Makerbot's Replicator 2 is among the new cadre of highly capable, low-cost 3D printers fueling a 3D content boom. (Source: Makerbot)
Posted on 10/31/2012 7:20:42 PM PDT by null and void
The consumer 3D printing revolution is coming. That is, of course, if you fully buy into the potential of dozens of startups rolling out increasingly lower-cost 3D printer units along with a burgeoning community of 3D content tool providers, service bureaus, and even retail shops promising to push this technology to the next level.
Caught up in the enthusiasm, thousands, maybe even millions, of hobbyists, do-it-yourself entrepreneurs, and practicing engineers are experimenting with the new 3D print capabilities, churning out 3D designs for everything from coffee cups to iPhone covers to more serious engineered goods like furniture and industrial parts. They are actively sharing their 3D designs on communities like Thingiverse, Cubify.com, and Shapeways, and are anxiously anticipating a time when you find nearly anything you want modeled in 3D and effortlessly print out a copy on your home-based printer, no muss, no fuss, no expensive markup to cover manufacturing costs.
Makerbot's Replicator 2 is among the new cadre of highly capable, low-cost 3D printers fueling a 3D content boom. (Source: Makerbot)
Well, not so fast. There are huge intellectual property and digital rights issues at stake with this scenario. Remember when the music industry, fed up with all the free file-sharing on Napster, started cracking down on regular folks downloading and happily exchanging their copious libraries of free music? It makes sense that beyond the community of happy-to-share 3D enthusiasts will be an even larger pool of 3D content owners (think manufacturers of goods, perhaps) that will eventually call for similar copyright protections to protect what they view as their critical IP assets.
Enter Nathan Myhrvold, former chief technology officer at Microsoft, and the head of Intellectual Ventures, a company promoting what it calls innovation marketplace services, including amassing a huge portfolio of patents. Apparently, Intellectual Ventures thinks there's opportunity in IP protection in the 3D printing market. It has recently been issued a patent by the US Patent & Trademark Office entitled "manufacturing control system," which appears to be technology that delivers on the idea of digital rights management for 3D printing. In addition to additive manufacturing, the patent includes use of digital files in extrusion, ejection, stamping, die casting, and other processes, essentially comprising the range of 3D printing technologies.
The broad patent reportedly covers a copy-protection system that creates a digital wrapper around the 3D design files used by 3D printers, ensuring that the proper permissions are in place and potential licensing fees paid up before the 3D model can be printed out. Of course, there's no guarantee that 3D manufacturers or 3D content tool providers will embrace this or any other digital rights management model. But I suppose it's a sign of market potential, perhaps even maturation, that people are starting to think about the harder issues, including how intellectual property protection applies to 3D printing. Let the games begin.
3D printing is wide open right now, with a huge number of designs and concepts.
I have benefitted greatly from those people who have shared their designs online at Thingiverse and in other forums.
That’s why when I work up a design that I think is an improvement on an existing part, or a new concept, I share it so that others can be helped just like I am.
Heck, most of this stuff is still in beta.
Guys (including a startup at MIT) are getting capital from Kickstarter for heaven’s sake. And it’s my understanding that they are working from resins whose patents from MIT are only now expiring.
I’m sharing with others so that I don’t have to be an economic slave to the manufacturers of the world that want to sell me replacement parts that cost 1/3 the price of the entire product.
Artists, engineers, and programmers should get paid, but there’s a TON of people with a LOT of free time on their hands. At least with 3D printing, they’re putting it to good use.
Of course, in 20 years, it’ll have taken over manufacturing and no one will care about people like me who spend all their time in their workshops on hobbies like this.
You miss the point. It’s not about wanting anything, because what we want is irrelevant in this case. It’s about technology changing our world irrevocably, and us being subject to the new reality, whether we like it or not.
Back when recording technology was invented, there were plenty of great musicians who obstinately refused to be recorded, because they believed that once their songs were on record, anyone could study them and copy every signature lick in their repetoire. Of course, they were absolutely correct in their fears, but their choice not to be recorded was still a foolish one. By refusing to accept and adapt to the new reality imposed by technology, those artists were sidelined and forgotten, while the artists who accomodated themselves to the new reality flourished.
The same dynamic is happening again, and it really doesn’t matter whether we want to cling to the old reality, because can’t put the genie back in the bottle.
With recent copyright law changes, however, consumers have lost mobility up the wealth ladder, in favor of vested interests extending their hegemony on intellectual property wealth.
