How Open Source Hardware is Kick-Starting Kickstar

ptorrone writes: "Imagine waking up and seeing your design for a circuit being used in a product by someone who never contacted you to ask if it was okay. You will not get any payment for their usage of your design, they’ve raised over $31,000 dollars, and they’re selling something you worked really hard on. You have no control over what someone does with something you made. Is this a nightmare? Perhaps for some, but this is actually a dream come true for others who do open-source hardware. MAKE magazine profiles a maker using open-source hardware for his now-funded project and how many are using open hardware for their works."

Copyrights do work!

[kodiaktau]

This is a perfect solution and shows that copyrights do work and intellectual property can be held and shared. Open Source [opensource.org] has never been about 'free beer' it is about freely sharing knowledge. I think the same is true of copyright [copyright.gov] - it isn't about 'free beer' but more about free exchange of knowledge and to protect investments. If you choose to put something into the wild but retain control of the core to improvement, then you still 'own' the idea. If someone takes the idea and improves on it by recomb