a letter from a Disney lawyer."
Disney is probably the worst possible example you could use here. They were instrumental in getting the unreasonable extension of copyrights passed, and even then don't follow the laws they helped establish.
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Re:How is this different from a carving? (Score:4, Interesting)
"Yes, you would. The difference hear is that 3D printing opens up a whole market for these devices where only a few people can or willing to carve stuff out of wood. Those that do are low enough to fly under the radar sort of speak. So it's not an issue now."
That is not a valid comparison. You aren't manually squirting plastic out of a tube and shaping it, either.
It is much more like making a part with a CNC machine.
See my comment further up about what laws cover what. This general issue has already been tackled by the courts (a long time ago, actually), and it is pretty well settled.
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Yes, you would. Depending on your jurisdiction, though, as long as you don't publicly perform or exhibit it, or try to sell it etc., you would likely fall into one of the many exceptions to copyright law.
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If someone put up NC licensed instructions for making a one of these designs, and I carved one out of a block of wood. Would I still be violating the terms?
The people who purchased the printers and then printed those copyrighted designs weren't violating the designer's copyright. The company which included his copyrighted designs for sale with their commercial product (the printer) were violating copyright. The problem is the company distributing copyrighted (actually copyleft) designs commercially without permission, and specifically against the CC-NC licence being used.
Example: Suppose I run a How-To website that instructs people how to... let's say, build c
No... (Score:4, Interesting)
What's copyrighted is the idea, not the physical manifestation or "input". If you take a downloaded copy of HotSummerBlockbuster 3.0 and burn it to a DVD, that DVD is still covered by copyright. Similarly, you couldn't download a copyrighted song, have vinyl plates cut from it, press records, and sell those. It is the creative work itself that is covered by copyright.
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What's copyrighted is the idea, not the physical manifestation or "input".
No... you cannot copyright an idea. What gets copyrighted is the creative expression, once you have fixed it in a tangible form.
Copyright does not restrict the use of the tangible form. It restricts the rights of other people to make copies of that creative expression on their own tangible form, and prepare derivative works, or redistribute.
The digital files created by a designer would most certainly involve some c
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Disregard the fact that the work is actually licensed as N
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Nope. An idea is a book set in a school for wizards.
The Harry Potter series and some of Pratchett's Diskworld novels are separate and distinct expressions of that idea.
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What's copyrighted is the idea, not the physical manifestation or "input".
Incorrect. What you copyright is the form of an expression.
If the ideas would be copyrightable, we as a society would be in a very big trouble (given that ideas are 5 cents a dozen, the implementation it what matters).
Take as an example the "API is not copyrightable" ruling in "Oracle vs Google over Java API" and try to work out what would be the impact if "it's the idea that matters".
Take "social networking" as another example: would you be happy to socialize on MySpace instead of being able to choose wha
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What's copyrighted is the idea, not the physical manifestation or "input".
You can not copyright ideas. You copyright works, i.e. specific implementations of ideas.
The rest of your comment is spot on.
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You know that after you watch a movie or hear a song, there is a copy of it in your own head. It's how you are able to do things like sing "happy birthday" without a cue card.
Similarly, you couldn't download a copyrighted song, have vinyl plates cut from it, press records, and sell those.
Actually you are in violation of law for downloading the song, the rest doesn't matter. It's copyright, not copy-and-then-sell-right. I want people to start going to trial for having copies in their brain. Actually I want copyright law to go to hell, it's an anachronism from the past that should have never existed.
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Ideas without implementation are not patentable. But they are certainly copyrightable - like books, for example, or music. Or Mickey Mouse; what is it other than an idea of a certain kind of an anthropomorphic rodent? They don't exist, and they never existed (as far as I know.)
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Or Mickey Mouse; what is it other than an idea of a certain kind of an anthropomorphic rodent?
That's just it... the idea is not protected. Only their creative expression.
You are free to make as many anthropomorphic rodents as you like, as long as you do not copy theirs.
It is best if you can prove you never had access to any Mickey mouse material, especially in the years you were working on yours, to avoid frivolous accusations of non-literal copying; which essentially means copying the work,
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That's just it... the idea is not protected. Only their creative expression.
