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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.
Who cares if somebody rips off somebody else's cellphone case design?
is supposed to be about rewarding innovators
IP law has been corrupted to reward entrenched economic interests
as such, IP law needs to be ignored and/ or actively sabotaged at every available opportunity
IP law is anticompetitive monopolistic nonsense
it is the largest point of corruption where oligarchs have warped the government to enforce their position rather than enforce fairness
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R...
we must do everything we can to make a mockery of IP law
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
You can make whatever you want, for yourself.
I mean ... I've experienced a few times when a $50 - $200 appliance didn't work anymore because a $0.005 piece of plastic broke.
If the appliance is still under warranty, you can take up the cudgels and have it repaired or replaced. If it's out of warranty, you *might* be able to have it repaired, only to find that repairs typically cost between 50% and 150% of the purchase price.
What could be more reasonable to suspend legal restrictions barring you from 3D-printing that widget (if at all possible)?
As far as I know, it's very very rare that such a widget is of such clever design that you freeload on someone's hard work. What I think is the case (on basis of a thoroughly non-scientific survey, sample-size 6, personal observation) is that any ingenuity in the design is spent in making sure the widget in question can't be second-sourced without infringing on some sort of patent. E.g. by adding a special notch, a special hole, or simply making the dimensions so that the widget is unlike any other on the planet (and any other widgets won't fit).
There can be difference in qualities, and the originals may be collectibles...
I don't think people are seriously worried about someone scanning some priceless marble figurine, printing a copy and selling it for $100,000,000 to some very stupid collector who doesn't notice that it is made rather roughly from plastic.
They're more worried about someone scanning a $20 Popular Cartoon Character(R)(C)(TM) doll and printing a copy for their sprog, without the House of Mouse receiving their rightful tithe under the 2016 "lets keep Mickey copyrighted forever" act.
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
Enhancing the collective wealth of humanity without giving captains of industry their cut will henceforth be known as "fraud"
"I don't know that atheists should be considered citizens, nor should they be considered patriots." George HW Bush
Why would that be piracy?
There are probably fifteen patents on that part.
Think of the patent holders, dude!
This article just goes to show how insanely stupid the whole Imaginary Property industry is. We have to cripple one of the most useful inventions in the history of the world, that has the potential to help raise billions out of poverty, just so a rentier class can make money.
Where do you come up with this silly stuff? Sure, you could 'print' a boat. A 3D printer capable of printing a, say 22 foot sport boat would likely be 15 feet tall, 30 feet long and take spools of material that have to be trucked in. As opposed to a fiberglass layup mold that's 10 feet tall and 25 feet long (and can be built using a bunch of plywood, a pencil and a decent CAD-CAM program). Neither is going to be put together by the folks down the street trying to make a 'cheap' boat.
Nobody is going to print out BMWs carbon fiber chassis for the same reason.
Maybe little stuff, maybe something as complex as a shoe (although not for a while, your typical plastic shoe has dozens of different types of materials in it).
Further, the world of manufacturing is quite a bit more complex than the actual production of the widget. You have to put the widget into a form that is useful (add the engine, the windows, the electronics, etc for the boat, the rest of the car. You cannot and will not be able to print everything.
3D printing for the vast majority of applications will be evolutionary - where it fits, it will be used. But it isn't going to be a revolution in how we obtain stuff.
Unless, of course, your life revolves around Star Wars figurines or anatomically correct models of Bruce Jenner (however that's supposed to work out).
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
ANYthing that reduces costs, enhances productivity, or makes life easier is a "fraud enabler."
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
I have to adapt or pretend the market hasn't changed and sue everyone (while spending even more money on not making my product).
Or you can pay the government to pass a law banning the cheap alternatives because 'public safety!', which is usually much cheaper. This is exactly what's likely to happen with, say, people printing new car parts on a 3D printer. Clearly that's a risk to 'public safety!' because those parts haven't been tested like the real parts. And as for printing complete cars that haven't been crash-tested and may not meet CAFE standards...
Who will fear this the most is companies who charge outrageous prices for cheap plastic parts. I.e. exactly those parts that can easily and cheaply be reproduced with 3D printing. Just like with printer ink and coffee maker capsules there are various areas where cross financing the product with insanely pricey spare parts is the norm rather than the exception. It's easy to pull off, too. Invent something where a plastic part is a key element to operation, that plastic part is consumer serviceable (that part is optional), trivial to make and weighed down with enough patents that nobody dares making something even similar. And of course, being plastic, it's subject to wear and tear and has to be replaced now and then. In such a situation, it becomes trivial to sell the appliance cheaply, even under cost, as long as you know that people will have to buy that plastic thingamajig again and again.
That only works as long as there is no cheaper option for the user, of course.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.