Wired On 3-D Printers As Fraud Enablers

An anonymous reader writes Citing a report from the Gartner Group estimating $100 billion in intellectual property losses within five years, Joshua Greenbaum warns of "the threat of a major surge in counterfeiting" as cheap 3-D printers get more sophisticated materials. Writing for Wired, Greenbaum argues that preventing counterfeiting "promises to be a growth market," and suggests that besides updating IP laws, possible solutions include nanomaterials for "watermarking" authentic copies or even the regulation of 3-D printing materials. Major retailers like Amazon are already offering 3-D print-on-demand products — though right now their selection is mostly limited to novelties like customized bobbleheads and Christmas ornaments shaped like cannabis leaves. Apropos: Smithonian Magazine has an article that makes a good companion piece to this one on the long political history of the copy machine, which raised many of the same issues being rediscovered in the context of 3-D printing.

Comments

Re: Note that this is a little different from soft

[BlueTrin]

I have talked to a tourist in London who admitted to me that he is travelling to London to copy art pieces. This person would take pictures of art in multiple directions and send it to manufacturers in China who would use the picture to build a 3d model and use a 3d printer to make a mold. From the mold you could produce cheap replicas for hotels and offices for people who would not mind too much. You do not have to 3d print everything just make molds. Of course this limits the use of such techniques. I was a bit surprised that the person would tell so much to a random stranger.