What is that "creative expression" that you are talking about? Is it a specific cardboard cutout? No, it's a specific idea that contains a well defined image of a certain rodent. An opposite of such specific idea would be a generic idea of a rodent without any such identifying characteristics.
So Mickey Mouse is an idea, and the owner controls every physical or virtual implementation of that idea. There are other ideas about ani
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What is that "creative expression" that you are talking about?
Creative expression is a reference to the author's aesthetic. That is, it is the application of a creative element that is unique. For example; a picture of a subject taken with unique lighting conditions, carefully selected background, with certain framing, dressed up a certain way by the photographer --- all the elements combined form the author's unique creative expression, which is done solely for aesthetic purposes; another
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I thought the legal theory was that you couldn't patent an idea but you could copyright the expression of the idea?
Exactly. The written expression of an idea. You copyright it. I read it, take your idea, and write it down in a different way. What I wrote is copyrighted by me. The idea has no legal protection. And the guy who claimed ideas can be copyrighted was voted up by at least three clueless twats.
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Copyright law also allows the copyright holder to force destruction/removal of any physical manifestation of that work.
Within some limits, though. I wouldn't like to be dispatched from this world only because I'm able to reproduce the "Happy birthday" song at any time (Warner says it's copyrighted until 2030 [wikipedia.org]).
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So someone that prints a book with Beethoven's 5th in it can copyright the book. And from that point on, can destroy anyone that plays it, every CD with Beethoven's 5th on it? None of that sounds right. Are you sure you haven't been licking the frogs again?
Of course not. That person might have the copyright on a book (most likely not, because writing the book is what gets you the copyright, not printing it); but the CD wouldn't be a copy of that book, or a work derived from the book.
And you would only have copyright to the difference between the original work that Beethoven created, and your book. The original work is out of copyright.
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Once again... (Score:2)
.
Maybe the discussion needs to be whether or not technology advancement needs to be slowed down in order for civilasation to keep up with the changes......
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What I think is that society (which I think is what you mean by civilization) and its rickety legal system can go fuck itself it it can't keep up. Human creativity and innovation are not going to halt because it can't keep up. Society couldn't enforce it. It would be evil and people who love freedom and love creating things would fight it and they would win.
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The legal system has been able to handle this for many decades before 3D printers were ever created. It's not like 3D printers are the first machines to ever create objects from a digital description.
WTF? (Score:4, Insightful)
Precedent seems to imply that the resulting object cannot be controlled
So the input to the projector at the movie theatre is copyrighted, but the output projected on screen isn't?
Therefore it should be legal for me to record it on my cellphone and post it on youtube. or post 15 second bits recorded on a cellphone to instragram [theage.com.au]
Depends on who you ask (Score:5, Funny)
IP law distinguishes between purely decorative and useful objects, but how should the digital files that provide a design for those objects be treated?"
Corporations: Treat possession of them as major criminal activity. Outlaw them. Nuke it from orbit, only way to be sure.
Academics: We should probably make a fair use exception, so anyone can do it for personal use, or if its a parody work... you know, non-commercial.
Slashdotters: Screw profits! Digital blue prints want to be freeeeeeeee!
Richard Stallman: We should join our hands together and sing songs, using copyright against them! By creating free alternatives to commercial products without restriction, we can build a stronger community.
Me: Until it can print a cat, the internet won't care.
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Richard Stallman: We should join our hands together and sing songs, using copyright against them!
Be careful what you sing, though. The interpretation of music is regulated by the copyright law, even when that music is only expressed in the form of music sheet. For instance, don't sing "Happy birthday to you" in public until the matter of its copyright is not settled [reuters.com], otherwise you may be liable to pay royalties.
Slashdotters: Screw profits! Digital blue prints want to be freeeeeeeee!
By an unfortunate coincidence, blue-prints and music sheets are both... a design for an artistic form of expression.
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Why should a 3D printer be able to bypass protections that a 2D printer or DVD-burner cannot?
