Slashdot Mirror
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?).
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?
What's copyrighted is the idea, not the physical manifestation or "input". If you take a downloaded copy of HotSummerBlockbuster 3.0 and burn it to a DVD, that DVD is still covered by copyright. Similarly, you couldn't download a copyrighted song, have vinyl plates cut from it, press records, and sell those. It is the creative work itself that is covered by copyright.
TODO: Something witty here...
Precedent seems to imply that the resulting object cannot be controlled
So the input to the projector at the movie theatre is copyrighted, but the output projected on screen isn't?
Therefore it should be legal for me to record it on my cellphone and post it on youtube. or post 15 second bits recorded on a cellphone to instragram
IP law distinguishes between purely decorative and useful objects, but how should the digital files that provide a design for those objects be treated?"
Corporations: Treat possession of them as major criminal activity. Outlaw them. Nuke it from orbit, only way to be sure.
Academics: We should probably make a fair use exception, so anyone can do it for personal use, or if its a parody work... you know, non-commercial.
Slashdotters: Screw profits! Digital blue prints want to be freeeeeeeee!
Richard Stallman: We should join our hands together and sing songs, using copyright against them! By creating free alternatives to commercial products without restriction, we can build a stronger community.
Me: Until it can print a cat, the internet won't care.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Surely this has already been covered by existing laws about patterns, etc?
OK,what about the phrase "... with a 3D printer" makes this hard for people to understand? Designers copyright and/or get design patents (which are different from functional (is that the right word?) patents) on their designs. They then license those designs as theys see fit. The licensee's manufacture them, and some of the artifacts end up at Target or Macy's. There is nothing about manufacturing with a 3D printer that changes the idea of a copyrighted/patented design that needs to be licensed in order to manufacture it.
Stratasys screwed up, pure and simple. They manufactured a design without a license. Perhaps they misunderstand CC licenses. Perhaps they are jerks.
In the end, there is nothing new here. Some designs have licenses. Some companies are run by people that are clueless and/or jerks.
The phrase "... with a 3D printer" is simply newshead velcro -- people use it to get a story published. Don't let those people weaken your mind.
You know the difference between commercially manufacturing a product and an estate sale.
So does the law. An estate sale is not commercial use.
"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.
"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.
A pdf file is a program, written in the postscript language, directing a 2D printer to create some 2D object. I can't print copies of someone's book and sell them without permission based on the argument that the book is the output of the PDF program.
I don't see how adding an extra D changes that. Some people, probably including Stallman, would say that authors (and programmers) SHOULD work for free, giving their stuff away. Maybe so. That doesn't mean they DO. This particular designer gave away his work to people who wanted to use it for non-commercial purposes. Good for him. He didn't give his work free to companies to use commercially. If you're going to make a living from my work, I get a cut, he decided. Fine, that's his decision.
To clarify:
The instructions (or CAD drawing) are copyrightable. If the finished object is considered a work of art, it is also copywritable (but separately from the CAD or instruction file). If the final object is an object of utility, it might get a utility or design patent.
But those are all separate things. I have seen here on Slashdot a lot of people confusing them. There is no need to confuse them, or to pass new laws, as we have had this capability, in somewhat different forms, for hundreds of years. We have already had all the necessary lawsuits and court cases to establish perfectly good law and precedent for these activities.
Can we not also make a deal saying "I'll give you my designs if you agree not to sell the objects I designed"?
Probably, but that's not the kind of situation I was directly addressing.
A deal like that is a contract, as long as there is consideration on BOTH sides... something a lot of people tend to forget. I'm not saying there isn't any here, I'm just reminding that it is necessary. Okay. So as long as there is consideration and the agreement does not otherwise violate law, it's a contract.
But contracts have nothing to do with copyright law. (Except that First Sale Doctrine says there are certain kinds of contracts you can't make... and I don't think that applies here.) But what I was referring to was copyright law. The fact that an artist might enforce copyright on his drawing does not mean he can automatically enforce it on a physical object made from that drawing. By law they are two different things.
But again, that's aside from any agreement. I don't know of any reason that agreement would not be valid, if indeed that is the agreement that was made.
"If its a tangible, three dimensional object, in which the allegedly copyrightable aspects of it are embodied in the shape of its overall physical form, it's got to be either a sculptural or architectural work"
Not at all.
People have been making "written" instructions for CNC machines for many years, CAD drawings (which are legally the same thing) for many more years, blueprints for machine parts for many more years, player piano rolls for many years before that, and punch cards for looms for hundreds of years. (Machine instructions in these forms are considered copyrightable WRITTEN works.) But that doesn't make a milled steel machine part either architecture or art. Or a rug, for that mater. It is arguable that some rugs are art, but many aren't.
My point though is that generally, an end physical product is legally separate from the instructions for making it.