Copyright Drama Reaches 3D Printing World

jfruh writes "Stratasys, one of the world's biggest 3D printer manufacturers, routinely uses 3D-printed objects as displays for its booths at trade shows. The problem: It's been using objects designed by popular designer Asher Nahmias, whose creations are licensed under a noncommercial Creative Commons license — and he says Stratasys's use violates the licensing terms. This is just one example of how the nascent 3D printing industry is having to grapple with the IP implications of creating physical objects out of downloadable designs. Another important problem: IP law distinguishes between purely decorative and useful objects, but how should the digital files that provide a design for those objects be treated?" The models are copyrighted and licensed NC, but what about the resulting object? Precedent seems to imply that the resulting object cannot be controlled (e.g. the output of a GPLed program is not GPLed, so why should executing a program on a 3D printer be any different?).

Comments

How is this different from a carving?

[HockeyPuck]

If someone put up NC licensed instructions for making a one of these designs, and I carved one out of a block of wood. Would I still be violating the terms?

Re:Like source code

[Jane Q. Public]

"The cad files or what ever they are to the object as source code is to a binary."

Quite. 3D printer instructions are nothing more than a form of CAD file, which is a copywritable, WRITTEN work.

Items printed are no more than any other physical object made from a CAD drawing. You can't copyright the actual part (but you can get a design patent if it applies).

There is nothing new here.

Re:Like source code

[Jane Q. Public]

"Even if it's original and creative, the utility doctrine still applies to sculptural works: only the non-useful portions are copyrightable, and that's only if they're separable from the useful portions. If the gear had a decorative pattern on the side, the pattern might be protectable, but not the gear."

An object made from a CAD drawing (or 3D printer instructions, which are, by long precedent, legally exactly the same thing) are not "sculptural works". They are parts made from instructions.

You can make a set of instructions to get a CNC machine to carve out a sculptural work, too. If you made the instructions, fine. Copyright them. If you created a "sculpture" from them, copyright or get a design patent for that, too. But the instructions are completely different things, and subject to completely different laws, from the finished object. And there is no need for it to be any other way.

There is nothing new here.