Better question: Why should we add such protections to a 3D printer? And if we do decide to, how would we go about doing such a thing, since we can't even get a watermark in a picture to survive 30 seconds with Photoshop? Shall we install NSA black boxes? Perhaps a shotgun that randomly fires whenever someone presses the print button? How about an internet connected device that requires a retinal scan, anal probe, and blood samples?
We can't even manage to come up with effective copy protection for things th
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I was going to bring up the subject of open source 3D printers again-... then I realized that the equivalent to those is the 2D plotter. Easy to make, and you've got full control over the software. If you run Linux, you can inspect most of the source code (all of it, if you don't count IC designs or electronics as source code) from 3D model to gcode to printed sheet/object.
The difference is that in 2D printing, you don't really lose much by using a commercial printer. In 3D printing, if such a DRM stack wer
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Maybe at some point there'd be some sort of built in "signing" of a printed work to track what machine created it. Maybe. But I assure you that the reliability of print output is nowhere near what it would have to be to do such a thing, even if it were allowed to be perceptible to the unaided eye that was not even scrutinizing the printed item.
When 0.01mm is still considered high resolution, prints (from the common hobbyist fused filament printers) are monochrome, and the reliability of production is NOT 0.
Knitting, crocheting, needlepoint, sewing,quilting (Score:3, Interesting)
Surely this has already been covered by existing laws about patterns, etc?
Just wait.. (Score:2)
/end grumpy rant
Phrase "...with a 3D printer" confuses weak minds. (Score:5, Insightful)
OK,what about the phrase "... with a 3D printer" makes this hard for people to understand? Designers copyright and/or get design patents (which are different from functional (is that the right word?) patents) on their designs. They then license those designs as theys see fit. The licensee's manufacture them, and some of the artifacts end up at Target or Macy's. There is nothing about manufacturing with a 3D printer that changes the idea of a copyrighted/patented design that needs to be licensed in order to manufacture it.
Stratasys screwed up, pure and simple. They manufactured a design without a license. Perhaps they misunderstand CC licenses. Perhaps they are jerks.
In the end, there is nothing new here. Some designs have licenses. Some companies are run by people that are clueless and/or jerks.
The phrase "... with a 3D printer" is simply newshead velcro -- people use it to get a story published. Don't let those people weaken your mind.
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Mod points, where are you? I need you!
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Not clear it is a CC license violation ... (Score:2)
Perhaps they misunderstand CC licenses.
Maybe, maybe not. They were not selling the items. The items were on public display and there was no charge for viewing. The items were merely made by the printer they were selling. The CC license defines commercial use as "in any manner that is primarily intended for or directed toward commercial advantage or private monetary compensation." One could argue there is no commercial advantage since other 3D printers could create the same items, that the items merely familiarizes the viewer with what is possibl
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You don't think promotional or advertising use amounts to commercial advantage?
Why are they doing it then, for teh lulz?
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the point was that you may not be understanding the license correctly. That is becoming increasingly apparently. The suggestion about design patents seems spot on to me, except that the poster then seemed to think that the designer *had* aquired a design patent. Copyright, by law, is inherent at the time of creation. Patents are not: they must be applied for. Creating stuff is fun. Posting it is great for the ego. Filing patents is not fun. It is work and requires money. Either pay the money for a design pa
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You've forgotten to layer on the fact that the designer has offered a general license to manufacture copies of the design so long as it is for non-commercial purposes -- a "
Flip side happens as well - DMCA takedowns (Score:2)
The reverse also happens - you can get DMCA takedowns on objects to print. And this happened years ago.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/04/the-next-napster-copyright-questions-as-3d-printing-comes-of-age/ [arstechnica.com]
What we're seeing is basically the same thing with software patents - immense twisting of IP laws to cope with stuff that really never occurred before.
After all, you used copyright for stuff you wrote, and that stuff you wrote was typically a book, a play, music, whatever, meant to be enjoyed by othe
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I just fear that if IP laws get revised, they will be done in a way that is extremely hostile to the average person. Every time there is a revision of IP laws, it does nothing to help the average user out.