Bingo.
See post #1.
I see a lot of 'we're the 99% who don't create, the 1% that does owes us all their ideas for free' rhetoric on this very thread.
There's even a guy that thinks farmers should get paid even though plants just, you know, grow!
Farming plants is somehow worthy of pay, but farming ideas isn't.
Take it up with Franklin.
Being forced to share your ideas for free?
At least you have Mao on your side...
I believe your sophistry has invented a new reason and logic. Franklin did not address 'intellectual' property, which is a clever, elastic, unbounded thing subject to unlimited abuse, as we are witnessing.
He addressed physical things, such as mechanical things, plows and printed matter.
I just don't want to be told I CAN'T get paid for an extraordinary idea or effort.
Some think I should only be a free slut, never a paid working girl.
Property rights and free markets are the engine of American wealth, not government granted monopolies.
It has turned into a war of lawyers stifling adaptation and invention, which I am sure is not what Franklin envisioned.
Now even FReepers want artists, engineers and programers to work for free for the collective.
No one is asking anyone to work for free. Artists, engineers and programmers should be paid what they are willing to work for and people are willing to pay them.
State sponsored monopolies only serve to retard production in order that a smaller supply will enable the monopolists to reap higher profits than a free market would grant them. Production is the real fount of wealth.
Patent law is arbitrary and unnecessary. There should be no monopoly on a method to solve a problem, or shape in which to arrange atoms.
The products of a 3-D printed are physical parts. You would have Franklin's stellar contribution, the temporary exclusivity of manufacture, to not apply to anyone owning a 3-D printer.
Somehow, unlike owning a smithy, owning a 3-D printer exempts one from obeying the spirit of patent law.
That was a stupid statement when it was first expressed, and it is a stupid statement today.
You are confounding the general with the specific.
The proper comparison is the concept of writing, vs growing food. Neither can be copyrighted.
The ideas and value to others, the product of writing, is another subject altogether.
It will be 15 seconds before a work around happens.
It is not enough to have the patent since it will not take much effort to simply scan and duplicate.
a 3d photocopier.
planned obsolencence is in danger since parts will no longer be subject to being retired.
So you are saying a patent does not give you property rights to the sweat of your brow?
Patent law is arbitrary and unnecessary.
That's the system in China...
I can understand your point but cannot agree because that comment is so old world and Asian. The one characteristic of the West that has always put us vibrantly ahead is altruism. The thrill that an inventor or people who innovate get when they do something that no one else has done, or done publicly, is greater than the any fleeting pecuniary rewards. Sure, there are people and companies that pursue a return on their investment, but most all progress in any field is based on the findings of others. But, history teaches that most breakthroughs are accomplished by those who do not get a money payout. They do it for the sheer thrill of doing it. I could cite examples ad infinitem, and so can you if you thnk about it.
Oh this worked reaaaaaly well with region coding of DVDs......NOT
One can copyright any fixed expression whether or not the thing is easily copied, and a copyright is enforceable in a court of law. Standards by IP developers will emerge to protect their labor, and the 3D copiers will either conform or their manufacturers will either be liable or excluded technologically from whatever patent pools make their devices commercially viable. The industry will self police in the end.
the bottom line is the current financial model is going to change.
IP was alwants to be temporary NEVER permanent the way it has been bastardized.
This also prevents the notion of the next itunes stores.
New ideals will have a limited financial life and then the free flow of ideas will take it further.
So you think ideas should be free to all, and than no one should benefit from thinking?
The idea of making something on your own 3-D printer is free.
Therefore any design you steal and print should be free as well?
Got it.
As long as the guy who put in all the effort to make sure the part can be made, the guy who made the drawings, the guy who verified form, fit and function, the guy who translated the drawings into a machine build-able format, and thought of the design or part in the first place gets screwed, you’re happy, right?
Respectfully, you’re completely ignorant of patent law. Those “state sponsord monopolies” are social compacts between inventors and society and necessary for technological progress. Who will invest in invention if their inventions can be stolen, and how can you prevent such theft without laws?
As long as you don't offend my prophet, that's cool.
You, on the other hand, are full of yourself.
what courts? what standards? governments are not needed for commerce and there are areas which do not have the absurd self importants the government assigns to iself.
In some countries it is illegal for a dvd to be region limited. People will just buy their stuff from outside the USA.
That is precisely what they are asking.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.