NYTimes.com: 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.
7 comments:
This article struck me more than most of the others on the page because I had no idea this technology even existed. The things that could be done in the future are monumental. Unfortunately, this does raise a whole series of questions that we now have to ask ourselves. Where do we set restrictions on the copyright policies. In the mug instance that is first written about, it would make a little more sense for the copyright law to be overlooked. However, in the Lucky Charms scenario, there was an actual design and idea that was profitable and stolen. That, to me, seemed completely unjust. The original creator should have reaped the benefits to a great idea and I feel that he was short ended. Needless to say, this isn't the last of the issue we will be hearing about. Another one is just around the corner.
Curious to see what is defined in copyright laws. Is it the final product, the fabrication material, or the fabrication process? I'll try to present what I think is suitable analog inspired by The Lucky Charms Cup example in the article. There's Lucky Charms and there's all those knock-offs found in grocerie stores around the country. The marshmallow and cereal shapes are different. The branding is different. To some it tastes different so I'm assuming it's a different recipe. But it provides the same utilitarian value: sugar cereal with marshmallow shapes. That is not copyright infringement. How is using a 3d printing to emulate an existing product copyright infringement? It's a different fabrication process and a different material; same cereal but different recipe.
I'm sure there's a more detailed examination that needs to be done, I have no idea about patents and patenting products. But I always thought when you were buying a product you were paying for the labor and material costs. You weren't specifically buying the product, right? Say you buy the Lucky Charms Cup from General Mills. You are paying for the material, plastic, paint, etc. and the labor it took to make it (manufacturing process, manual labor, etc.) In exchange for your dollar General Mills lets you take home the Lucky Charm cup. They own the patent and the copyright, the idea is there's but once you pay for the stuff and the guy who made it gets his dollar, the stuff is yours.
With 3d printing the stuff is yours to begin with. When you make your DIY Lucky Charms cup you are not actually making the General Mills copyright protected one. The recipe and fabrication is totally different. You just can't call it a Lucky Charms cup, that's copyright violation. Like buying a knock-off handbag or the generic vesion of a popular cereal. It could be almost exactly the same but the branding is different.
What I think is threatening companies is that technology to make these products is getting easier and more efficient. If you didn't want to pay Ikea for particle board furniture you can make it yourself. But that is limited to people who have the know-how and people who have the time. 3d printing, to some extent, greatly reduces the know-how and time factors.
Is it copyright infringement? I don't think so.
While I've been aware of the 3D printing technology for a while, I didn't realize that we had gotten so close to it becoming part of the mass-market. This technology, more so than many of it's predecessors, shows to me that the future that science-fiction has been writing about is truly coming to pass, and now the fiction of how we deal with these technologies is going to start to meet reality. The idea that we are going to be able to print (print, create, build, however you want to phrase it) a mug or anything else that we can design or find designs for online is incredible and is going to pose challenges. As the internet and digital stores made it easier for the proliferation of music, software and other files (through legal means or otherwise), this is going to expand it beyond the digital realm into actual physical objects, and we are going to be dealing with some of the same issues and problems that befell those industries. However, there is also going to be a lot of new innovation that comes out of this and a lot of discovery of new designers, designs, products, etc. and already has in some cases. I think it's important that we don't stifle the new creative that is bound to come out of this. I also think it's important to note that while this is a new means of creating things, just because the means of creation and proliferation change, does not mean that suddenly you can go and say that this way of doing things (through 3D printing) is copying. As Matt noted, this reduces the labor time and know how of creating certain objects, but that does not necessarily mean that this new way of doing things is suddenly copyright infringement where in the past doing you could recreate certain objects, albeit it took more time. It'll be interesting to see, as this technology becomes more and more popular, which it's bound to do, how it begins to change the landscape of the world we live in.
...I STILL AGREE WITH EVERYTHING MATT SAID... Dammit, I'm going to start doing my comments earlier in the week JUST so that I can get in some of the good stuff before Matt has a chance to say it all for me...
You know, H&M recently started selling Versace. Horrifically over-priced accessories easily [and often] replicated by other, cheaper companies notwithstanding, when H&M opened their doors the day they were to start selling, they were stampeded and sold-out within hours.
I suppose my point is that, unlike digital music, some things may be digitally copy-able but that doesn't mean they're analogous or even BETTER than the real thing. Just because that mug is copied doesn't mean it's THAT SAME MUG. And that people will still stampede stores to buy the NAME of something, even if they could print it out at home.
Don't think so? Have you TASTED the Lucky Charm knock-off at Giant Eagle?
This has some great points in that if someone 3d prints something it may not be settling the idea. I feel that if people have a problem with this they should. GO to the government and lobby from some legislation that allows you to copyright something in the 3d dimension. I hope that if they do enforce these laws I don’t know how they are going to do it. I know that a lot of things that people print out are open source. So the copy right thing would not be a problem. I am interested in seeing how things will change in the coming years with the innovation of more and more technology that can make things go faster.
I find it really amazing that this type of technology exists. That said, I find it kind of interesting that objects for purely aesthetic purposes are protected under copyright law, but that objects with a purpose are not. However, I wonder if this applies to objects which are already copyrighted, rather than blueprints which people appear to have created themselves and then posted online.
The availability of 3D printing I'm sure is putting scenic designers everywhere into a tizzy (other people as well...), but I can see the danger. I understand that the printing will be more readily available, but part of me thinks that it won't be so widely available that replication won't be easily monitored. However I am sure that over time it will only become more accessible, and then it becomes a larger problem. The issues of copyright and replication should be dealt with now before the issue spirals out of control!
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