I would not be surprised if governments (be it European ones, the US, or others) forced all 3D printers to disallow printing of anything but signed files (where the files have to be approved by a third party to make sure they can't be used as lower receivers or anything the local politcos don't like), rec
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This is one of major obstacles to the transition from the current system to the future system of robotic factories and lazy consumers who don't need to work. (That is the utopian world of communism.)
The transition depends on factory owners - who invested money - to give up their property, including the IP. But what motive would they have to do that? Wouldn't they want to be owners of the world? Who will make them surrender their wealth? They are the government, for all practical reasons.
Output of a GPLed program (Score:2)
Precedent seems to imply that the resulting object cannot be controlled (e.g. the output of a GPLed program is not GPLed, so why should executing a program on a 3D printer be any different?)
What if the program is a quine [wikipedia.org]?
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Isn't that a bit like the 3D printable 3D printer idea?
Quality and Price (Score:2)
I think this is only going to get worse as things improve. When all you can make are low quality, tiny objects, of 1 (maybe 2 or 3) colours then nobody really cares too much if you copy their designs as you can't do anything terribly useful with them. But as the price comes down meaning they become more widely accessible, and the quality and size of output improves I believe companies and individuals will quickly become very interested in lobbying for IP laws against these printers.
Not that I want those l
PDFs are programs for printing 2D objects (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't see how adding an extra D changes that. Some people, probably including Stallman, would say that authors (and programmers) SHOULD work for free, giving their stuff away. Maybe so. That doesn't mean they DO. This particular designer gave away his work to people who wanted to use it for non-commercial purposes. Good for him. He didn't give his work free to companies to use commercially. If you're going to make a living from my work, I get a cut, he decided. Fine, that's his decision.
This is settled law, due to auto parts (Score:3)
This isn't a new area of law. It's been litigated thoroughly by the third-party auto parts industry, which routinely makes copies of auto parts. Some auto companies have applied for design patents on some body parts, but to get a design patent, there has to be a significant difference over any other existing object. There are maybe 400 auto part design patents a year, and design patents are only good for 14 years.
It's different for decorative objects. Those can be copyrighted. But functional parts, no.
Can a scan of a real-world object be copyrighted when the scanned object is not? Not in the US. See Meshwerks vs. Toyota. [uscourts.gov] A scan is not a creative work. It doesn't matter that it takes effort to create, and work to clean up. It's still not a creative work. The court followed the same line of reasoning as in Bridgeman vs. Corel, which established that photos of public domain 2D pictures cannot be copyrighted. (Despite much grumbling from the museum community, that decision has held up. Wikipedia relies on that. The National Portrait Gallery (UK) once threatened to sue Wikipedia. Wikipedia didn't back down. The National Portrait Gallery did.) That decision in turn relied on the famous Supreme Court case Feist vs. Rural Telephone, which established that phone books are not copyrightable as a constitutional matter. "The threshold for originality is low, but it exists". That's why everybody has phone book data, map data, and similar databases now.
Once consumer-grade 3D printers get good enough that they're used for something more than turning out plastic game pieces, this problem will decrease.
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The problem is that the CC doesn't cover all use, but reproduction, modification and redistribution. It's not a EULA; it expressly only restricts those uses that would also be restricted by copyright.
Copyright as art, i.e the RIAA (Score:2)
The printed object itself may be unbound from copyright violation, but if the object is deemed art and the motion of the printer is considered the performance of said art, then will we inevitably end up with something like a Spotify for 3D printing? This would classify the live printing of the object as a violation.
law (Score:2)
Precedent seems to imply that the resulting object cannot be controlled (e.g. the output of a GPLed program is not GPLed, so why should executing a program on a 3D printer be any different?).
Don't you hate it when those "power-users" in your company talk about computers? Does it make you cringe when they mix and abuse tech terms that make them look smart to the other users who have no idea what they're talking about, but to you, a real techie, it just hurts you inside?
Guess what, it's the same with law. Those who know about the law cringe when they hear those crappy pseudo-smart comments from the geeks and nerds who think they got it, but they don't.
