What Will Ubiquitous 3D Printing Do To IP Laws? 347
Lucas123 writes "With scanners able turn objects into printable files and peer-to-peer file sharing sites able to distribute product schematics, 3D printing could make intellectual property laws impossible or impractical to enforce. At the Inside 3D Printing Conference in San Jose this week, industry experts compared the rise of 3D printing to digital music and Napster. Private equity consultant Peer Munck noted that once users start sharing CAD files with product designs, manufacturers may be forced to find legal and legislative avenues to prevent infringement. But, he also pointed out that it's nearly impossible to keep consumers from printing whatever they want in the privacy of their homes. IP attorney John Hornick said, 'Everything will change when you can make anything. Future sales may be of designs and not products.'"
what exactly can you print on these? (Score:3, Interesting)
can i print clothes or shoes for my kids on a 3d printer?
can i print a working tablet?
how about a charging cable for my iphone?
or new toilet paper?
Re:what exactly can you print on these? (Score:2, Interesting)
clothing could theoretically be possible, if you dont mind synthetic fiber.
Connect a melting tank with a multiport extrusion nozzel with very fine aperatures, to a CNC knitting machine.
Many heavy duty work utility garments, like aprons, are already made from recycled PET plastic by spinning it into a fiber. Currently, the major obstacle on this front is the artificially inflated price of these devices. Computing tech is cheap these days. (look at BeagleBone and RPi), and thread handling machines are also cheap these days (Sewing machines.) I really dont see much of a compelling reason that a plastic recycling CNC knitting machine could not be on the market at a price point of 250$ or less.
Re:Impractical? (Score:5, Interesting)
My car has little plastic thingies which spray water on the headlights. Due to snow and ice, they are broken. Replacement parts at the dealer cost $110 each (for a part which can't contain more than $1 worth of plastic).
I'd love to download and print replacements.
Re:It may cause problems like Xerox (Score:4, Interesting)
I think, if it was that big of an expense, that the rating agencies were gouging, that the major banks would simply have combined together and chartered their own rating agency.
There's a slight technical problem with starting a new ratings agency. One of the laws passed after the great depression, was that the banks could only purchase securities which had a certain rating. The law mentioned that the rating had to come from one of the top three rating agencies. So while the law didn't specify which rating agency, it created a chicken and egg problem for any upstart rating agency to breaking into the top three.