Sunday, February 24, 2013
As 3-D Printing Becomes More Accessible, Copyright Questions Arise
All Tech Considered : NPR: Many people think 3-D printing could help spark a manufacturing renaissance in the U.S. — even President Obama highlighted this technology in his State of the Union address last week.
But as 3-D printers and 3-D scanners get cheaper, this nascent industry could be roiled by battles over intellectual property.
Not so long ago, a good 3-D scanner that could create accurate digital models of objects in the real world cost more than $10,000. Then, Microsoft released the Kinect — the video game controller that allows you to play games by just waving your hands.
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The article does not really live up to its title, as it does not really focus much on the upcoming copyright issues. However the bit at the end is interesting about the Tintin company making them take down that design. I have a hard time believing that they are actually within their rights to do that. While people may be using those files to do illegal things, is the file itself really illegal? Its just a CAD file, so if its illegal to have files of copyrighted objects then noone is aloud to make such files. I feel like this is akin to a website that has tons of links to websites where you can illegally stream tv. These websites are legal because they are not actually doing the streaming, so they get away with it. I don't see the difference here because this website is not the one actually doing the printing.
This article reminds me a great deal of a particular attraction at Epcot Disney. In the "Finding Nemo" segment there's an attraction in which you can have a conversation with the turtle Crush from the movie. There's an actor providing the voice, and the animated image of Crush can interact with the audience. Through the use of Kinect and 3D imaging of people, you can create digital "puppets".
I agree with Issac though, this article doesn't seem to even be discussing much of the copyright issues. I can foresee issues with the animation and creation of "puppets" based on images that haven't given permission to be used in such a way. How can you monitor the use of your image and the image of your property.
I was curious so I went to the pirate bay and there is already a section called physiables where you can torrent 3d printing files. Once 3D printers become even more public I would imagine this will become a popular practice. Soon the anti-pirating slogan "You wouldn't download a car" will become all too real. So in the future when companies get sue crazy with 3d modeling sites all you'll have to do is visit the grand old TBP and start torrenting your "Tin Tin" scale model.
Copyright is and has been and will continue to be a issue across many platforms, 3D printing is just now becoming the new version pirated music...you could print your own action figures!! Let's face it, until the idea of rights and royalties and copyright dies (which is not anytime soon)this will be a conversation we continue to have.
I feel like copyright law seems to be having a huge issue keeping up with advancements in technology, between this and the issues with copyright on the internet. While I don't know enough about copyright to answer this question, it must be asked whether these advances in technology have made copyright as we think of it now obsolete. I also always find it fascinating how technology created for one purpose, in this case the kinect, can then be expanded to a whole host of other uses.
Anyone find it interesting that we are so concerned with the final output of the printing while disregarding the fact that the Kinect had to be hacked in order to be used for this project? The problem is multifold - remember that when we are talking about this in the theatrical realm, the metaphor is taking video of a performance, which (if I put it to a discussion here on the blog), many members of our community would dislike. The tradeoffs of suing the genie back into the bottle vs. capitalizing on the opportunity is another really interesting angle, and one that music producers and artists have been dealing with for a while now.
I think what this article points to for me is the fact that we may all just have to get used to a different concept of ownership. Luckily, our current definition isn't working so well, so a reboot may not be such a bad thing. In my opinion, the current way we think about intellectual property does a lot to protect corporations, and very little to protect actual people. In the same way that a commercially independent yet viable music industry has developed in response to the subversion of copyright through online trading, perhaps a similar market could develop around manufacturing and technological advancement. Artists who have embraced the direct sales approach of the internet have had varying success, no doubt, but cutting producers out of the equation, in my opinion, can never be a bad thing. As 3D modelling and printing becomes more and more available to the general public, I can imagine an anti-corporate market system that affords individuals the ability and access to design, market and distribute their products with nothing more than an internet connection. More than that, I can imagine a research and development process that could connect thousands of people to solving a common problem, feeding the pace of advancement in a way conventional corporate competition cannot. Who knows, maybe the next artificial heart will be printed in your home office (of course you'll still have to find someone to install it). The way I see the system as it is now, most of us hand over all our rights to our intellectual property when we take a job or sign a contract. Personally I would be more willing to lend my intellectual property to my community at large for the benefit of that community, rather than for the benefit of a corporation. Maybe the future will provide revenue streams for individuals the way YouTube or direct internet music sales do, but even better, maybe it will provide a new way of looking at the bottom line.
So this will be the next Napster, Maybe? That everyone is doing it until, someone with enough money and publicity calls them to the floor. Then the nasty articles about people being sued and people sueing other people..... We all know exactly what that looks like. I personally still fall into the idea that people love the idea of free stuff, UNTIL it is that persons stuff someone ELSE wants to give away for free. Then it is a big deal, HOW DARE THEY!!
I do really love the beginning of the garage hackers, taking Kinetic and making their own version of 123Catch by AutoDesk. So it will be interesting to see what happens in the coming years with both garage hackers and 3d printing.
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