The output of a software does not fall under
As predicted (Score:2)
Not sure of the time of death for 3D printing, but the locale will be the Rocket Docket of East Texas.
Re: (Score:3)
Why? If I design something, I don't want you to print that without paying me.
This is the equivalent to the argument; "Here, I'll let you see all my recipes, and you can even save my cookbook to your computer."
But don't you dare think about making blueberry muffins and having a bake sale; I will demand a cut from every muffin you bake using my design!
No, just don't use them to steal. "on a computer" (Score:3)
Same with stealing. If someone earns their living designing things and selling those designs, you shouldn't steal them. Stealing on a computer is still stealing.
Re: (Score:3)
In the US, the answer is no. Typefaces are not copyrightable. A computer program that can be used to output a typeface can be copyrightable. So something like a PostScript font file could be protected, but the letter shapes it outputs cannot be, and if you traced the output to make a new font file, you'd be in the clear. The name may be trademarked, however, so be prepared to change it. And specific typefaces may be eligible for design patents, which can be infringed on no matter how copied, so watch out fo
Re: (Score:2)
That's less clear. But before, you said you printed the document. The GPLed font file is a program that outputs a public domain typeface. All that's present in the hard copy is the public domain typeface. Since no action occurred for which the GPL would be triggered (using the font to output the typeface doesn't copy the font), why would the GPL apply to the hard copy? On what would it hang its hat?
not really. (Score:2)
it's more like if using a cc licensed phrase was ok to use in marketing materials for a printer.
there's pretty much a consensus that using gpl to print an object doesn't make the object gpl.. most cheap printers run oss.
Re: (Score:2)
Creating a work which is identical to another copyrighted work is only infringing if you copied the latter to get the former. If it's just a coincidence, or due to outside constraints such as efficiency, it's not infringing. Of course the more complex the work is, the harder it'll be in practice to convince a court that it wasn't copying, but careful record keeping can help. Is the IBM bios identical in any part to the compatible BIOSes first written by Columbia, Eagle, and Compaq? I don't know, but if so,
Re: (Score:2)
Creating a work which is identical to another copyrighted work is only infringing if you copied the latter to get the former.
May be true may be not... but for sure it's irrelevant for the matter at hand: in this case, the copies are obtained from a blue-print/design/etc by interpreting the "construction instructions" (using a 3D printer as an instrument).
Re: (Score:2)
It's free for you to use. It's not free for your company to use. See the difference?
Re: (Score:3)
How can you print the object if you don't have permission to have a copy of the plans? Seems like copyrighted plans would prevent us from even having to argue about the resulting object.
Re: (Score:2)
Obviously.... but this wouldn't even have become an issue if the designer hadn't made available a digital copy of their design.
I equated this earlier to someone sharing a copy of their brownie recipe with you, and then getting upset, when they learned you had cooked some brownies up according to the recipe and sold them at a bake sale.
Just like with a cookbook; if you become a legal possessor of a design or instructions on how to make something --- then you are legally allowed to make and se
Re: (Score:2)
I believe the design in question is an aesthetic one. It's only purpose is decorative.
Re: (Score:2)
Here's a link with a picture.
http://publicknowledge.org/node/7623 [publicknowledge.org]
Re: (Score:2)
But architectural drawings, blueprints, plans, models, and images can be [wikipedia.org]. Do you see the parallel?
Re: (Score:2)
I don't understand what's the principal difference between a 3D printer and some other type of machine for manufacturing physical objects regarding IP laws. A press o lathe can also be controlled by a computer, you can load designes in it.
well the real point is that CC licenses are really iffy in practice. they're not selling the objects, remember, they're just using a picture of the object in marketing materials.
Re: (Score:2)
I wish I had mod points (other than the anti-israeli rant which just detracts from the post). This is why I hate "non-commercial" clauses and avoid anything that has it. If you render a picture that included a model (or texture!) that had an NC clause and sell a print is that commercial? How about if the rendered image is used by an advertising agency? What if you post the image on a web page that is ad supported? Can you put the image in a portfolio of your work to use when shopping for clients? If you sho