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It won’t be long before people have a 3-D printer sitting at home alongside its old inkjet counterpart. These 3-D printers, some already costing less than a computer did in 1999, can print objects by spraying layers of plastic, metal or ceramics into shapes. People can download plans for an object, hit print, and a few minutes later have it in their hands. You think that was bad? Just wait until we can copy physical things.
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Disruptions: The 3-D Printing Free-for-All
Downloading — quite often stealing, in the eyes of the law — music, movies, books and photos
is easier than bobbing for apples in a bucket without water. It has kept legions of lawyers
employed fighting copyright violations without a whole lot to show for their efforts in the past
decade.
You think that was bad? Just wait until we can copy physical things.
It won’t be long before people have a 3-D printer sitting at home alongside its old inkjet
counterpart. These 3-D printers, some already costing less than a computer did in 1999, can print
objects by spraying layers of plastic, metal or ceramics into shapes. People can download plans
for an object, hit print, and a few minutes later have it in their hands.
Call it the Industrial Revolution 2.0. Not only will it change the nature of manufacturing, but it
will further challenge our concept of ownership and copyright. Suppose you covet a lovely new
mug at a friend’s house. So you snap a few pictures of it. Software renders those photos into
designs that you use to print copies of the mug on your home 3-D printer.
Did you break the law by doing this? You might think so, but surprisingly, you didn’t.
What about a lamp, a vase, an iPhone protective cover, board game pieces, wall hooks, even
large pieces of furniture? In each of these cases, if you copy them, it’s highly unlikely that you’re
breaking any copyright laws.
“Copyright doesn’t necessarily protect useful things,” said Michael Weinberg, a senior staff
attorney with Public Knowledge, a Washington digital advocacy group. “If an object is purely
aesthetic it will be protected by copyright, but if the object does something, it is not the kind of
thing that can be protected.”
When I posed my mug scenario to Mr. Weinberg, he responded: “If you took that mug and went
to a pottery class and remade it, would you be asking me the same questions about breaking a
copyright law? No.” Just because new tools arrive, like 3-D printers and digital files that make it
easier to recreate an object, he said, it doesn’t mean people break the law when using them.
But it could turn design and manufacturing into the Wild West. That’s already happening on
Thingiverse, a free online site that offers schematics of more than 15,000 objects. Thomas
Lombardi, a 3-D printer owner and regular contributor to Thingiverse, uploaded a free design for
a “Lucky Charms Cereal Sifter.” This brilliant piece of American engineering is a cup with
several holes in the bottom. When you pour Lucky Charms cereal into the sifter and shake it
from side to side, the cereal falls through the holes and the marshmallow charms — clearly the
most sought-after part of the product — stay in the sifter, leaving you with nothing but
marshmallowy goodness to pour into a bowl.
After Mr. Lombardi posted his invention on Thingiverse, someone else downloaded the design
and began selling a finished Lucky Charms Cereal Sifter on a competing Web site for $30.
Because the sifter is a useful object (although some might argue otherwise) and not simply
decorative, there was nothing Mr. Lombardi could have done to stop them.
A recent research paper published by the Institute for the Future in Palo Alto, Calif., titled “The
Future of Open Fabrication,” says 3-D printing will be “manufacturing’s Big Bang.” as jobs in
manufacturing, many overseas, and jobs shipping products around the globe are replaced by
companies setting up 3-D fabrication labs in stores to print objects rather than ship them.
The disregard for copyright smoothes the way for this shift. Downloading music online
prospered because it was quicker and easier to press a button than go to a store to buy a CD.
Given the choice to download a mug, or deal with Ikea on a Saturday afternoon, which one do
you think you would choose?
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3-d printing, Disruptions
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