Copyright vs. 3D printing

35 points by moshezadka 15 years ago | 28 comments

kiba 15 years ago |

I think we're finding out the absurdity of copyright and patents by forcing these kind of concepts to face the redutio ad absurdum of the day, which are technologies like 3D printing.

On the other hand, the past is full of interesting example of PATENT FAIL like Whitney's failure to enforce the cotton gin, but he got rich with producing munition for the US army, while at the same time inventing the concept of interchangeable parts.

We saws that American writers hating their competitors from England because of the massive piracy of British literature leading domination in the American literacy market. Some English writers managed to make more money from the American than he could collect via some amount of royalty years. It was only when large publishing house finally change their tune that the American finally recognize British copyright.

We also saw James Watt's partner using the parliament to extend patents for Watt's steam engine invention. This waste to tremedous wasteful effort from Watt suing various people for violating his patents. In reality, Watt was just one of the many steam engine inventors, who hampered other steam engine inventors' ability to make a living and build on top of his work. He also ironically got hampered by some other guy's patent, forcing him to use inferior design for his steam engine.

steveklabnik 15 years ago | |

There's a great book about all of this, "Against Intellectual Monopoly." [1]

There's an interesting bit about the English/American writer thing you mention, specifically Dickens. From chapter two:

    The amount of revenues British authors received up front 
    from American publishers often exceeded the amount they 
    were able to collect over a number of years from 
    royalties in the UK. Notice that, at the time, the US 
    market was comparable in size to the UK market.

    More broadly, the lack of copyright protection, which 
    permitted the United States publishers’ “pirating” of 
    English writers, was a good economic policy of great 
    social value for the people of United States, and of no 
    detriment, as the Commission report and other evidence 
    confirm, for English authors. Not only did it enable the 
    establishment and rapid growth of a large and successful 
    publishing business in the United States; also, and more 
    importantly, it increased literacy and benefited the 
    cultural development of the American people by flooding 
    the market with cheap copies of great books. As an 
    example: Dickens’ A Christmas Carol sold for six cents 
    in the US, while it was priced at roughly two dollars 
    and fifty cents in England. This dramatic increase in 
    literacy was probably instrumental for the emergence of 
    a great number of United States writers and scientists 
    toward the end of the nineteenth century.

Arguments about intellectual property now seem to always focus on the ability of the author to make money, and not about the basic reason that the concept of IP was created: it was a gift from society to creators to both help them and encourage the enrichment of society at large. The dramatic rise in UGC demonstrates that 'creators gonna create' anyway, so the deal makes less and less sense for society to keep up.

There's also a part in the book about the steam engine stuff, too, but this is already getting long...

1: http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/general/intellectual/against.h...

alanh 15 years ago | | |

UGC is one thing, but without financial backing largely enabled by IP, it’s hard to imagine the most epic and polished movies & games would still be made.

wazoox 15 years ago |

Patents and copyright were a tremendous progress back in the 1700s when you need a "privilege" from the King to undertake about anything. Nowadays they're just some sort of fossilized roadblock from the past. Here's another fine example of this sorry state of the matter.

alanh 15 years ago |

This & P2P mesh “internet” are Doctorow’s favorite topics, if his stories are any indication

daeken 15 years ago | |

My favorite of his short stories on the subject, Printcrime: http://craphound.com/overclocked/Cory_Doctorow_-_Overclocked...

tbrownaw 15 years ago |

Next step: automated home chemistry setups that turn near-arbitrary feedstock containing the right elements into soap, food, shampoo, beer, plastic resin, ...

camiller 15 years ago | |

..., Rohypnol, viagra, duct tape, ...

steveklabnik 15 years ago |

This whole copyright vs 3D printing thing is interesting, but the bigger, more important battle right now is actually patents vs. 3D printing.

The entrenched players in the industry have large patent portfolios, and this hurts the ability of projects like the RepRap to actually make improvements. We probably could have had all of these kinds of projects years ago, but the patents are only now starting to run out...

kiba 15 years ago | |

What evidences to suggest that these kind of projects didn't start because of patents?

steveklabnik 15 years ago | | |

First of all, IANAL.

Secondly, it would appear to me that MakerBot, for example, is pretty blatantly infringing on the FDM patents that Stratasys has. Those are about to run out Real Soon Now, though, so they're probably fine.

Third, the industry has shaped up the way that it has because of patents. There's a reason there's 14 different ways to do 3D printing. Yeah, some are better at some things than others, but realistically, we'd really have like 3 or 4 processes if there were no patents to force new hardware companies to reinvent the wheel all the time.

The fact that there's pretty much a 1-1 mapping between companies and processes suggests that it's difficult to start a business in this area, due to the large amount of capital needed to invent a new way of doing things.

bld 15 years ago |

Also see: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1891316

clistctrl 15 years ago |

I would assume it would be almost exactly the same as digital media works today, while it is best to manufacture things in mass quantities a CD of the machines components will be shipped with the dish washer. The opening of the box will imply acceptance of the licensing agreement for the machine. An alternative, is you get access to the washing machine support site with the warranty number included. You would be purchasing the right to the design, and maybe 1 working copy of a part at a time.

if we ever got to the point where it makes more sense for you to manufacture the entire product at home, then the concept would be the same. You are purchasing the rights to manufacture 1 working copy. If you give the files to another person who uses them, technically they are breaking the law.

Of course I think this is all kind of ridiculous. However the only solution I can think of to combat piracy is to crowd source the funding to the creation of new plans, and release the product in the public domain.

The amount of revenues British authors received up front from American publishers often exceeded the amount they were able to collect over a number of years from royalties in the UK. Notice that, at the time, the US market was comparable in size to the UK market. More broadly, the lack of copyright protection, which permitted the United States publishers’ “pirating” of English writers, was a good economic policy of great social value for the people of United States, and of no detriment, as the Commission report and other evidence confirm, for English authors. Not only did it enable the establishment and rapid growth of a large and successful publishing business in the United States; also, and more importantly, it increased literacy and benefited the cultural development of the American people by flooding the market with cheap copies of great books. As an example: Dickens’ A Christmas Carol sold for six cents in the US, while it was priced at roughly two dollars and fifty cents in England. This dramatic increase in literacy was probably instrumental for the emergence of a great number of United States writers and scientists toward the end of the nineteenth century.